Another year over

My favourite time of the year is not Christmas, or my birthday, or the day I got my bonus. My favourite times of the year are winter afternoons and summer mornings. Growing up in a house situated on the western side of a mountain, we never get to see the winter sunshine until late morning or noon and we would try to catch as much sun as we could, sitting on the verandah or going up to the terrace. Then living in a hot city for more than a decade where the summer is brutal and everything burns, you learn to appreciate that little window of coolness the mornings offer. You toss and turn the whole night, sweating in your sleep, and in the morning you jump up and take a refreshing shower.. ahh that is one of life’s little pleasures.

The year is almost over, and I realised I haven’t written my customary I-hate-winter-because-it’s-cold post. Don’t worry darlings, I am not going to bore you this year.

Shoes! Tell me, which woman doesn’t love shoes? We of the XX-chromosomed are all Imelda Marcos-es in our own way. You know, if I was the wife of a corrupt country leader with millions to spend I might do the same thing. I don’t blame her at all for buying shoes, how she gets the money is another story which is not relevant right now.

I used to buy lots of shoes, wear them once and then keep them in the box until they go out of fashion or until I give them away. And everyday I would step out in my boring black flats. My mother would go tsk-tsk when everytime I go home I go out and buy shoes. This summer I bought a beautiful pair of high heels, and my mother said to my sis-in-law “If you wait a bit, she will give you this pair”, and her words came true because a few days back I sent the shoes to my sis-in-law. I didn’t wear them at all.

For Christmas this year I am reinventing an old pair of shoes. I bought them four years ago, and the last time I wore them was in September 2007. I loved the animal print design, but as it grew old it started peeling off. So I completely removed it, and painted it red with a fabric colour.

See the white patches on the right pair? That's because I painted it white first, then decided to go Christmassy and switched to red. Hopefully it will not show when I wear it on Christmas. Then maybe I will switch to black, or green, or whatever the colour of the moment is. Forgive me for not being glamorous.