Tuesday 12 January 2021

Slipper sloth

As you can see I have remembered what my stunningly relevant blog post last week was going to be about. Slippers. This is peak Wanstead frankly. Or peak middle age. Probably both. So here's the question: With another six weeks of lockdown ahead of us during which we are largely confined to our homes, will people mostly be wearing slippers or will they be making a bit of an effort and wearing proper shoes? Note that I am assuming people actually make the effort to get dressed, rather than slumming it in their pyjamas and dressing gowns all day. If you are one of these people then please pull yourself together, it is no way to live.

I have been wearing shoes quite a bit, even if I don't step outside. I like shoes, as I have perhaps mentioned before, and I also think that in some ways you're not fully dressed unless you have shoes on. I have no qualms at all about wearing shoes indoors. For some though the mere thought of shoes on carpets and interior flooring is just a complete no no. Back in the distant days when we used to leave our houses and visit other people in theirs, how many asked that you take your shoes off before you came in? Quite a few I'd wager.

We are not that fussy, but nonetheless Mrs L thinks it is odd that I wear shoes inside on days where I am very unlikely to go outside. She wears slippers and would not even contemplate shoes as part of the working from home wardrobe. She probably won't even look at her shoes for the whole of this period, the exception being her walking boots for short bouts of 'essential exercise'. I just don't know about that. For starters when shoes do become necessary again it may feel rather strange putting them on. During one of the earlier lockdowns I think I went for about a week wearing only slippers and when I then tried to put shoes on they felt peculiar and somehow restrictive.

I own a lovely pair of wool slippers that during the night sit by the side of my bed with some laundry fresheners in them lest they get a bit pongy. When I swung my legs out it was almost instinctive that the first thing I did was to reach for my slippers. As I picked them up the question formed in my mind as to whether or not I would be wearing shoes later on that day or not, and whether this new lockdown meant I might not wear shoes for weeks and weeks. One of the last things I remembered to grab back in March 2020 when I left my office in Canary Wharf for the last time were my two pairs of black formal shoes that I wore on rotation. They have not been touched since, it is such a waste, and I just don't want my brown shoes to sit and gather dust in the same way.


Is wearing shoes a sign that you are serious and not slovenly? If you're working from home does getting fully dressed for work, including shoes, somehow put you in a different frame of mind? Are you more purposeful, more dynamic, more awake and raring to go? And does the near permanent wearing of slippers have the opposite effect? Do they render you somnambulant and soporific? I associate slippers with weekends and evenings, with routines linked to the day either having ended or not yet started. It is how I have been conditioned over many years, and so to have them as my only footwear for months at a time just seems really odd, yet another blurring of the boundary between work and home that I am trying unsuccessfully to remove. 

I just thought I would put it out there to see if anyone else had an opinion? Saves writing about birds at any rate.

17 comments:

  1. Resolutely barefoot when slobbing indoors. Socks on if I'm soon to be heading out/just back in. Big woolly socks several times last week because it was snowy outside (my window is always open no matter what) and my tootsies were feeling chilled. Last time I wore slippers was when I was in hospital for a couple of days after having my tonsils out, so probably when I was 4 or 5. Utterly abhorrent things (slippers, not tonsils).

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree with the barefoot/socks ethic, in the main, but I do stick the slippers on if heading to the floor-tiled kitchen for longer than boiling a kettle (ie making dinner or sorting out the aftermath). Wearing shoes in your own house - there lies madness. And there's weeks of this to go yet, you need to save some in reserve.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The reason you need slippers is that white socks rapidly become brown or grey from traipsing around the house, or they do in this house at any rate. And as for barefoot, ugh. My son insists on barefoot and his feet are unsurprisingly the worst of the lot. I wear shoes for my own protection!

      Delete
  3. Over the years I have tried on occasion to be a slipper person, but it's just not me, not since I was a child. Barefoot in summer, socks and maybe slobby trainers otherwise. Barefoot was occasionally a trial last summer when dashing outside to see why the gulls were going off. We have a lot of gravel.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In summer I am a flip-flop person. Last year I tried some suede loafers as an alternative but have yet to be convinced by either the look or the feel.

      Delete
  4. Slippers all the way. More comfortable than shoes and they give your feet more protection than socks or going barefoot. The danger, of course, is that daytime slippers become the prelude to all-over night attire, then not bothering to shower or shave. Daytime slipper-wearers must remain ever vigilant. – Malcolm

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Absolutely, a slippery slope from which some people never recover.

      Delete
    2. Slippery slope - good wan!

      Delete
  5. Slippers because one has to protect the feet from immovable objects. And they are easily discarded. Shoes are for going out [remember that] but then perhaps we all need a little formality in our lockdown lives .....

    ReplyDelete
  6. I have slippers but I prefer house socks, fluffy and warm this way my feet can go up on the furniture and still be warm. As for getting dressed, I do at some point in the day but I have no plan of leaving home and expect no one, it's house jams all day,

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have heard of this dreaded new concept of daytime pyjamas, as distinct from bed pyjamas. Shakes me to my core.

      Delete
  7. Slippers (or socks, until my feet get cold) for me but then I'm a casual dresser at work too... I'm considering an (electric?) foot massager too - have dreadful circulation and feet tend to swell as I move around less at home. Anyone any tips, or is that commment just too, too middle aged?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, too middle aged. I have an electric blanket on the bed which is as far as I am prepared to go at the moment. A few years ago I was hugely against it as I felt I was turning into my parents. Now I've accepted that this is just what happens, I love it.

      Delete
  8. Great post! I have three sets of footwear for outdoor use only - crocs, wellies or cycling shoes. Indoors its socks all the way - we have underfloor heating and its totally wasted on you if you have shoeage on. I do get dressed every day tho, although my offspring don't if at all possible.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I hear you. One of my kids sees no issue with PJs all day long, a habit I am trying to nip in the bud. On the subject of family I have some crocs that they were up in arms about when I got them. Now they all use them to nip down the garden.

      Delete