ODE TO A GOLDEN FLIP-FLOP

For reasons that need not detain us here I only possess one pair of Kurt Geiger shoes and I wouldn’t possess those if they hadn’t come free with a magazine. For I am something of a Cinderella when it comes to shoes, or indeed other clothes too; if they’re not M & S, then something tell me that I’m getting ideas above my station.

Still back to Kurt Geiger. They are, these shoes that I possess, the most beautiful pair of golden flip-flops that you could ever wish for, with a degree of dainty-ness and magic that I imagine no other species of flip-flop could ever possibly possess. Indeed, the very name ‘flip-flop’ is a misnomer. This footwear is as about as far from the coarse plastic and rubber confection of the beach and sandpit as it is possible to travel. Indeed, they are a long way superior to other flip-flops on which Kurt Geiger’s initials mysteriously appeared when they became rapid substitutes for my golden ones, in the next consignment of the magazine firm’s largesse

It was as if these golden shoes were the genuine article made by master craftsmen - not flip-flops at all - but sandals worn by the Greek goddesses who partied and bickered on Mount Olympus. If Helen, perhaps, the goddess of beauty, or Athene, the mistress of the arts and crafts, had one day sat down to design proper footwear in which to wander through the celestial olive groves, or to launch a thousand ships, these would have been they.

Indeed they were probably worn, I said to myself, by Europa herself when she was abducted by the bull and carried over the sea to Crete. In paintings of the scene, you will note, the bull is always shown looking at Europa’s feet.

Alas, it is only when you lose something that you realise its true value. I have worn these sandals as slippers everyday since I proudly brought them home, the free gift for once of inestimably more value than the magazine. Since then I have wondered at their comfort, and their slimness and the exactness of their fit, how not an iota of material is wasted. How they are constructed so magically as to enable you to glide effortlessly and elegantly across even a hard floor in perfect silence. I have loved their golden colour, twinkling at me in the morning light and imagined we should never be parted.

So you can imagine my chagrin when stumbling down the stairs one dark morning last week I slipped and something seemed to snap and suddenly my flip (and my exuberance with it) flopped. Oh dear! The right thong had snapped, close to the sole, in a place where mending seemed out of the question. I was heart-broken.

I tried the staple gun, but I couldn’t get staples to purchase on the narrow end. Besides crude metal staples in the middle of the ultra-fine stitches of the golden thong seemed cultural barbarism of the worst sort. So I put them sadly aside but that evening I went in search of needle and thread.

Now let it be known that I don’t ‘do’ sewing. At least not since I astounded everyone - myself included - by coming top in needlework at Appleford Vilage School at the age of 7. After reaching that dignified career peak I knew that to do more would be to tempt fate most sorely and I have therefore sensibly desisted all attempts by needles of whatever length to lure me into further action. In vain did my Great Aunt try to make me knit. Only when fate leaves me no option, as when a button goes ‘zing,’ do I reach for what Great Aunt would have called my ‘huzif.’

The great goddess Athene was calling - and of course my feet were cold - and I had lost my shoes which combination might have moved Mount Olympus itself. With determination I threaded a fine needle and began to sew, as delicately as I could, searching for little edges on which I thought the cotton might hold. In and out, in and out.

And hold it did. With the same astonishment that greeted my seven year old needlework success, I found that I had repaired Athene’s sandal and, what’s more it took my weight when I flip-flopped up and down the stairs. Not only that but you can’t, unless you look very hard indeed, even see the repair.

If there is joy in the sinner that repenteth, the prodigal son that returns, in something lost being found, there is as least as much delight in feeling again the comfort and beauty of shoes that were broken but which are now repaired. Vivat Athene. Vivat Kurt Geiger. Vivat the Golden Shoes.