Maddie’s World
In this week’s column, Maddie Grigg swaps rural Dorset for sunny Corfu . . .
IN Corfu town on the last few days of our holiday, I can’t help but do a bit of window shopping. It’s shoes, in particular, which draw me in. I don’t know why, but I do know that it’s a family trait. My big sister once had a “shoe room” instead of an en-suite bathroom, where all her shoes (some still in boxes) were on display.
Even when she could no longer wear high heels, she’d go into her shoe room just to stroke them.
So when Mr Grigg says he’s popping into the newsagent’s to get a paper, I remember that there’s a shoe shop just across the road.
“I’ll be in there.” I point, having been inside the shop several times before.
It has a small frontage, this shoe shop, but gets much bigger as it turns a corner and opens up inside. I am in shoe heaven when I realise Mr Grigg will be waiting patiently (or not, as the case may be) outside.
“Some lovely shoes in there,” I say.
“You don’t need any more shoes,” he growls.
He’s right, but I justify to myself as the morning goes on that I could do with a pair of shoes that shout out “Look at me!” without the impracticality of a high heel.
Like my sister, I can no longer wear heels, and the onset of arthritis in my right big toe means choosing the correct shoe is essential.
So while Mr Grigg is faffing about looking at vegetables, I sneak back into the shoe shop where the assistant recognises me and swoops like a bird of prey high above a mouse.
“Ah, those are very pretty shoes.” She nods her head as I pick one up. “You will try, I think?”
Trying is not much of a big step from window shopping. I can always say no. But I know I am past the point of no return. I have it in my head that these glittery, gold lace-ups are just what the doctor ordered.
About ten minutes later, Mr Grigg comes back from wherever it is he’s been and finds me sitting down at the front of the shoe shop, surrounded by boxes.
“Which one do you think?” I say, as he suppresses a large sigh.
I’ve already decided which pair I’m going to have, but would like him to reinforce my choice by picking the same ones.
“Whichever ones you like,” he says, clearly not at all interested, as he glazes over in the same way that I do when he and Pelly Sheepwash are discussing different types of lettuce.
“I thought these,” I say, pointing to the glittery, gold lace-ups.
“You’ll have to wear them on the plane otherwise they’ll take up too much room in your case.”
I am already picturing myself in my new shoes at the airport. My feet will be like those of Hermes, the messenger of the gods, but minus the wings.
So I walk up and down the shop again in the new shoes, leaving a stream of glitter in my wake, decide they are comfortable and think, “You only live once”.
We get back to Spiros’s house, where we are staying, and his partner, Natalia, asks us what we have been doing.
“Shopping for shoes,” Mr Grigg says rather too quickly.
“Shoes? I have a new pair you can have. My friend, she give them to me but my feet are too – what you say? Fat?”
And she picks up the most wonderful pair of new, flat, clumpy, Oxford brogues – in gold and white – and I instantly wish I had four feet instead of two.
I devise a plan to put a new shoe in each pocket of my coat on the aeroplane – but which ones to wear on board? Maybe one of each. That will get me noticed. n