Trainers

Dedicated readers may recall that the trainer saga started for me with a false start around March 7th 2009 (reference 1). This was followed around February 9th 2010 (reference 2) by my actually buying a pair of trainers in Niketown, my very first and possibly very best pair of trainers. Very comfortable and slightly, but not too flashy. At this time BH was quite impervious to suggestions that maybe she might like trainers too.

But all good things come to an end, and after a while another pair was needed. And then another, by which time I had had enough of the noise and glitz of Niketown. After a bit of a wobble in JD Sports (the one that got bashed about a bit in the riots a few years ago), I settled on the Merrells with which I have been ever since, despite their only lasting about 6 months and despite what might mistake as a cuddly independent actually being a subsidiary of the Wolverine Corporation (see http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=wolverine+cambridge).

The pair I am wearing now is starting to run out of puff after about 8 months, with the heel assemblies starting to fall apart (despite using a shoe horn) and with signs of tears around the front ends, signs which will soon morph into the things themselves, from reference to referent. So off to Kingston where they did not have the necessary 12s but where they did suggest that maybe something off was appropriate as 8 months was not very long and we were sent up to discuss the matter with the guru upstairs. We explained that we had bought the things in Piccadilly and that we did not have the receipt, to be told that the best thing to do was to take the corresponding credit card bill (which we had kept back at home) back to Piccadilly. Back home to turn the bill up, to find that actually we had bought the trainers in question from Kingston - which we might have known beforehand had I bothered to check here.

Then some days later, having been persuaded by the guru to join the Cotswold Customer Club (CCC, not to be confused with Carshalton Cricket Club of which I am not and never have been a member), I decided to buy the things online, for collection at Kingston - and to be disappointed to find that there was no discount available for CCC. But I was phoned up half an hour later by a pleasant young man from Kingston who explained that there had been a computer error and that the desired trainers were not going to be available in-store for collection at the appointed time, but that, at no extra charge, he would cast around the Cotswold empire and have them delivered to my door in a few days. And in due course, they turned up, from Brighton.

In the meantime, the idea having been maturing for near five years, BH had decided that perhaps she would have some trainers and that perhaps she would get them from the Kingston Cotswolds when I collected mine. But best laid plans collapsed, with the result that we actually visited the closing Blacks, as  mentioned on the 9th September.

So we have now arrived at a happy ending, with brand new, his and hers trainers, both from Morrells, both in the same brown boxes, as illustrated. For some reason or other, her trainers are both rather smaller and rather dearer than mine - £15 dearer than the £80 that mine seem to be held at.

Reference 1: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=+the+poet+who+doubles.

Reference 2: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=dose+of+Michelangelo.

PS: the in-post reference does not work quite as intended as the search terms find both this post and the target post, an infinite regression in the making. http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/a-two-part-invention.html works rather better but is slightly more fiddly to generate.