We’re going on a shoe hunt. We’re going to find a small pair…

So there’s Kylie Minogue – not much taller than me – draped over Graham Norton’s sofa with her red shoes dangling, and I’m thinking: “where does she buy shoes like that - which fit?” They are not the birkies, lace ups and fit-flops I depend on. No – Kylie is wearing a beautiful stiletto heeled court. And she looks comfortable in it.

I am on a crusade to find pretty shoes that fit me. But with size 35 feet (a UK two according to some brands or a three according to others – though I’ve always called it a two-and-a-half), it is a major challenge. I am no fun for the sales assistants in even high end boutiques like Emma Hope and Joseph (I know, I tried every style they stocked last weekend) – who know it’s not even worth trying to persuade me to buy a shoe that flops loosely off my foot. Though yesterday in Paul Smith, a particularly desperate sales girl tried to sell me the idea of going to the shoemaker across the road for something tailored to make my tiny feet fit into any pretty style I fancied…

Back home I have resorted to hunting online. And – who knew? – I could get a pair of Christian Louboutins, or Jimmy Choos from Net A Porter, which stocks 35s as well as some 34s… My daughters, also blessed with petite feet, have always – I tell people – stuffed tissue into their toes to make their shoes fit. But it turns out that Bella finds size threes that fit from Zara, while Coco buys all her shoes in a two from Asos. Further research has yielded the online store Pretty Small Shoes, selling – well the clue’s in the name – in all sorts of sizes, and mostly around £130.00 (well it’s a lot cheaper than a pretty small Choo).

Kurt Geiger, Bella tells me, also has a bunch of small sizes – and she seems to be right…

Someone needs to tell the lovely Japanese assistant in Agnes B who says she has to shop for shoes on visits to Tokyo. I noticed she was wearing a pair of child like lace ups – and her suggestion that I looked at “junior’ ranges wasn’t very encouraging when I was thinking of a nice pointy pump with a tiny kitten heel…

Don’t tell anyone but I do have some pretty shoes (when you have small feet you tend to buy anything that fits because it’s such a rarity) – and the problem has always been that they may look lovely but they don’t often feel it. I don’t want to wear something that makes me hobble or wobble. But that may have nothing to do with finding the right size.

Lent – I relent… (with consequences)

As I do not have a religious bone in my body, my Lent abstinence was destined to fail. I’d embarked on it with the promise that I would make an exception for my trip to Rome (just a few days into the 40-day booze fast), and possibly also a press trip to muslim Dubai, where I correctly guessed that the parallel world of corporate entertaining would make it impossible – nay rude – to decline the flow of wine; albeit I’m still looking for an excuse for the glass of wine on the flight out and – er – the whiskey from my friend’s mini-bar.

Apart from those detours, not a drop passed my lips – until yesterday, when Steve and I ate lunch at Little Social in Pollen Street where I washed down a langoustine, stone bass, and chocolate moelleux with the house white….

Twenty minutes later, turning into South Molton Street, we were nabbed by a very charming young man who instantly detected my nails aux naturels… And the whiff of alcohol on our breath. He was the young manager of the Sakare skin care shop – and, though I am normally a dab hand at brushing off anyone begging me to “step this way for just a minute”, seconds later we were watching him buff my finger nails to an oily shine with the amazement of a Derren Brown audience.

You may find this genuinely hard to believe – but I had never come across one of these nail buffer blocks that my youngest daughter says are routinely given away free with magazines, the source of the one she has owned for the past four years… I’m sure the salesman found it hard to believe too… My hands were literally putty in his as he showed me how his magic block could restore my nails to full shiny health. And then, the kill: No, they don’t sell these alone – only with our hand and nail kit of cuticle oil, hand cream and let’s not forget the nail file… I have bought nail oils before, which languish unused in my bedside drawer, also home to many jars, tubes and bottles of hand cream. But, as the only people in London (“Londoners really? Born and bred? Honestly? What a change to meet someone who is not a tourist!”) not to have seen a nail buffer on sale for pence in our local Boots, or free on a magazine cover, we parted with £35 – my husband having bargained the salesman down from £40. Back home, despite Bella’s “Oh no, how much did you pay for that?” we have had fun buffing nails and squirting on oil and hand cream. 
The salesman nearly stung us for some Dead Sea salts and cleanser too – very good quality they looked – but Dead Sea salts are Dead Sea salts and, despite the lingering tingle of that lovely Loire wine, I remembered that I have plenty of those already…