I was out walking in the countryside the other day taking some exercise and breathing the fresh air. It was a little cold and it was spitting slightly. That light drizzle which you get sometimes in Britain and it goes on for ages creating damp, wet and gray everywhere.
I kept walking down the country lane towards a village a few miles away, looking forward to a sit down in a pub with a pint of Guinness. Might as well wet the inside as well as the outside; I thought.
Anyway, as I walked on I noticed that I had a hole in my shoe; and it was letting in water. My left foot started to get cold and damp.
I stopped at a bus shelter which you sometimes find in the countryside and took my shoe off. I had miles still ahead of me; so I decided to make another hole in my shoe with my pen so that the water that came in from the existing hole could go out of the new one.
In the countryside buses come round every ten years or there about, so I had a long wait and time to kill. I sat there ruminating about everything in general and shoes in particular.
Do you realize that shoes are the most important invention in humanity?
Without shoes the human race would not have got very far. They would have stumbled their toes against a rock or stepped on sharp objects and got no further.
Armies of soldiers over the centuries would not have gone further than their barracks. The Romans would not have conquered anything and their politicians would have spent their time washing their feet from animal deposits left in the streets instead of telling everyone what to do.
It is fair to say that without shoes humanity would not have progressed at all.
Shoes are the most important item of clothing ever invented. One can be totally naked but without shoes one would go nowhere and be there for all to see.
My thoughts, for some reason, turned to nudist camps. You know the ones? Places where people go to air their differences.
I don’t know why people go to such places; but many do. Even on very cold days, I understand!
I wonder if nudists wear socks with their shoes! I mean … how can they possibly play tennis in bare feet?
And if they play cricket or baseball, do they wear gloves, helmets and those thick leg pads? Or hats and sunglasses when it is sunny?
At what point does a nudist cease to be a nudist, I wonder?
Is a person wearing a hat, sunglasses, gloves, leg pads, socks and shoes - and nothing else - still a nudist?
My reverie was interrupted by the bus coming down the hill. I got on and dreamed of a cool Guinness waiting for me!
