A Country Miscellany by Alice Taylor & 9781847177636

Author:Alice Taylor & 9781847177636 [Alice Taylor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781847177636
Publisher: Brandon
Published: 2023-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

Off the Shelf

SOME PEOPLE LOVE buying a new pair of shoes. They enjoy the thrill of parading around the shop in front of a revealing mirror, flexing their leg muscles. They view their fine boned or thick ankles, whichever is their lot, from front, back and sides. While all these muscular gymnastics are taking place they have eyes only for the smooth new shoes that have transformed broad feet into slick, smooth, ballerina elegance. They never spare a sympathetic glance for the old, shabby, battered companions that have seen them through many a foot-weary day. These old friends are lying disconsolately on the floor, wrinkled from the effort of restraining wayward bunions and aggressive corns. The well-moulded, toe-scuffed companions of yesterday’s walkabouts are cast aside with their tongues hanging out. Their laces like a neglected dog’s stringy tail trail along the floor. As a final indignity they are thrust unceremoniously into the box so recently vacated by their replacements. Lined with white paper it becomes their tissue edged coffin; journey’s end.

Not all shoes however get such a speedy finish off. Some people believe in easing them out gradually. They become house shoes and then maybe gardening shoes and finally painting shoes. As painting shoes they take on a whole new appearance and become a record of their owner’s house colour co-ordination.

There are people who are slow to part with old familiar objects. They throw out nothing but allow everything the continuity of wearing itself out to the end. Yesterday’s overcoat becomes the dog’s blanket and last year’s cardigan the wrap-around for the hot water bottle. They live on the theory that everything will come in handy some day. The fact that if that day ever comes they will not be able to find the required article because it is buried beneath a varied collection with similar potential does not deter them in the least. They have never read a book on Feng Shui and do not adhere to the old Chinese belief that a cluttered house is a cluttered mind. An empty space to them is a challenge to be filled.

In life we are either old shoe or new shoe people, and come the end of the year we turn into old year or new year people. Some of us look back wistfully and remember, while others bang the door firmly on the year gone by without a backward glance and look forward with great expectations. Now we are coming to the end of a century. Many of us may look back and do a bit of stock-taking, trying to analyse what the years have brought us.

Sometimes in life we are so busy doing what we have to that we have no time to figure out what it is we really want to do. In recent years I have finally got around to doing a few things that I had wanted to do for a long time but had always put on the long finger. Or could it be that

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