Shyheels

Yes but proving it would be another matter - virtually impossible and I can’t see a public prosecutor being interested in pursuing a comp,I aged and likely unprovable case … for what?

Thank you! I’m quietly excited. You and @mlroseplant have both been huge helps and great influences

Back to the high heels challenge: I've been continuing to make good progress in my 12cm boots. It's even more fun now to drop down to the 10cm ones, which I can handle - at least in my indoors practice area, with something close to aplomb. With an eye to one day soon trying out my 12cm stilettos my venturing to a cafe, I rather boldly ordered myself a very nice pair of chocolate-brown leather trousers. They were boot cut and so would have obscured the shafts of my boots but they looked smart in the photo so I ordered them. They arrived yesterday, and while I liked them, they were also really baggy in the lower leg, well beyond what I thought boot-cut should be, especially with slender calves like mine. So sadly they'll have to go back

Wood is an excellent shock absorber. It’s why surveyors usually have wooden tripods for their laser surveying gear - it’s not that they can’t or won’t afford carbon fibre but because wood simply dampens vibrations that much better. Photographers, for whom weight is often an issue, waver between carbon fibre and aluminium - wanting the stabilising weight of aluminium, and the easier portability of carbon fibre. But for vibration reduction and stability, neither holds a candle to wood

Yes, go to Rome or any Italian city and you’ll see plenty of elegant high-heeled women zipping about in Vespas

I can tell you absolutely that you don't want to pilot a narrowboat in heels! Certainly not stilettos! You could probably get away with it in chunky heeled boots with 7 to 8 cm heels, but I wouldn't fancy it - not as a single-hander, unless you had someone to work the locks.

I’ve never tried driving in heels although I don’t think I’d find it a problem, except perhaps for worrying about damaging the heels. I can drive a manual easily - I learned in them, drive them all my life and indeed most of the cars here are manual. I can also drive a left or right hand drive vehicle, changing back and forth readily as I used to have to do on a regular basis when I travelled a lot

It’s always best to write what you know

No, the cramping i experienced in my calves is/was directly and unambiguously associated with my not being used to walking in 12cm stilettos. With practice the cramping went away, and pretty quickly.

Me too!

That’s horrific. You mother should have gone to prison. I can’t imagine being so twisted

Buying sneakers is a real rarity for me. I have nearly always worn boots of some sort, except for cycling or going to the gym. Or many years ago when I used to run marathons. I bought the Converse because I liked the pastel colours and so ironically they’ve ended up being like @higherheels Hot Chicks - purchased because they looked fun and ended up being left in the closet because they’re hard to wear!

@mlroseplant and @higherheels - Thank you for your presence and encouragement! I’m really quite chuffed. I really feel quite at ease. To be sure I’m not out striding a high street, on roughened sidewalks, taking curbs and hustling to cross that the lights, but as I walk confidently around indoors I can certainly now imagine doing such a thing and doing it with reasonable grace. i too find this who catwalk routine ridiculous. It looks exaggerated and absurd on the catwalk. In real life it would be comical.

Yes, Keds, like Converse, are flat, offer no support and in my case the thinness of the soles gives no cushioning to the nerves in the balls of my feet. They are much more painful than my leather soled stilettos

I think maybe I'm starting to get somewhere with my practicing, even if it is just indoors. I put on my heels this morning and felt really quite grounded, on solid footing. Its really nice!