Slightly Bemused writes:

My blue fluffy slippers have outgrown me. Or at least the left one has.

I was coming down the stairs and it made a bolt for freedom, almost making the hall door before I caught up with it. I thought you were supposed to be eighteen before you got the keys of the kingdom and freedom to roam, but it is not that old yet. And its twin remained firmly on my other foot as I sort of hop skipped down after it.

Before I began my descent, I was looking at the pair and thinking it was time once more to wash them. A nice thing about fluffy slippers is that you can do that, although they may be like recalcitrant infants when young who resist the need to be clean.

When I was growing up the only person I remember having slippers was my Dad. He was a serving officer in the Army, and would come home at weekends, change out of his uniform and shoes, don the pair of slippers and come down from aloft in something more comfortable. I have no idea if he wore slippers during the week when in the barracks, but if he did I am sure they were not fluffy.

And yes, he had a pipe, but there was none of this nonsense of my mother having his pipe and slippers ready for him. I do though remember his sigh as he sat in his chair, pulled out a small knife, and pared off the tobacco from the plug. With a sound like an old steam engine, he would light up with a match in a ritual that eventually left clouds of smoke just above my head. When I later learned about different types of actual clouds, that image always came to my head. He finally gave up smoking when his grandchild named for him put his hand on his knee and said with that unerring gravity of a five year old ‘Grandad, I will miss you when you are dead‘

Having grown up in a place where you put your shoes on in the morning and only took them off at night before bed, tracking in whatever from outside onto the carpet, it was a bit of culture shock to go where everyone took off their shoes at the door. Arriving at a new colleagues house one time, I realised that having a pair of 20-hole Doc Martins did not make for easy or quick entrance. I later changed for more sensible shoes.

A very practical matter, in places where vacuum cleaners were not as ubiquitous as here, avoiding bringing dirt in is a good idea. I am told that it is also better for your foot health, allowing them to breathe. However, allowing your left foot to breathe close to the top of the stairs could have other implications.

But my blue fluffy slippers did finally make it for their bathtime, and will be out sunbathing to relax afterwards.

Slightly Bemused‘s column appears here every Wednesday.

Pic via Slightly