Feet

My feet have been in some places that have made me very happy.

They stood in a wet and muddy Finsbury Park, twenty years ago so I could watch Neil Young with Booker T and the MGs as his backing band.

They stood (in some very dodgy 80s footwear) by the fruit machine just at the point it became free, so that, having just been deported from Israel, skint, a few days before Christmas, I could put one of my last two pounds into its slot at just the right time for the reels to come clunking one at a time into the magical alignment that meant £100. And then it held.

They stood just in the D of the oppositions penalty area in the last minute, in just the right place for the winger to cross the ball, for me to shut my eyes in terror, swing my wrong foot and connect perfectly with it to arc just under the bar, so that we won the primary school game against our rivals 3-2

They stood in the perfect spot to see, one after the other, The Smiths and New Order at the peak of their powers

They stood at the Rosebowl in 2005 for the 20-20 game v the Aussies, where we hammered them and began to believe for the first time that we just might stand a chance against them in the Ashes

They stood at Anfield, for the Mersey Derby

They found the seat on the tube, opposite where Juan de Marcos Gonzalez was about to sit*

And today, for the first time, I stand IN a tree I’ve planted. 7 and a bit years after the wet weekend when the roots were sunk into the soil, it is strong enough to take my weight as I chop and snip out crowding branches from its centre. This makes me very happy.

This year, maybe, like the year before last, we’ll be making juice.

 

* Scroll to after the third pic

  • Mine have also stood in some happy places, amongst others: They have sped me around the taxiway of an Italian airbase in rollerblades, whilst the rest of my squadron was in an old shoe factory just outside Kosovo. They have shaken with elation and fear at the top of the Crib Goch ridge Snowdonia. They have bounced up and down in the GMEX centre to Madness. They have kicked full left rudder, as I was flying vertically upwards, just at the point of stalling an Extra 300 aerobatic aircraft; to execute a perfectly balanced stall turn. And they have stood in a provincial hotel’s reception room as I tried not to cry whilst giving my wedding speech (who knew the groom also had to speak?).
    But they could not, as yet, stand in the apple tree we planted last year (an espaliered Discovery), as I would surely break a branch. Given that we only got 6 (albeit very tasty) apples from it, it will also be a while before we can make many bottles.

    • I hope you were wearing leggings whilst rollerblading. Strange coincidence, the Smiths followed by New Order was at the GMEX too

  • My feet once stood on the rim of a volcanic crater which forms the larger part of one of the Aeolian Islands. Had spent a few hours climbing up it quite tough going at the end, past cracks and crevices with smoke and occasiionally flames coming out. At the top a fabulous view out over the islands and the rim itself a strange desolate deserted landscape with huge smoking sulphurous boulders. Then looking down into the crater some twonk had been down and left a coke can in full view next to the word Hello spelt out in stones. Ruined it!

  • OMG I’ve killed the comments again!!!!

    Either that or nobody can think of where they might have put their feet…

  • Arabella, I’ve got loads more, but didn’t want to bore. I’m sure everyone has great stories (maybe they can’t beat your’s or Mark’s?). Come on people Man/Woman up! Get the feet stories out before we go feral…..

    • Hi Pianolearner, As comment rooms go this isn’t too bad really – we could make ourselves a cup of tea and put our feet up whilst we are waiting for Mark’s comments to roll in. Care to swap an anecdote or two to pass the time? You can start…

  • Arabella, I used to live in Cookham, Berks along with a load of s’lebs. At our village regatta (yes it was that posh) The said s’lebs were all out in force. My feet decided to take a rest and sat me down on the grass on the edge of the Thames. I looked up to find Lorraine Kelly’s boobs in my face as she bent down to change her clothing before she got into a boat with Timmy Mallet. (All 100% true)

    • PianoLearner, when I was a child we holidayed in Europe for a month every year. It was in the days before people travelled abroad extensively and we would see few other tourists as my father drove us around the continent. We picnic’d every day for lunch with supplies my mother had bought from home, tinned corn beef served with reconstitued potato cooked up over a little calor gas stove and served on tupperware dishes, followed by tinned fruit with Carnation condensed milk – I rather enjoyed it.

      It was on one such picnic that needing to go for a pee I had wandered out of sight along a rugged, scrubby path. Whilst I squatted I noticed by my feet a curious small stone glinting in the sunlight. It was covered in little bits of a jagged metallic substance – gold! I had found gold! I rushed back to the car in excitement shouting I had found gold! My father, who was a metallurgist looked at the stone and laughed “it’s iron pyrite Arabella, – fool’s gold”. Crestfallen I sat in the back of the car and for the rest of the day, indeed the rest of the holiday, my brother sat beside me chanting under his breath “Fool’s Gold, you fool, fool’s gold”.

      • Arabella, that was mean of your brother! I used to love corned-beef-hash made with tinned potatoes. As a child we used to go on holiday every year to Anglesey and camp at the end of the runway at RAF Valley, so that my dad could watch planes. We used to shop at the Kwiksave in Holyhead where we would buy tinned potatoes as well as Jamaica cake. We never buy these at any other time of the year. Anyway I digress, back to the feet…

        I once went feet first down a water slide at Centre Parcs in Holland, chasing my trunks which had been ripped off me and thrown down there. As I got to the bottom pool my trunks had been taken back up the top of the slide. So I had to run naked back up the steps trying to cover myself up with only my hands, whilst the pool attendant shouted the dutch equivalent of “Oi, you can’t run around a public pool naked!” When I got to the top I was informed by my Army colleagues that my trunks had gone down again. This time I found them dangling off some foliage halfway down and managed to grab them as I pass.

        Still it could have been worse as initiations go. I could have been made to dance the “Dance of the flaming buttocks”.

  • Great idea for a post. My feet have taken me to many a nightclub some infinitely more dodgy than others. There was the beautiful, ornate old theatre where in the nineties it was cool to boogie away to seventies music at Brutus Gold’s Disco Empire. Students earning a few extra drinks would be on stage wearing Starsky and Hutch masks and then Brutus himself would enter stage to a roaring crowd. Brilliant nights.

    They’ve taken me to Washington where it turned out the White House was open for the one and only weekend that year and my feet just happened to be taking me past there. Too good an opportunity to miss they took me inside where they really did have a bright red telephone, ‘the hot line’ on a table in one of the corridors. The world is a much different place now. I guess they don’t allow people to wander around there any more.

    And they took me to my local Waitrose when I lived in Berkshire where I walked smack into Parky one day. After we both mumbled apologies I spent the rest of the shop wondering why he had such dodgy taste in jumpers.

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