My Underwear is not good enough.

I have been in London a few times in the last fortnight and I have come to one inescapable conclusion. My underwear simply isn't good enough.

Let's get something straight here. It's not as if everyone was strolling around wearing nothing BUT underwear, but they all looked so well turned out, so co-ordinated and fashionable and in vogue, that they quite obviously were wearing beautiful underwear. Most likely the sort where pants and bra actually matched and were made of intricate lace hand stitched by elves, bred for the purpose.

All of a sudden my cotton knickers and tired bra, which only match because I accidentally dyed them all in the wash, felt horribly tired. I am a useless female and it is no wonder that I am single. It is beside the point that I can't remember when anyone last saw me in my underwear but perhaps they can tell just by looking at me that I am a failure on the lingerie front?

The thing about it is that I balk at the cost of lovely underwear. A decent bra and knicker set costs the same as the bathroom taps. I need the taps more. My priorities are obviously all quite wrong. If I had good underwear, I would have a lover who would then urge me to let him pay for the taps. I see now that good underwear would have been an investment that would have paid for all other things. Why did my mother never tell me this? Why did I have to wait until I was 36 for this vital piece of information to reveal itself to me in the middle of Kensington High Street?

The problem is now too big to solve though. My bank account is under severe strain at the moment and paying for new underwear was going to be an impossibility. I mended my shoes with duct tape the other day rather than buy more. You see the problem.

Something had to be done though and my solution was pathetic in the extreme. I bought underwear in the supermarket. It wasn't plain white or plain black which is my normal approach. There are small patterns that nobody but me will get to see and bows on the front in delicate red ribbon. This is harlot underwear in my world. I even bought a new bra which had lace on it. The extravagance is shocking, I know.

Cos your feets too big...

There's a fabulous song by Fats Waller called 'Cos your feets too big'. When we were little we used to run around the lawn screaming the words out and laughing hysterically. Little did I know how prophetic this would be.

You see, I'm tall. Just under six foot and I have correspondingly large feet. Size 9 to be exact. This is useful if you want to go water skiing and don't have any skis but downright hideous if you worship at the altar of beautiful shoes, or for that matter just want everyday shoes.

I could take vanity out of the issue and persuade myself that shoes are just for protecting your feet and stopping you getting cold toes but I am fooling myself. Shoes say something about you. About the woman you want to be, the mood you are in. Killer heels for vamp days, pretty strappy things for days when you want to pretend you are a feminine and enchanting mille feuille of a girl. Knee high boots for Saturdays spent strolling through Borough Market, ballet slippers for supper with friends. The list goes on.

Fairytales are filled with women whose feet predetermine their destiny. There is the Devil wears Prada, when Anne Hathaway's transformation from student shabbiness to New York uber cool is marked by the day she is given new and ravishing designer shoes. Cinderella's life revolves around her tiny feet with their double glazed slippers, The Little Mermaid's story revolves around her tiny white feet being stabbed by red hot knives in order to get the Prince (no happiness without pain in the feet seems to be the moral). I could go on.

It seems that my feet are never going to lead me down the fairytale ending. Quite aside from the fact that the killer heels add so much to my height that I have to have an oxygen tank to cope with the thin air, they make me far too tall for men to want to talk to me and too tall to hear what my more vertically challenged friends are saying. It's irrelevant anyway because the shoe shops just won't stock shoes in my size.

Somebody out there has decided that girls with big feet don't deserve pretty shoes, or necessarily want them. Apparently we are so ashamed of our monstrously sized feet that we wish to hide them in remedial style shoes in various shades of dog pooh.

I walk past shoe shops and peer through the windows like The Little Matchgirl, gazing at what I can never have. Occasionally I brave the doors and go in and ask longingly what size the shoes go up to. Invariably the assistant says 'size 8' and when I say that won't do as I am a size 9 they look faintly horrified at the thought of feet that big and their sigh of relief as I leave their emporium of beauty sends me on my way. Often I boil with rage when they crush my hopes. Why is this avenue of loveliness shut to me? 'It's not fair' I sob in my head.

Now that shoes have become so affordable everyone seems to have the loveliest of shoes. I find that I buy shoes just because they fit me, even if I hate them. Anything to fulfill the craving for shoes. If I were a millionaire I would have shoes made for me. Sparkly shoes, strappy shoes, shoes in every colour (Ok, not yellow or peach but every other colour). It would be heaven.

I know that there are websites out there now that do shoes for bigger feet but the choice is limited and often the only lovely ones are too narrow and often the more mundane shoes are only just a size 9, making them wildly uncomfortable. I once found the most beautiful pair of shoes and ordered them. They arrived and were a thing of such beauty that I scarcely dared lift them from their nest of crisp tissue paper. It was a soul destroying moment when I tried to put them on and discovered that they were never ever going to fit. They were sent back in a tear stained box.

The reason for this blog is that the dull, dull, dull pair of brown shoes that I wear everyday are wearing out and I must face the prospect of a search for a replacement pair of everyday shoes. I am off to London tomorrow, the mecca of footwear. The only thing I can guarantee is that I will want to cry during the search and will end up buying ugly shoes just because they fit. It's cos my feets too big.

Snow, snow, snow

I'm having a rubbish 24 hours. Made it back from London yesterday and got my car stuck on my drive in the snow. I can officially tell you that there is nothing worse than feeling your car slide back down a hill with you in it, no ability to steer and no brakes! I finally ground to a halt and wedged the car into place with large rocks, having fallen spectacularly on my rear carrying said rocks into place. I then walked home the last quarter mile with my luggage and the loyal hound frisking around as if it was his birthday.

With some help from neighbours I got my car out of the ditch this morning and up the hill but I can't get it back off the hill so am stuck with walking on and off the mountain and borrowing other people's cars if I want to get anything done. Grrrr. I have spent the last hour walking to the nearest grit bin and filling my trusty wheelbarrow with grit to try and salt the road to the house in the hope that by tomorrow it will have melted a path for me to extract me and my car on. Unfortunately I just looked at tonight's forecast and it said more snow and temperatures of -6 so I may have to do the whole thing again tomorrow.

What is so ridiculous is that the snow in the valley has all melted. There is nothing more frustrating than having a view of green fields and being snowed in. It makes you feel like a completely inept GIRL!!!!!

Today, I really am Single and Surviving - Just.