Shoe adjustments

As I mentioned on Friday, I bought a pair of Nine West patent leather flats on Thursday, after wearing them for a few minutes in the shop to see if they would fit and be comfortable. Great theory! Friday night, I thought that I'd start breaking them in by wearing them while sitting at my computer, as I've done for numerous pairs of shoes before.

It didn't take long to discover that the amount of pressure on the edge of the opening of each shoe above my big toes were going to make the shoes break my feet instead of my feet breaking the shoes in, so I dug out my shoe stretchers.

With a pair of lumps installed in the right place, I left the shoes to stretch for about 24 hours and, when I tried them on today, they were far more comfortable. While there is a little bit of pressure around the side of each shoe just behind where they've stretched, I'd say that I've fixed about 99% of the problem. What little pressure there is isn't painful like it was, and if I find that it does need more stretching, I'll have to drill more holes in the stretchers to put lumps in the right places. I'm just going to wear them and see how it goes.

I also mentioned on Friday that I needed to put some front half gel insoles into the red Siren heels that I wore on the Sunday of Kurri Kurri Nostalgia Festival and again on Wednesday because they are quite uncomfortable to walk any distance in.

I've come to the realisation that the problem is that there was a gap between the arches of the shoes and the arches of my feet, from the ball of the foot up to about the middle of the arch. It seems that the shoes are designed for someone with a longer arch but shorter toes, whereas all of my Tony Bianco shoes have the right length arch for me.

The solution, then, was to put a pair of inserts into the bottom of the arch to fill in that gap. I tried the ones from the old boots, and they worked but were scruffy and bent out of shape from the boots. The only drawback is that by filling in the gaps, the insoles increase the pressure on my toes a little. I need to try to find shoe stretchers that fit high heels so that I can stretch the toes of the shoes a little.

When I went out to get Subway for dinner last night, I dropped into the supermarket and picked up a new pair of inserts on special for under $4. :-)

Oddly, while I know where the full rack of shoe products are in the very last aisle of the supermarket and went straight there, I was also looking for cotton tips, and noticed that there was a small range of one brand of shoe products in the personal care aisle, about 4 aisles away. I wonder how many people only see the small range and don't even realise that the others are there.

The other thing that I find amusing is that, every time I go there, the young woman at Subway who served me after I went to Kurri Kurri on the Saturday now comments that I'm not dressed up. :-)