Between blotch and blok

... for children's shoes that don't last out the season. Looby Loo's had a seam going on her boots for a month or so. On Thursday the tag came off one of the zips, so she struggles to undo that boot and can't do it up without help.

My heart sank at this point: it's March, and a cold one at that, but the shops are already filling up with summer stuff. I held out little hope that I'd find winter shoes or boots--ones that are suitable for school and not damaging to growing feet (I know I'm asking the impossible)--in the right size and reasonably acceptable to both older (yup, I've turned into my mother) and younger shopper. So, it's...

...Thumbs up...

... to Clarks who had sufficient shoes that LL had a choice (even with her duck feet). Even more impressively, they had a pair of beautiful suede lace-ups, in a maybe less than practical pink, that LL decided she liked best. So she's finally, in one day, learned to tie laces.

It's also a quiet thumbs up to the store designers and shelf stackers for locating the sale of adult winter boots in such a way that I couldn't fail to find the beautiful, but rather impractically high, lace up boots in a 4 1/2. Adult half sizes, whoopee! And if I keep quiet, and throw away the worn out black chuckas (and wear the blue suede ones instead--obvious jokes will be ignored!), no-one will notice that the boot collection's well over the double figure mark. (Can't do a rainbow... yet.)</p?