Finding my Feet

When I venture outside, as many of you already know, I usually wear these:

For church, glamour and my annual Wild Night Out I exchange them for these:

But for the most part of most days, I am shod in these:

Sunshine, however, throws me. My footwear has to endure the mile walk to school and back. It has to accommodate the fact that my nail varnish remover doesn't work and that the Vicar's stored his razor in an unknown new place, so I can't mow my shins.  And so, when things hot up, I turn to these:

All of the above, except the Hunters, cause my young daughter pain. Especially my vintage M&S Footgloves (above). Because the mothers of other local 9-year-olds express a more proper sense of self in variations on these:

When a batch of family prints arrives from Photobox, I feel the pain too. I look, I realise, like a vicar's wife. Maliciously, the sun decides to shines as I ponder this, and so my boots are no longer feasible. I decide, therefore, to go shopping. My young style advisor comes too, for she doesn't trust me unleashed in a high street on my own. We try wedges and kitten heels, platforms and flipflops. I pace the aisles in canvas and leopard-print, Nike trainers and diamante bling. 

Some of them are unkind to my corns. Others bully my budding bunion. Most of them topple me before I can attempt lift off. At last I seek sanctuary in the shoe shop beloved of my elderly mother. There I find a heaven of rubber-grip heels, sturdy strapping and insoles cavernous enough for my arch supports. And so I brace up to summer in these:

My daughter is disappointed, but placated. I am briefly jubilant. Until, that is, I realise that new sandals unleash a costly train of events. I shall have to invest in new nail varnish to cover the obstinate shreds from the spring heatwave and in transparent plasters to conceal my burst blisters. I shall have to master the science of toe-nail clippers and, since the concealing graces of tights are now impossible, I shall have to buy my own razor. 

Mercifully, as I tot up the cost in money, time and patience, the sun recedes. Next morning we awake to the customary downpour. And I, radiant with relief, tog myself up for the school run: 

How do you preserve glamour when the sun shines?