Foot fetish farce

Are these shoes beautiful or what?

Eight months on, and the Chinese leather bowling shoes I bought at the beginning of last season are still ponging like a chemical factory. Not only that, but having kept them in a plastic bag between games to inhibit the pong, there are now dark patches on the uppers that looks like mould.

Ambling past the Clarks shop in Huntingdon last week, spotted a rather nice pair of flat soled leisure shoes, all nubuck leather uppers, fine detailing and smart styling. In the sale as well, reduced from £45 to £22.50. Problem was, although they were a nice shade of tan, there was a white band running around the outside of the sole. Bit too bright for the bowling green.

Back home and onto the Internet, Clarks web site had the perfect pair as shown above. In the sale too, reduced from £65 to £32.50. I'll have a pair of those though I... until I realised they didn't have my size. In fact they didn't have any sizes, all sold out!

Bit more searching and bingo! Debenhams are selling the same shoes for £19.50! Can get delivered to their Cambridge store so I can try them on there. Any excuse for a trip to Cambridge. But wait... they do have them in stock, but not my size. Same story with Bells Shoes. In fact no one seems to have the shoes in stock.

So committed to getting a pair of these shoes, so sure they'll give me immense pleasure every time I wear them, rang the local Clarks store to see if they could source a pair from any of their shops. A few calls later and they've located a pair of size tens and are transferring them to Huntingdon for me to try. They're also continuing to see if there's a pair of nine and a halves around.

Have they located the wrong style (there are quite a few variations)?  Might size ten be a bit big (Clarks shoes are made big.)? Waiting for the call to say they've arrived and I can try them on. Watch this space!