Pain.

Ow. Ow ow. Ow.

I was prepared for many things when I started on my most recent try-to-return-to-some-semblance-of-fitness kick due to the fact that for the first time in my adult life, rather than walking everywhere, for the last 18 months, I've been stuck in car. Lack of stamina. Embarrassing lack of flexibility. My hand-eye coordination to have deteriorated so badly* that I shouldn't exercise around other people for the first bit, just in case I had a terminal case of the Malco**, and therefore no one's life was at risk but my own***.

I wasn't prepared, or perhaps, I just hadn't considered, what it would have done to my feet.

My feet have always been tough as nails, mainly because I'm happiest when I'm barefoot. When I was a kid, I used to spend almost the entirety of my summer holidays without shoes, simply because I could, and the resultant toughness meant I could, and would, wander across gravel and pebbles and everything else that had other people doing this 'this hurts!' dance without any kind of protection on them. I think the only time I wore them, actually, was when I was in the water, because you can never tell when some pillock has lobbed in a broken bottle to lurk on the riverbed.

Therefore it was with some surprise while wondering around town yesterday that I looked down at my feet and realised they were hurting. I'm used to other things complaining - my ankles and I have a life long feud - but not my feet.

Of course, it was only then that I realised that maybe, just maybe, going for a walk in hot weather in ill fitting ballet pumps might not have been the smartest idea. And that if they started hurting while you were at one end of town, your car at the other, and you had no money on you for a bus or some other thing that will remove the need for walking, you might be in for a bit of discomfort.

So, I'm now sporting some quite impressive blisters. In multiple locations. One on my small toe actually looks, honest to god, like I've put a cigarette out on myself. They're also quite painful.

Oh well - one more thing to work on and toughen up, I guess?


* - It wasn't brilliant to start off with. Remember, the whole 'brained myself with my own tennis racket while attempting an overhand serve' incident took place when I was at what I consider to be my most active and coordinated.
** - My family nick name used to be Bright Eyes. Now it's Malco - short for malcoordinated. I love how as we grow, we actually seem to get more abusive towards one another. Truthfully though, I don't have a whole lot of room to argue.
*** - And I'm currently considering attending a sword and weaponry seminar in a field in Wales. Dear dantarian and xanthipe: Be afraid. Be very afraid.****
**** - Mwahahah, footnotes! This is all.