Best Foot Forward...

"As for new shoes, dear boy, I wouldn't bother just now if I were you." 


- Thus one's ever humane surgeon opining (many years now ago) how best to proceed all tests completed, all options considered, all the latest bookies' odds taken into account. 


Does that sound all a bit callous, somewhat blasé, rather too nonchalentamente  all together? Dropped out a clear blue - dark thunderous in truth - sky of course yes, it would. The tone, though, of such potentially portentous prognostic discussions is one to be set by as much the patient as the medic in question. If the fellow about to be carved like the finest Christmas turkey has a mind for flippancy in the face of possible extinction, then the appointed carver-in-chief is well advised to follow his lead. 


A certain utterly bearable lightness of being is, indeed, a perfectly reasonable reaction in such circs., trust me. Not exactly an 'easy come, easy go' view of one's own existence, but rather a deep acceptance that to live is, at some moment and from some cause inevitably, to die. That depth is then not necessarily to be borne heavily, but taken in all lightness for being the natural and the supernatural order of the whole ens & esse case, the proper accomplishment of The Four Last And Inexorable Things. 


So, indeed, a consideration that one in all likelihood had sufficient footwear for the rest of the journey was perfectly in order at the time. And oddly enough, it has stuck as almost something of a shibboleth ever since, much else changing not least the length of the path ahead now much advanced from the original proposal.


Cometh though the hour - some twelve years on - cometh the shoe shop. A certain tramp-like look to the boots - not quite soles flapping in the wind with twine holding the piece as one, but not far off - could not forever be ignored. Certainly wasn't by parishioners many and by Parish Council all it seems. Hadn't really noticed, but apparently murmurings were abroad that Rector was turning 'scruffy' - not a good look in rural settings. Scruffy is not plain raiment suited to one's station. Workaday rough-hewn is splendid: the shepherd's best smelly old tweeds dripping with sheep-dip perfectly at home in the Snug Bar. Scruffy, rather, is 'letting oneself go', a lack of private concern and - worse - a tugging at the binding public thread.


Fascinating really on what one is judged. Be he never so holy, be his soul never so pure.... No, wait. The reef of cheap puns is looming. Let us just recall Great Aunt Norbertina's nostrum, who on being introduced to any gentleman took in first his boots and then his gloves. Either failing inspection, the case was lost and the man spurned. (Hats and handbags for the ladies one recalls.)


And thus a long-standing duck has been broken, a drought (apposite contemporary thought) assuaged. After a two-day striving with ill-mannered and inept sales personages, shops shut when they should darn well be open, sizes not in stock and prices beyond any remembering; after all such labour and toil Rector finally has new boots. Huzzah! Just hope I've not broken some potent charm or spell laid back in the days. Hard not to be a tad superstitious. They tell me these fine crafted pieces will last 50 years. Heaven help my dotage if I make it half as far!