Of Shoes and Ships and Sealing-wax

What a beastly day. It started off just misty, and then got colder and colder and wetter and wetter and windier and windier until it was blowing the best part of a storm. And then I had to go out in it.

I was sitting in front of a warm fire, feeling comfortably full of roast dinner, when I remembered that I had been invited to a colleague's seventieth birthday party that afternoon; and so I had very reluctantly to get up and go off to the jollifications instead of staying in and reading a nice book. Which tells you something about my relative priorities where entertainment is concerned! I managed to get lost on the way, too (due to holding my umbrella so low against the gusts that I missed the relevant signpost) and arrived with wet feet, a chilled nose and a considerable sense of annoyance.

Still, it wasn't so bad. The gentlemen stood in one corner and discussed (or, as the ladies like to say, pontificated about) computers, cars, cryptology and canal-boats, while their other halves got on with whatever it is that they do in groups; and to my relief I found that I had come late enough to miss the speeches. (I had also missed the food, but due to the aforesaid roast dinner I wasn't exactly worried about that...)

And then all the way home again to the embers of a fire, Maria Callas on the record-player (Rigoletto) and the chance to get something useful done; namely finishing off the stitching of a pair of shoes.

No, I'm not a cobbler, unfortunately. I make up shoe kits; I've done quite a few over the years, not always for myself. In fact, mostly not for myself, since I haven't had a new pair of Simple Way shoes for a long time.