One of my several pet hates is crispy feet. I can't stand them. As soon as I feel slightly dry feet rubbing against each other under the covers I have to leap out of bed and moisturise them. This is yet another thing passed down to me by my mother and indeed her mother before her. Samik has always spoken with great affection and concern about feet with a look of real compassion on her face as she announces to me "Yes but Kate, your poor little feet. They carry you around all day for the whole of your life, you stub your toes, you cramp them into shoes, you tramp them around the swimming pool...your poor feet, they're really just trying to help you and we're all so mean to them." And I promise you, she speaks with real conviction. She really loves her feet, and a sweet pair of feet she has too. Always soft, always sparkly clean and lovely little toes that descend in correct size order.
As for my grandmother, well she broke her hip and wrist a few months ago and spent a long time in hospital. Gaga is 90 years old and still does her own garden, lights her own bonfires, cleans the house, sets the fire, cooks for whoever's visiting and so on. She was most upset to be out of order for such a long time. However, she did not let a mere hospital stay get in the way of her general upkeep. Samik took in her favourite moisturising cream and various other potions and Gaga saw to it that she was clean and polished every single minute of every single day during her stay. Her nails were painted, her hair was brushed. The day after her operation in fact, we went to visit her expecting to see her looking pale, washed out and a little dishevelled. No, she was beautiful. So pretty. She even made the baby pink hospital nightie look good. By the time I last went home, she was back in her own house and busying about as much as is possible whilst still a little incapacitated. Because of remaining swelling and soreness in her hip joint, it is hard for her to reach her feet so I offered to do her a pedicure. She slipped off her little slippers and presented me with the softest feet in the world. Feet that have been trotting about for 90 whole years, feet that chased a teacher down a corridor with a whip when the teacher unjustly accused her of talking in class and tried to beat her, which walked 3 miles to school each day and back and padded down the stairs in the dead of night to steal cakes from the pantry, feet which took her aboard a train to London in her late teens and danced the night away in a city she was just discovering then walked away from her first fiancé into the arms of a young serviceman on a train who would be my grandfather, feet that have been hidden from her sight four times by pregnancy and which trod the boards of bedrooms rocking her children and in turn her grandchildren...those feet! So much of her life was in my hands as I soaked them, scrubbed them, moisturised them and painted the dainty nails which are still in such good condition, that had it not been for other company, I could have sat there for hours and asked her to recount again all those stories of hers she told me as a child on her knee.
I look after my feet. I couldn't look myself in the eye if I didn't, silly though that may sound. Each time I see them looking a little worn and tired I think of my mother's little foot speech, of her perfect toes and my grandmother's dainty nails. I have no excuse not to take care of them.
So very early this morning, while these were baking away in the oven, I made the most of the pre-dawn quiet to sit down and perform my weekly pedicure. You don't have to spend loads in a salon to have decent feet, you just need to invest in a few essential products and set aside half an hour. Once you're done with the feet, you can follow exactly the same procedure for the hands and then voilà! your extremities are at least half near worthy of an admiring glance from a 90 year old lady.
Recipe for luscious feet
Wash your feet and make sure that they are thoroughly dry before using a Ped Egg or other such instrument to remove old skin.
Fill a washing up bowl with warm water and add a few drops of Weleda Rose Oil or Bio Oil. Soak both feet for 5-10 minutes, massaging the oily water in as you soak.
Take an exfoliating foot scrub of your choice (I use Scholl Foot Smooth Shower Scrub) and rub it well into both feet, working around the toes, the heels and the ball of the feet. Rinse in the oily water then shower them off with cold water.
Dry thoroughly.
Rub in something like Balm Balm Rose Geranium all over, again concentrating especially on the balls of the feet, the heels and around the outside of the big and little toes.
Treat your nails as you see fit, by pushing cuticles back with a cotton bud on a cuticles stick and then rubbing in nail hydrating cream, my favourite is by Flexitol (excellent results.) Leave your feet and nails to absorb the cream for at least an hour then paint a pretty colour!
The muffins were delicious.
Such a lovely post about your grandmother. And your feet!
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