Painting the town red

by Harriet Mann

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Harriet Mann - Arts London News' news editor

It was an emotional thing saying good-bye.

I zipped up a pair of wedges and looked in the mirror. To the side lay my tatty Nike Blazers.

Now, I’m not a heel wearer and rarely a shoe wearer, so when the opportunity came to dress up and hit a Central London club I was hit by both fear and excitement.

I don’t wear heels simply because I can’t walk in them. After two minutes of trying heels on in a shop my feet ache and I return to my trainers smug with the fact that if I fall over its because of an uneven road, not because I try to show off my elongated legs while flat on a pavement.

Blame the mother

I actually blame my mum for my inability to walk in heels as she always bought me the embarrassing Clark’s shoes rather than the high pair that my best friend had from Barratts.

On that fateful night, I just about managed to walk to the bus stop, though I was moving more like I was doing the hop, skip and jump before long jump on repeat than walking in a pair of heels.

For once, I got to the pub and I didn’t have shooting pains along the arches of my feet. By the time we left to move to the main event- because a night at Wetherspoons is not a night out no matter what the local Spoons residents tell you- I was I agony. I had been sitting the whole time.

Failure

In the end we didn’t get to go to the Central London night, which I had actually been dreading more and more as my feet rendered me incapable of talking about anything other than my feet.

It was decided that we should take the scenic route through Soho to get to the bus stop to go home. That was where it started to go wrong - [begin pathetic fallacy] as the sky blackened with thunderous clouds and the wind whistling in the cold sounded like ghosts awakening from a nightmare.

The walk back started off fine, but as one wobble after the other regressed me to a Bambi state it was only a matter of time until I was flat on my face. All I can say is that at least by walking through the back streets of Soho, no one was to look and laugh. I will also admit that my war wound graze kept me amused for a while; probably too long.