Had an office day on Thursday, which gives me a chance to wear something nice for the day.
To be fair, even though I spend the majority of my working days in scrubs, potentially the least stylish of work wear you could possibly imagine, I still take the opportunity to look fabulous whenever I can, even if it’s just to impress on patients the idea that I’m worth every cent of the bill I’ll soon be sending them. (I see patients in my street clothes before and after a list at the Private hospital).
I wore a black leather pencil skirt with a white/black/burgundy striped knit top and matching long burgundy boots. It was a gorgeous ensemble in front of the mirror at home but unfortunately in practice was let down by the slap slap slap of my legs against the skirt as I made my way around the hospital at my usual postgraduate walk. (It’s proven that walking slowly increases your mortality, plus, who has time to amble these days?) This means I have to hold my skirt up with one hand when in motion, which hopefully doesn’t look as odd as it sounds. As I made my way back to the office after buying lunch (at 11:30 to beat the inevitable queues, some people have nothing better to do in hospitals than hang around the cafe it seems), someone called out that they loved my boots. This isn’t unusual for me as I’ve noted before but what was atypical about this interaction was that it was a male orderly who had made the comment. We got to chatting in the lift queue (you’d be astounded to know how many people take the lift for just one floor, even without any physical impediments). It turns out he was a shoe maker by trade. He’d initially got into the field in NZ and then gone to Europe for an apprenticeship. Unfortunately, by the time he’d come back home, the shoe business had completely changed. Global free trade meant that the NZ market was swamped with cheap, poorly made foreign brands, and the NZ manufacturers just couldn’t compete. So, disillusioned , he gave up his career and became a hospital orderly. My grandfather was a haberdasher by trade. I must confess, I don’t really know what that is, although I think it’s something to do with women’s clothing? In any event, apparently his watchword was “you have to pay for quality”, and it seems no one is willing to do that these days.
I was pleased my boots had impressed an expert. I have to confess to being a closet shoe-phile. My feet aren’t very attractive unfortunately. I had a friend at high school who spent an entire lunchtime once laughing at my wide, flat feet, an event that has hardly scarred me at all. It’s true she had gorgeous feet but she was also a freckly red head. Enough said. My mantra is that shoes have to be comfortable – there’s nothing worse than some poor unfortunate teetering around awkwardly on vertiginous and obviously painful high heels – but that doesn’t mean they have to be ugly.
I’m reluctant (and in fact unable) to divulge exactly how many pairs of shoes I have but I fear it is in the three figures. Contrast this with Simon, who has one pair of Ecco’s that he loves and wears 95% of the time for every activity – work, relaxing at home, walking for hours across cobblestones in a European city, and even gentle hiking. Good on him, I say, and it certainly makes packing for trips much easier. If I could find one pair of shoes that could serve all of those functions, would I do the same? Sadly I don’t think I would. Luckily for me, Simon has loads of spare room in his suitcase.
