The Quest for the Golden Shoes

Ok ok .....they weren’t golden they were black school shoes for our Mini Minx but today’s offerings from your Lord of the blogs is a story that is on the whole true and involves a journey of discovery ,intrigue ,eastern mysticism (easy to say sucking a toffee) danger .....like proper Danger Zoiks!!!!!!!
It all started one sunny Saturday Morning when Wifey showed me the Princess’s (our Mini minx) school shoes . They were so badly scuffed by the wicked magical scooter which she had been using to get to her school that we decided to embark on a quest to get some new ones. So dangerous was this quest ...we had to wait for Wifey to get a flu jab first!!!!

So we set off on foot in to the big wide world.........well Bracknell! Our first test was to pacify the whinging Prince (Rockstar) A test I hastened to adds we failed miserably at and added to the tale of woe for the remainder of the quest. Our arrival at Clarks was a swift one unlike the queue.... size nine and a half E was our request . Unfortunately after 45 minutes we were turned away....you see kids had all gone back to school and there weren’t many sizes left now. So dragging our Royalty with us still moaning we went from shop to shop but alas no shoes. It was then we felt we needed some guidance from the East.......we visited the Chinese ........no not a wise old monk with white eyes ...but The Real China ...eat as much as you can possibly stuff into your body before you burst for the price of a Macky D’s restaurant.

So we sat there chomping away and Rockstar knocked his glass of Diet Coke off the table with his elbow ,Wifey with the speed of Mr Miyagi slapped the glass back on to the table like she was playing ping pong that made it shoot across the shiny surface and teeter on the edge by me I pushed it back on giving the glass a palm strike whilst screaming like Bruce Lee in Enter the dragon....this caused he glass to do a funny little dance sloshing it’s contents all around whilst Wifey managed to steady the vessel........phew. An obliging Chinese waitress came over and started to clean our mess up when she too accidentally swiped the glass clean off the table with her cloth ...sending it off the edge ...with her other hand she thrust out at the glass and it kind of snapped into her hand ...like a fly being caught in chopsticks!........After laughter of disbelief The manager came over and said he would ban the glass for being troublesome ...Rockstar finished the contents of the glass ...amazingly there was three quarters of it still left. So fresh from completing our tasks of skill and dexterity (not to mention bellies full of chicken balls rice and all the other bits associated with pigging one’s self at the local Chinese again set off on our quest ....first we returned home and got into our chariot and set off on the dusty road towards Nam...........Wokin-nam....ok ok it’s Wokingham but it would of spoiled the gag spelling it properly.

So upon arrival at the Kingdom of Nam........we realised they are a posh lot over there . We managed to find the Clarks I sat down Minx took her a shoes off Wifey was being served by a young sales assistant when a member of staff came out of the stockroom and said to his Supervisor the profound words

“Bit Smokey in there innit?” (must have been from Bracknell...he said” innit”)

With this she went into the stock room which by now had a haze coming out from it .....she came back out and said in a loud nasily annoying voice......

“Sorry but we are evacuating ...the store ...please leave the store by the main exit” I’m glad she told me this as I was considering going out through the stock room!!!!

Wifey in desperation stood shoulders dropped and said “Oh no ! we came here all the way from Bracknell on purpose just to get shoes” I understood what Wifey was saying she was pointing out the Irony of of luck!!! Supervisor then did something that really grips my proverbial. She slung her hands out to usher us out and said those annoying words

“I’m sorry Health and safety” she then proceeded to repeat the phrase about five times “

What's wrong with..."please leave the store we think we have a fire in the building" or "please leave the store we are on fire" or even "run like F**K we are going to blow up!!" but......

“Health and safety ...you have to leave Health and safety”

She sounded like a robot “Health and safety” .......it reminded me of this woman I once worked with when Health and safety came into the workplace and was a real buzz word in the mid 90’s She was the Health and Safety rep for the office and she was walking along in the corridor where she saw a discarded cardboard box sat in the middle of the corridor . She stood over it pointed to it as anybody passed saying ...you got it “Health and safety” she did this for about two minutes when a colleague of mine came up with an ingenius idea.....”well why don’t you just move the F*^%er then!”

Back to the story ......so there we are being ushered out by Metal Mickey we stood on the pavement as we heard the distant sound of fire engines sirens blaring we dejectedly walked off to find another shoe shop leaving Metal Mickey chuffed by her health and Safety. The only other shop in Nam didn’t have them either.......they recommended Crowthorne .......not that we’d find shoes there they said it was a nice place. (not really)

So off we trundled to Crowthorne and again we got the Windy Miller shake of the head. There was only one thing for it ...ignore Rockstar’s whinging a bit more and go to ....that place of retail torture................The Meadows..........dum dum dummmmmm.

Arriving at the humungassly gigantic..... Mark’ sand Sparks we rooted around the shoe department like cave men foraging for food when there they were ....a big golden glow lit up the aisle we found the shoes we wanted.
We returned home weary and battle scarred...The Princess did indeed get her shoes The prince didn’t stop whinging Wifey and I lost another slither of our sanity.