Real life | 22 September 2016

Out of the blue, I woke up one morning and my feet didn’t work. I opened my eyes, swung my legs out of the bed, and at the very moment my feet should have begun walking nothing happened and I promptly fell flat on my face.

I asked Dr Google and he was unequivocal. If your fortysomething feet won’t flex in the morning then you are suffering from a condition called plantar fasciitis, inflammation of the soles. There is, naturally, no cure other than to stop using your feet.

However, you can help yourself by wearing trainers. ‘I am going to have to venture into one of those sportswear superstores,’ I think.

According to the builder boyfriend, there are myriad such stores in the wilds of south London and if I haven’t been before then I don’t know what I’m missing. He offers to take me to one — on the weekend, make a day of it.

I tell him that even if we leave aside the issue of whether I shall ever learn to make a day of anything, I cannot wait until the weekend for trainers as my feet are in agony.

So I find myself turning the Volvo into a god-forsaken retail park and limping inside a store the size of an airplane hangar.

First, I see a wall of trainers in every colour. Then I see the word ‘Mens’. Then I see a vast staircase disappearing upwards. And a sign announcing that the women’s trainers are upstairs.

‘Typical!’ I shout. A sales assistant gawps at me. ‘Don’t worry! I’ll climb the stairs. I’m the weaker sex.’ And I throw myself at the steps and batter them with my battered little feet like a demented Nepalese Sherpa.

At the top, huffing, I am regaled by another wall of trainers, but entirely pink.