A letter from a reader

At 67, my sister pointed out that I had walked the whole harbour wall without once looking at the sea

The longest thing I write most weeks is the label on the bags of soup in the freezer, and Geoff still has to ask me what they say. I am not a writer, and it has never been my place to tell another woman how she ought to dress for the weather.

But three different women asked me about my shoes on the harbour wall at Conwy last Sunday, and by the third one it seemed easier to write it down properly.

It started a year ago, on the same wall. We go every October, Geoff and the dog and me, and my sister June came with us last year. It had rained all morning and the big stones on top were shining. I did the whole length of that wall holding Geoff's arm, with my eyes on the next slab, and when we got to the end June turned round and said it.

Maggie, you have not looked at the sea once.

I laughed it off, and then I thought about it all the way home, and she was right. Not just that day. For years, the minute the ground was wet, I had been walking with my eyes down, picking out the dry bits and letting Geoff go first. Wet leaves on the church path, the shiny cobbles in Chester, the slope down to the field gate. I had watched my own feet through every autumn and winter for longer than I could tell you.

I did not choose to walk like that. Nobody does. It creeps up on you one wet pavement at a time, until your own sister has to tell you that you missed the view.

How it happens

I used to love a winter walk. When the children were small we did that harbour wall in all weathers, and I never once gave a thought to what was on my feet.

What changed was not me. It was the shoes.

Go and look at what the shops offer a woman our age for wet weather. On one side, smart little ankle boots with soles as smooth as a dinner plate, which look lovely in the window and skate on the first wet leaf. On the other, great heavy walking boots with laces halfway up your shin, which grip like anything and make you look as if you are off up Snowdon when you are only going to the post box.

So you pick the smart ones, because you are going to the café afterwards, and then you spend the whole walk looking at the ground. Or you leave the walk to everybody else and say you will stay behind and put the kettle on. I did both, for years.

What I had wrong

Here is the bit I had wrong, and I suspect I am not the only one.

I thought I had to choose. Grip, or something I would be happy to wear into the café. I had decided it was one or the other, and I had stopped looking.

It turns out it was only ever the sole.

What holds on a wet surface is the tread underneath, deep and chunky, with proper edges to it. What makes a shoe feel like something you would wear into town is everything above that. Somebody just had to put the two together and stop making the top look like hiking gear.

A deep tread under a soft, plain, warm upper that slips on in the hall. It reads as a shoe, not as equipment. That is the whole difference, and it took me until 67 and one remark from my sister to work it out.

The shoes are called the Rosa

They are from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now. They have a whole collection of winter shoes with these grippy soles, and the pair I chose is called the Rosa.

A navy blue slip-on that comes up just over the ankle, softly quilted across the toe, with a little stretch panel at each side so it eases on, a warm grey lining that shows round the top, and a light grey sole with that deep tread underneath. They do it in black, red, green and beige as well.

The lining is soft and properly warm, which in a wind straight off the sea matters more than I had expected. The rain runs off the outside. There is not a single lace, so they go on in the hall in about ten seconds while Geoff is still looking for the car keys. And the sole is cushioned, so a long walk is a comfortable one.

That is really all there is to it. A warm shoe with a sole somebody actually thought about.

What happened on the harbour wall

We went back to Conwy last Sunday. It drizzled from the moment we parked, and the stones along the top of the wall were as wet and shiny as I have ever seen them.

I walked the whole length at my own pace with the dog, and for once Geoff had to wait for me at the end, because I had stopped to watch a little boat come round the harbour arm.

Three women asked me about my shoes. A lady with a wet spaniel by the steps, a younger woman pushing a pram, and Muriel, who walks that wall with her husband every Sunday of the year and in all the time I have known her has never passed comment on anything except the tide. She looked down at my feet in the queue for chips on the quay and said I looked like I had come to enjoy it, for once.

From Muriel, that is practically a postcard.

What I noticed more than the compliments, though, was the sea. I looked at it. Grey and choppy and lovely, and I looked at it the whole way along instead of at the next slab.

The next morning I had them on again to take the dog round the field, wet leaves and mud at the gate and all, and I did not give the ground a second thought.

Three things I have learned since

One. The sizing is honest. They run from a UK 2 to an 8.5, and the size I always take was the size that fitted, with room for a thicker sock on the cold days.

Two. You stop planning your route round the puddles. The tread holds on wet stone and slippery leaves, so I walk where I want to walk now, not where it looks driest.

Three. They do not look like they are for anything in particular. Harbour wall in the morning, café afterwards, the shops on the way home. Nobody would guess what the soles were built for, which is exactly how I like it.

About the price

I want to be straightforward about this, because it was the thing that made me suspicious.

The Rosa is £39.95. It was £80.00.

My first thought, honestly, was that there had to be a catch, because I have paid more than that for a pair of walking boots that sat in the garage because I could not face the laces.

There is no catch that I have found. They are a small boutique selling directly, so there is no department store taking a cut in the middle, and they run a sale to move the season's stock before the cold weather properly sets in.

I did what I imagine you are doing now and went and read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars. Not the suspiciously perfect five you see on some websites, which if I am honest made me trust it rather more. One woman from Porlock had written that she takes her dog down the wet slipway every morning in hers and they have held every single time. That was the one that decided it for me.

Then I ordered the black pair as well, for church.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sat by the fire after a wet walk and you asked me, this is what I would say.

If you have spent the last few winters watching the ground every time it rains, letting everybody else go first, offering to stay behind and put the kettle on, then it is worth ten minutes of your evening to go and look.

Not because a pair of shoes will change your life. They will not. But there is something in looking up on a winter walk that I had quietly given up on, and I would rather you did not give up on it too.

Two practical things. The sale is on at the moment, and the middle sizes are the ones that go first. And the first winter stock is already going before the cold weather has properly arrived.

I looked at the sea the whole way along this time.

Maggie