12th February 2008 - Blisters like butterbeans

I've started training to do Edinburgh's Half Moon - it's a walk, round Edinburgh, at midnight, by women in bra's to raise money for research in breast cancer. The full walk is called the Moon Walk and it's a full length marathon - the Half Moon, therefore, is half of that. Me and a few friends are going to do it, both to raise money and to get fitter.

My sister for Christmas gave me a voucher for MBT's - Masai Barefoot Technology trainers. 135 quids worth of pretty bogging looking trainer, that makes you roll your foot when you walk, causing you to correct your posture and work your abs while you walk - a la Masai tribespeople. The 'wummin' in the shop went on, at considerable length, about how important it was to work up to wearing them in stages - a half an hour in the house for the first few days, a few hours indoors leading up to - after a couple of weeks - a trip outdoors. I was sceptical. I was doubtful of the need to be so catious. I was incredulous that I could do so much damage by wearing shoes. I was convinced she was just over-egging the danger to heighten the hype of the product.

I have blisters like butterbeans. Half way round our first exploratory walk I started getting a tingling in my foot. Above the ball of the foot, just under the toes. A trapped nerve was diagnosed by my walking friend, and I stopped to loosen, then tighten, then loosen and retighten the trainers. I think she was probably right, because the pain was right for the diagnosis. I managed to get back to her house and then drive home. I think the damage was done by loosening them off, so when I removed the big clumphy boots I unveiled matching blisters on my heels. Butterbeans. I'd always hated butterbeans as a child after an ill advised temper tantrum persuaded my mother to allow me to wear my new gym shoes to play outside, resulting in a massive and incredibly painful blister. Even now - although I like the flavour and even the texture - they still look like an unburst blister to me.

A whole new world of stingy pain. Blisters. They are disproportionately painful are they not? But, scientists have excelled themselves. They have developed the most wonderful blister plaster. They are fabulous. Just google 'blister plaster' and you will get to them. If only they had invented them when I was on a walking 'holiday', youth hosteling with a friend in the Lake District in 1980. Stumps of leg ends - I'd hesitate to call them feet at the time - bound into tight, dubbin'd brown boots. They were her old boots and didn't really fit. Blisters over blisters. The bloody sweaty insides of the boots darker than the muddy outsides. My, am I getting old and nostalgic!? But those blister plasters would have been great back then.

I tried to tell Dad of my blisters today, but he wasn't having it. The new entertainments co-ordinator - who looks like Mr Mackay in South Park - was playing with a large balloon. He would wander around the room and batter it towards a resident who would batter it back. Most of the residents really seemed to enjoy it. They'd stretch and use their arms, legs, heads even, to bat the balloon back. Simple but really effective. Dad enjoyed it, much more than trying to work out who I was and why I was telling him of my sore feet. Still, I saw him smile, it's been a while since I saw that. Thanks, Mr MacKay. You gave pleasure today to more than two people. Well more. Good return for a day.