‘Unfortunately, this weekend has called for real shoes’

Coming out of lockdown, again... and Trudy is not ready to dress properly... again. Asics, according to her mother, are the sign of someone who has given up. By Christine Manby

(Tom Ford)

Why is coming out of lockdown so much harder than going into it? There is nothing I want more than a return to normal life, yet so many aspects of normality seem insurmountably daunting. Take shoes, for example.

I was never the kind of woman who lived in heels but I could rise to the occasion when I needed to, changing into a pair in the back of a taxi on my way to an important meeting. People did notice, I was sure. Especially if they saw me try to walk without holding on to a wall. Now the thought of wearing heels again feels a bit like how wearing a whalebone corset must have felt to a woman in the 1920s. But it’s not just heels, it is any shoes that aren’t trainers.

Unfortunately, this weekend has called for real shoes. Yesterday, I coaxed my car, all covered in moss, down the A40 to visit the family for an Easter lunch. I could not go in my Asics. Trainers worn when not actually training are, to my mother’s mind, evidence that someone has “given up”. Since I was already expecting a lecture about my lack of dating success in the light of my refusal to go after James Hewitt on Tinder – “Trudy, you’re just too picky” – I needed to head her off at the pass. I had no doubt that my sister-in-law Helena would be dressed in new season Boden and espadrilles with ribbons to highlight her dainty ankles . Is there such a thing as “new season Boden”? It looks exactly the same from year to year to me.

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Helena was dressed in new season Boden: that dress in a jolly jungle print that the style writers are all claiming will look just as good in Cornwall as the Caribbean. I suppose it would work for Padstow if you matched the colour of your cagoule and wellies to the parrots on the dirndl. Personally, if I were going to holiday in Cornwall this year, I would take a pitchfork-proof vest in case I encountered a Telegraph columnist intent on protecting their piece of emmet-free heaven.

I was nervous, driving down to my brother’s. I haven’t seen any of them since last summer. Would they have changed? Had I changed? I needn’t have worried. Within five minutes, it was as though I had never been away. Having given me an emotional hug through a plastic ground sheet into which my brother had cut arm holes, my mother was swiftly back to critiquing my appearance, including the shoes – the ballet flats I had thought would be manageable – that were cutting my poor feet to shreds. I felt like the Little Mermaid having swapped her tail for toes. Meanwhile, my brother was soon busy on his phone again, as were my nieces, and my sister-in-law was showering me with the usual faux empathy – “It’s so difficult to dye one’s hair at home” – from beneath her illegal highlights.

Thank goodness the law doesn’t yet allow overnight stays, so I could justifiably leave shortly after lunch. Besides, Mum was starting to look hypothermic, sitting out beneath the awning my brother had rigged up for our newly legal outdoor gathering. We all were. What happened to the heat wave? It’s hard to eat a roast lunch with mittens on and I could tell that Helena was not happy with her Boden dress / North Face puffa combo. That grey puffa did not complement the parrots at all.

This afternoon, my boss Bella has invited the whole team to a drinks party in her garden. She’s well-prepared, having bought a pergola and one of those heaters, which melts holes in the atmosphere, at the beginning of last year’s great unlocking. I thought it would be nice to see my colleagues in person (still socially distanced, of course) but it did again require a real outfit and shoes without Velcro. My tender feet winced at the thought.

I decided on the least worst option: well-worn faux snakeskin loafers with some jolly neon piping. They were in the cupboard under the stairs in the big box of shoes that had been destined for storage at the start of the great adventure I never had. I dragged the box out, quite looking forward to the treasures I would find inside. Would I discover, as the minimalist bloggers claim, that if you put half your clothes and shoes away for a few months, when you drag them out again it’s almost as good as having been shopping?

Reader, that was not my experience. Opening that box of shoes was like the moment they open the Ark at the end of the first Indiana Jones movie. Horrors came out of that cardboard. I suppose I should be grateful that they didn’t fly out into my face, but the sight of a small family of mice gazing up at me from inside one of my furloughed Acne boots was enough. I dropped the box. Shoes, boots and mice all scattered. When I’d finished hyperventilating, I picked up one of the loafers that might have looked so good with the outfit I had planned. It had been chewed. As for the outfit I planned... of course it no longer fits me.

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I will be going to Bella’s “drinks thing” in my trainers and laying off the canapes. I’m taking the crutch I used when I broke my metatarsal a couple of years ago so that no one can question my choice of footwear or my outfit. It would look weird to wear a dress with trainers, wouldn’t it? No matter what the Instagrammers say, that look only ever worked on Alexa Chung.

And when I get back home, I will start researching cruelty-free mouse removal solutions. I’m sorry, Minky, but your mates have made a nest in my second favourite boots. This is war.