Shoes off? I'm off!

The thing about bunions is that, generally, it's possible to hide them from people. It might limit your shoe choices a bit, but I've found I can buy even strappy shoes and sandals and, with careful attention to where straps fall or how wide they are, I can still hide the fact that my feet are fugly. And no, I don't mean that in a 'fashion ugly' way.

So the relatively new phenomenon of insisting that your visitors remove their shoes on entry strikes fear into my heart.

Just last night I went to a house party. Actually, party might be too strong a word, but it was to celebrate a friend's 40th by giving her a suprise get-together, so there was general glamming-up and much drinking of Prosecco.

I decided to go for a glamorous Mummy kind of look (we all know each other because we have children) and wear a simple fitted top with a sequinned skirt, opaques, and some nude strappies*. So far so good.

Except that when I arrived, I was told by another friend "I think it's shoes off."

Instantly, my heart sank. Shoes off? With no warning? That meant I either had to go home and get some slippers or socks to wear, or I had to spend the evening trying to sit on both my feet or tuck them under the sofa.

In the past, I've done that. Literally sat on my feet all night while they went numb,then risked the pins and needles (or 'razy feet' as I have for some reason always called them)at the end of the night as the blood flowed painfully back in.

But that was before the bunions had got so bad that someone even glimpsing my feet wasn't something I wanted to risk.

Luckily, our hostess took it in her stride when I cornered her in the kitchen and explained my dilemma and asked to borrow some socks or slippers.

"Oh just keep them on" she said. So I did, very gratefully.

You see, it's not all about the pain, this surgery. It's also about the vanity.


*Yes, heels. The pain is now so bad it doesn't matter what I wear. The bunions hurt in slippers. Which in a funny way is freeing, because I may as well wear heels, so all my semi-retired shoes are getting a last-minute reprieve before surgery banishes them again for a while.