Lusty Beggars

That Belfast weekend two years ago was a memorable experience for so many reasons, not forgetting the beautiful wedding at Lusty Beg Island. The weather behaved like a perfect gentleman; wonderful with a hint of stroppiness in the form of raindrops just as the bride and groom kissed. The number that fell could probably be counted on one hand but it did make me want to shout ‘it’s spitting, it’s spitting, everybody in’ at an inopportune moment. I managed to calm my inner comic and avoided spoiling the big day.

In fact, narrowly avoiding spoiling the big day seemed to be a theme for the wedding, the groom had forgotten the edit of the ‘first dance’; cue a number of people frantically downloading the track from iTunes on their iPhones. It was sorted, but with a short break in proceedings. Then of course there was the obligatory domestic amongst the wedding guests, which fortunately only became evident the morning after when we had to ferry a guest member back to Belfast because his ‘missis’ had left him stranded on the island. He didn’t seem to mind much and ensured he had a number of bottles of beer for the journey back to Belfast, just to ‘take the edge off the journey you understand’.

I also seem to remember ‘breaking’ the father of the groom after having him bust out some moves with me on the dance floor. It really was a great wedding and the black suede Manolos spent most of the day on my feet; I say most of the day as they did have to sit out some of the dancing, apparently they were a little tired and they knew that I was having the first pinch of the neuroma. Bless them, for being so understanding; they didn’t sit in the corner though, after all no one puts baby in the corner.

Like most of my heeled shoes these Manolos haven’t seen the outside of my wardrobe in at least a year and when I checked them out earlier today, in order to take the photo I noticed that sadly they’re a tad more battered than I thought they were, guess I’ll have to keep them after all…

Slip sliding away

It always happens, it’s actually the fundamental cornerstone of Sods Law; when you start to come down with a cold you only actually have three tissues left, and it’s at that point you have to ask yourself the ultimate question, toilet roll or kitchen roll? That Ladies and Gentlemen is my dilemma this evening, that and I couldn’t decide which shoes to talk about next so I plumped to go through the camera roll on my iPhone and use the next pair after the YSL numbers. It was a decision by default, like most peoples lives.

So here they are, one of the few times I’ve hopped on the “fashion shoe bus”. What can I say? These, or let’s be fair, something like these, looked great on SJP*. Remember that summer a few years back when the ‘cage shoe’ was all the rage, when petite ladies chose to make themselves look even stumpier? Yep, I bought a ticket for that bus ride. Perhaps if I’d had the balls to wear shorter, tighter skirts then they may have looked better on me. But there again, if I’d had balls we wouldn’t have wanted the skirt to be too short now would we?

Amazingly enough for an online purchase these are pretty comfortable shoes, obviously the burning, screaming neuroma agony aside. I remember the first time I wore these; it was the night I’d travelled to Belfast for a wedding that was taking place two days later, a couple of hours drive away from Belfast on Lusty Beg Island…..yes that really was the name of the wedding venue, I kid ye not, check it out http://www.lustybegisland.com/

So the evening before the drive out to the venue we went to a friend’s club night in Belfast, a cracking place called Mono (www.monobelfast.com) and I wore the SJP Cage shoes. Big mistake. Huge. Cataclysmic. Monumental.

It appears that the floor of this place had a special reaction to the soles of said shoes and I spent much of the evening like bambi on ice. Dancing was an altogether fresh and unique experience whilst holding on to a handrail around the dj booth. It was a classy look I’d got going on I can tell you, thankfully I wasn’t on the pull as all I’d have gone home with that night was a dude on a zimmer. A trip to the toilet reminded me of the slalom on Ski Sunday as there was a slight slope down from the dancefloor…..I clearly didn’t drink enough to remember things in quite so much detail, but thankfully this did mean that a trip to Belfast’s A&E wasn’t on the cards and I do have a habit of going ‘arse over tit’ in nightclubs. There was the time at Renaissance in Nottingham when I fractured my elbow and then there were the cracked ribs in Cardiff but they’re different stories.

Yes, the shoes were testing me that evening. I wanted to be cool and as all the marketing companies desperate to peddle their grotty wares to us these days would say, ‘bang on trend’. But I didn’t quite make it thanks to the slippery little buggers and their insistence that I spend the entire evening looking like a contestant on ‘It’s a Knockout’.

The second and last time I wore them was an altogether incredibly dull event compared to the first time. I stayed upright, didn’t look like I was doing any kind of winter sports and took them off at the end of the night thinking to myself, ‘they’re a tad high if I’m going to do the Great North Run this year…..’
And they were. Because I did, in just over 2 hours.

*Sarah Jessica Parker – The clotheshorse from SATC**
**Sex and the City