How to walk in high heels?

Can you hear that sound?

The sobbing, sniffling one? It's really faint, but every so often you'll hear a full on sob.

Yeah, that's my Visa cowering in a corner from over-use.

"Please don't use me again" it wails, in a really poncey voice, nothing like the voice when I first had it and it was all shiny and new; "use me, I'm all yours" it pronounced then, all clear of balance and begging to be christened.

It's been christened alright, a few too many times, in fact you could even say that card's been christened so many times it's turned into a bit of a Visa-whore. It's not choosy where or who it gets down to business with either.

Floozy.

I'm on a mission you see, it's a rather expensive mission, but it's a mission of self-transformation, and these things are never cheap. Be it hair, nails, clothes, shoes, handbags, whatever, I'm bored, I want change. Thing is, the universe doesn't seem to see it that way and every time I go out with my floozy of a credit card in hand, I never find anything I want, so end up buying something else. So at the end of the month I have a bill that skints me to clear the balance and I STILL have the same hair and no new clothes. Grrrr.

Take today for instance, today was a slight success in that I found new shoes. They're beautiful, they're pink, they'll change my world. However, whilst looking for these (bargainous) beautiful foot-adorners, it has struck me that I am never going to be able to wear fashionable heels ever again. Have you seen the size of the heels nowadays?! Okay, I sound like my mother, but oh my days, I'd end up in A&E after half an hour of shuffling. Did I ever actually manage to walk in them before? Or this is a new development since the advent of gladiator sandals? I blame flats and gladiators, they've ruined me for life, never again will I put on a pair of sparkly sky-scraper heels and strut confidently a-la Carrie Bradshaw; no, instead I look more like Patsy or Eddie from Ab-Fab after too much wine.

Is this because I'm 30 now? Do you suddenly stop being able to walk in heels when you turn 30?

Nobody told me this before, I'm sure I'd have remembered. So shuffling it is, unladylike I know, but we suffer for fashion, and besides, I only have to get from A to B and find a chair, then I can sit perched, with beautiful shoes. It's not like I have to actually walk in them really, we're not hiking Everest.

The clothes issue is a problem however, mainly because some daft sod has deemed it fit to start stocking autumn clothes in August. Some of us would like to continue with a sad excuse for summer until at least the official end, and don't want to be forced into hats and gloves before it's really time. The problem I have is that shopping for new holiday clothes has become pretty much impossible, and therefore I'm having to reinvent my existing clobber. This does not sit well with me at all.

Where's Gok Wan when you need him? Off cooking bloody Chinese food, that's where!

Abandoned by my fashion guru, what is the world coming to?