Jandals* again

Summer came to Wellington for a couple of days there, and even though it's grey and there's a southerly today, I am sitting inside in a t-shirt without goosebumps on my arms. Amazing. I dragged out one of my favourite pieces of apparel - my trusty red stripey jandals - and walked them down to Brooklyn the other day in a balmy 21 degrees.

These jandals and I have history. Just before Anzac Day 2002 I was made redundant from my job in London, so that afternoon I went to Oxford on the train by myself. It was a lovely spring day, and I wanted to get out of the city and into some space; some calm, blossom-filled space. Though I was devastated to lose my job, it wasn't that unexpected and in the end I was kind of relieved - I wasn't that good at it. At Victoria Station I went into Accessorise and bought the jandals. We walked around Oxford. We sipped Pimms by the river. We made lists of what we would do with our lives next. Later that year, the jandals and I spent the redundacy money in France, where we strolled Meditteranean beaches and got filthy in the vineyards. But we parted company when we hit autumnal Paris, and my red scarf came out of hiding.

Every year when the jandals come out, I wonder how many seasons it will be before they finally kark it. When they do, I shall put them in a frame and hang them on my wall, years and years of walking etched into the paintwork. They are the yin to my red scarf's yang, they have memories scuffed into their heels, they fit my foot more perfectly than Cinderella's slipper.

*kiwi-ese for flip-flops