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I have started the second chapter and it’s all about “how to make sentences that are lean and clear and lively…”

Today’s exercise:

Write about your favourite boots or your favourite place on earth. Again, concentrate on making sentences that vary in length and structure.

I want to tell you not about boots but a different pair of shoes; my wedding shoes. They are not your common kind of wedding shoes. They are red and flat and comfortable.

I barely ever wear heels; not in everyday life, not when I go out and I wasn’t very keen on wearing heels on my wedding day. I live by the beach and spend most of my days in thongs. The thought of cramming my poor little toes into some narrow shoe construct, or putting my lower back through the pains of wearing high heels for the day, was agonising. And seriously, who would want sore feet on their own wedding day anyway? So I spent more time looking for wedding shoes than anything else during my wedding preparations.

And then, one day, not looking for shoes at all, I saw a pair of ballerinas in a shop window; bright red shiny ballerinas. It was love at first sight. And so I allowed them to become not only my wedding shoes, but the central focus in setting the colour theme for my wedding. Well, my shoes and the silver tie my husband had already bought. White, red and silver – as it happens red Gerbera are my favourite flower. Suddenly it was all very simple.

The shoes are very soft, hugging my feet like they were meant to be worn only by me, and every step taken in them has a light elegance to it. Not the kind of elegance you get from wearing high-heeled shoes, but the kind that comes with comfort and simplicity. And in a way this is how shoes can tell a story about their wearer. I am that simple girl that got married in comfortable, bright red ballerinas.