Keeping a diary is supposed to be a cathartic thing so I'm not going to avoid uncomfortable or difficult issues. But it's going to come with a warning as Annie can no longer listen to me even start to talk of my feet. She puts her fingers in her ears and goes 'la la la' as soon as any mention of flaky bits, weeping, or 'in chunks' occurs. So BE WARNED! You don't have to read this.
This article is not for those that hate talk of feet, and will also not be enjoyed by those who abhor cruelty to feet.
So here is the next instalment of the increasingly off-topic blog about my trip to New Zealand.
One of the things you'll first notice about New Zealand is that shoes are optional. Even in the cities it is perfectly normal to see people wandering around barefoot. They are not homeless, nor mad. They can get away with this behaviour largely in part due to the comparatively low amount of broken glass littering the streets. Now I'm not this hardcore, my soft feet wouldn't last two minutes of mild pedestrian activity but I like to immerse myself in local cultures so I invested in the next best thing, a pair of Jandals. That's flip-flops to us Brits. Now when I say invested, I mean I spent £2 on a pair from a large cardboard box of assorted jandals in a dairy.
Now its important to note what happens when you spend such a small amount on footwear. You trip over. A lot. The flimsy pieces of polystyrene held between your first two toes twists and slips like a broken yet painless ankle and meanwhile the skin on my feet dries out in the sunshine. Then follows the rain. I am faced with a walk up a muddy track to see a volcano. My jandals are clearly the wrong end of appropriate gear for the expedition, and it has now been days since I was aware of where any of my socks were. My crunchy dermed feet are exposed to a sweaty sockless trainer hike that leaves the shoes smelling so bad that even wrapped in a plastic bag at the bottom of all our luggage they still leave the car reeking.
In steps 'Grandma's Remedy'. A magical powder that will cure the stink of feet. Twenty dollars for a pack of baking soda actually, but I can see the principle that drying my feet out a lot could allow us to get back in the car, so I give it a go. Just in time to get to the South Island and its population of sand flies. I don't hate sand flies like a lot of people do. Sure they've bitten my feet a lot but I'm trying to see the positive side, the incalculable joy I get from scratching the many, many bites on my now ghostly white powdered feet. But my feet have been so successfully dried that the heels are now cracking.
Half inch long canyons are now present on the back of both my feet and all I do is add further sand to them on a daily basis. So further medication is required and another twenty dollars leaves. This time for some of Australia's leading Heel Balm. Containing, you've guessed it cos you're so far ahead of me, yes that's right, 25% Urea. Not just any urea, but chemically synthesised. Although it didn't actually specify that it wasn't chemically synthesised inside a goat.
That said, its an absolute miracle and a few days of wiping this stuff on my heels has brought them back from the brink of completely crumbling. I no longer care who or what chemically synthesised the stuff, I would gratefully buy them a drink. Or few sugar cubes or bale of hay or whatever they happen to enjoy.
Next week I'll tell all about the fantastic Mussel Chowder I enjoyed. And then didn't enjoy three hours later.
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