I was recently obliged to purchase some new socks. This is partly because all my socks are old, and partly because Mr ParsleySage, aka size 12 foot freak, aka colour blind freak, keeps wearing mine by accident and stretching them beyond all recognition.

Happening to be in Asda on a rainy afternoon recently, I went to peruse the ladies' socks section only to find it full of pink socks with little polka dots and scottie dogs and other frickin' nonsense. I'm a woman, not a MORON. Why would I want to wear that twee crap on my feet? So I hot-footed it (please pardon pun - it was unintentional) to the young boys' section, where not only could I select a nice young boy a five pack of nice bright stripey socks that even a colour blind freak couldn't mix up with his own, but I could buy them in a size that actually fits, instead of the ubiquitous 'one size', aka not my frickin' size.

The essence of the thing being that I have ridiculously small feet (size 3, or 36 if you want me to come over all continental). I don't know why this is but I suspect it might have something to do with ballet dancing on my toes (or 'en pointe' as they say in the business). I believe it may have stunted my foot growth. I am quite petite on the whole but when I was a child my feet were actually very long in relation to my body. I once got onto the front page of the local paper after winning a dance trophy two years running, and they printed the wrong surname, randomly giving me the name Driver, alongside a terrible photo in which my elongated clown feet caused my brother to enquire whether my feet had grown so big as a result of "all that driving". That's brothers for you.

Anyway, my feet never grew again and now that I am actually a driver if not a Driver, I find it quite difficult to reach the pedals with flat shoes on, which is a sad predicament for a 38 year old with a dodgy leg who only wears flat shoes because I risk falling off anything with heels owing to having feet so small (little better than hooves and let's face it animals with hooves have four of the buggers to balance on) that my balance is crap.

That was a long sentence, wasn't it?

My second toe is also longer than my big toe, which I know is weird, and my toes are all tucked under one another in funny directions. I also have an instep so outrageously high that my mother used to have to take me from East Anglia to London on the train to buy me shoes, because my feet were 'A' width which is only stocked by specialist suppliers to people with weird feet.

Anyway. I have new socks, and ParsleySage has been mocking me because I insist on washing new socks before I wear them. ParsleySage says that I am denying myself one of life's greatest pleasures - the putting on of brand new socks. However, my mother, purveyor of infinite wisdom, always told me (along with other pearls like "older men usually father girls") that if you wash new socks before you wear them, they keep their shape better. This is probably some 1950s old [house]wives tale but I am an old fashioned girl at heart and into the washing machine my stripey boys' socks went.

They have now been washed and I wore the green stripey pair today to match my green top and they were VERY VERY COMFY. I just wanted you to know that.