Imelda Marcos in training?

Today has been quite a relaxing day. A quick trip to the market to stock up on eggs and get a little bit of meat for me and Spadger, a time to spend her Christmas money for Spadgersdottier. This means shoes. I have never known a child like it. Not toys or sweets or anything like that. She wants shoes. Whenever there is anything to be spent it goes on shoes. This leads me onto a little rant.

What on earth happened to kids shoes?!?!?

There are no sensible kids shoes anymore for little girls. With the advent of "must have it now and cheaper" culture has come discount shoe shops full of adults shoes for kids. Little strappy things with heels, thin soles and no support whatsoever. We had been given £10 by her mum to get some school shoes for her but we quickly discovered that this was never going to cover what we thought were suitable shoes. So off to Clarkes we went for a proper fitting. £34 later we had a pair of shoes that fit in width and had growing room without slipping off. I for one certainly felt better.

The whole shoes fitting thing was a part of my childhood. When did it stop? It seems that cheap is the way forward regardless of quality. In the last year Spadgersdottier can remember having 4 pairs of school shoes so far that total nearly the same cost as the pair we just got her. She has had so many because they have fallen apart not through growing out of them. You can't give hand me down shoes any more as your child's toes don't get chance to get to the end of the shoe before they've grown out of them!

Ok so I think that is my rant over, thanks for listening. For being such good sports and putting up with my grumpy shoe issues I shall reward you with the pics I took on the way to Helmsley. Aren't they pretty?