So, barefoot training began this week in earnest. Yesterday I walked the 2.5 km back from Coleraine’s old bridge, along the River Bann, to the retail park. “Time to look like a weirdo again…”, I thought as I stuffed my boots and socks into my rucksack. The tarmac alongside the river is deceptively knobbly and coarse, however, and the soles of my feet did an excellent job of transmitting every ounce of pain and discomfort up through my body. One becomes something of a tarmac connoisseur, you see, once he sheds the protection of leather and rubber and opens himself up to the whims of modern highway construction. “With an estimated 100,000 – 200,000 exteroceptors in the sole of each foot, your feet are among the most nerve-rich parts of your body”, says Daniel Howell, ‘the barefoot professor’, here. Your feet thus very effectively tell you about changes in terrain and temperature. Stuffed inside shoes you receive little of this but unshod the feet perform a marvellous task.
Whincing sligthtly, I bravely passed a couple walking its dog. My bare feet being very much at the front of my mind, I expected at least a funny look or a murmur as they passed. Nothing. I think the little chiwawa may have fancied a sniff, but that was it. With them gone I retreated to the grassy parkland, which offered some much needed squelchy, cool mud to sink my toes into. Careful to avoid the hidden presents left by previous fellow barefooters (or ‘dogs’), I cut across and up to the retail park to face the biggest challenge of the day.
“I need to pop into Sainsbury’s”, I thought. “Do I put the shoes back on? There’s civilisation in there. Leave the caveman at the door and put your boots back on.” But the challenge was too great. If I was serious about barefooting and the Cambodia cause, I was going to be publicly so. Alas, Sainsbury’s too offered little reaction to my Frodo-Baggins-look. As I pitter-pattered down the aisles, however, I thought about the social role of shoes. In developed society it is surely a sign of civilisation, the unshod (shoeless) man epitomising poverty and indignity. I mean, you can wear whichever clothes you like in whichever combination, but who doesn’t wear shoes of some sort? I guess my barefooting is therefore a dedication to those in Cambodia whom we are going to help. Those who are poor and undignified, the social barefooters. Those for whom reactions of shock and compassion ought to be boundlessly more forthcoming than for Frodo in Sainsbury’s.
To bare my sole 