A letter from a reader

At 67, I had stopped looking forward to sandal weather

I have never written anything like this before, and I want to say at the start that I am not a writer and I am not in the habit of telling other women what to put on their feet.

But four different women asked me about my sandals at a lunch a fortnight ago, and I have now explained it enough times that it seemed easier to write it down properly.

It started at the beginning of the summer, when I dug the old sandals out of the cupboard, put them on, and took them off again within the hour.

Another summer of sore feet by teatime.

That was genuinely how I felt about it. Sandal weather had stopped being something to look forward to and become something to endure.

I did not choose that. Nobody decides that their own feet are the problem. But that is where the blame tends to land, quietly, on you.

How it happens

Feet change. Mine have widened a little, and one of them has a bit of a bunion coming that I do not care to discuss.

And the sandals on offer have not changed at all. Thin flat things with a strip of rubber and a strap that sits in exactly the wrong place, or something so aggressively orthopaedic it looks like it was prescribed.

So you squeeze the feet you have into shoes made for feet you had twenty years ago, and then you are surprised that they ache.

What I had wrong

Here is the bit I got most wrong. I thought comfort meant a flat, soft sole. The softer and flatter, I assumed, the kinder.

It is the opposite. A flat sole gives your foot nothing to sit in, so the muscles do all the holding up, all day, on hard ground. What actually helps is a footbed that is shaped and moulds to you, so your foot settles into it and is supported the whole way along.

And a wide strap on a buckle, rather than a fixed little band, means the sandal fits the foot you have today, which in July is not the foot you had at breakfast. That took me until 67 to work out.

The sandals are called the Joyce

They are from Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly dressing women our age for a few years now.

They are called the Joyce. Black, with one wide strap and a big antique buckle, on a soft moulded footbed your foot seems to sink into and settle. There is a pink and a khaki as well, which I will come back to.

The footbed is the whole thing. It is shaped and cushioned, so instead of standing on a flat plank my foot has something holding it. You feel it the moment you step in.

And the buckle lets the strap right out or in, so they fit properly rather than gripping or gaping.

What happened at the lunch

I wore them to a lunch, and then kept them on for a mooch round the shops after, which I would not normally manage.

Four women asked me where they were from. Four. One was Brenda, who I have known for years and who has never once commented on anything I have worn.

She said I had not mentioned my feet once. I have decided to take that as a compliment.

What I noticed more than the compliments was that there was no counting down to getting home and taking them off. The thought simply did not arrive.

The next morning I had them on again first thing, and they were just as easy.

Three things I have learned since

One. A shaped footbed beats a soft flat one. Softness underfoot feels kind for five minutes. Support that holds the shape of your foot is what actually lasts the day.

Two. The buckle is not a detail. A fixed strap fits one size of foot on one sort of day. A wide strap on a buckle fits the foot you actually have, warm afternoon and all.

Three. They got comfier, not worse. The footbed settles to your own foot over the first week, which is the opposite of every stiff sandal I have ever broken in and given up on.

About the price

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

The Joyce is £24.95. It was £50.00.

My first thought was that there had to be a catch, because a proper moulded footbed usually costs a great deal more than this.

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 summer sale to shift the season's stock.

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. Real people, mixed opinions, mostly very good.

Then I ordered the khaki as well.

What I would tell you if we were friends

If you and I were sat in the garden and you asked me, this is what I would say.

If your sandals have quietly become something you count the hours to take off, do not put it down to your feet and leave it there. It is very likely the sandals, and that is a cheap thing to change.

A summer of enjoying being on your feet again is worth a great deal more than £24.95, in my experience.

Two practical things. The sale is on now, and the middle sizes go first. And once the summer stock has sold through, that is it until next year.

I have not counted down to taking my shoes off all summer.

Maggie