IF ONLY: These aren't my feet. My feet are nothing like this.
You are, said a friend recently, so brave. So open, so honest. Is there anything you wouldn't publish? Is there anything you keep private?
Of course, I replied, though I couldn't immediately put a finger on what, because at that very moment I was balancing a book and a glass of wine in one hand while trying to snap a flattering naked selfie on my smartphone with the other.
I'm not in the habit of sharing nude photos on the internet, I assure you. I wasn't slathered in baby oil with a champagne coupe balanced on my voluminous derriere, a la Kim Kardashian, or baring it all on a beige sofa like Jennifer Lawrence. I was lathered up in the bath, my modesty maintained by a mountain of bubbles, taking the sort of naked picture that only a particularly grubby podophile could find kinky.
I was photographing my feet. My filthy feet, after a twelve-hour day of gardening in flip-flops.
Rather than risk putting you off your Sunday brunch by reprinting the evidence here, let me tell you that my tootsies have perfect white Jandal tan lines shadowed with soil. My cracked heels are etched with compost. There's compacted dirt under my toenails. My red nail polish is chipped, and there's a cut across my right foot. (I accidentally dropped my spade on it while digging up spuds.)
Remember when Fergie was busted by the tabloids having her toes sucked by that randy Texan? It's safe to say that my husband is not tempted in the slightest by the sight of my dirty ol' dew-beaters. Even when I was pregnant, he refused to touch them. I had to pay my niece ten bucks to massage herbal moisturiser into my swollen cankles.
I've never cared for neat feet. Manicures, I can understand - it's lovely to look at feminine fingers - but pedicures have always struck me as somewhat pointless. Most of us wear shoes most of the time and who, aside from foot fetishists and flexible young lovers, ever looks adoringly at anyone's feet?
I once had an Italian boyfriend who was perplexed by what he saw as the feral state of New Zealand women's feet. He was horrified by my habit of going barefoot, and only marginally less horrified by the state of my shoes. He couldn't believe I could be so uncouth as to drive without first taking off my footwear to prevent scuffing the heels.
These days, I simply shun elegant strappy sandals in summer, and slap on several coats of nail varnish to cover the dirt.
To make soil easier to shift at the end of the day, rub aloe vera gel or soft soap into your feet before stepping out, or soak your toes in a foot spa of diluted denture cleaner. A bit of bleach doesn't go amiss either.
Pumice is a pretty good exfoliant, though Northland gardener Ethel Goodfellow has a better solution: she gives her feet (and her hubby's) a light buzz with a small electric grinder, then smears them with cheap coconut oil.
As well as being dirty, gardening in jandals can be downright dangerous. They're particularly slippery under a sprinkler, on steps and sloping paths. ACC statistics show that, in 2014, 30 people came a cropper in flip-flops, resulting in injury claims worth $20,100.
ACC media adviser Stephanie Melville's cheeky advice to gardeners who won't wear sturdy clodhoppers in summer? "Put on a wide-brimmed straw hat and some old clothes. And, with a hoe in one hand and a cold drink in the other, tell somebody else where to dig."
- Sunday Star Times
