Patricia ran a catalogue
\nfor family and friends,
\nwith whom she did not share commission;
\nshe cajoled them to buy,
\nencouraged them, weekly,<\/p>\n
but being frugal I resisted,
\nthough, to please, I leafed the pages.
\nOnly once did I succumb:
\nthe brown elephant-skin brogues,
\nhand stitched, hand-tooled, with leather soles.<\/p>\n
Expensive,
\nfor me, who would not spend a penny
\nwhen a half-penny would do,
\nyet still a reasonable enough price
\nto attract attention; with a lifetime’s guarantee.<\/p>\n
The elephant-skin was the hook:
\nstill enough of the romantic in me
\nto feel a quickening at the thought
\nof Maharajahs, the adventures of Allan Quartermain,
\nthe exoticism of jungles, waterfalls, the unexplored.<\/p>\n
The brown brogues came.
\nSmelt new, leathery, firm yet supple,
\nwith round, leather laces.
\nI tried them; walked round the room;
\nelephants’ feet in the carpet.<\/p>\n
I wore them till the soles wore thin,
\ntill they were down at heel,
\nthen re-heeled and re-soled, alternately,
\nagain and again,
\npaid more in repairs than for the shoes themselves.<\/p>\n
They are in need of new soles now,
\nhave been for years; a polish wouldn’t come amiss.
\nPerhaps an airing is due, overdue,
\nwhile there is still time
\nto believe there is time for exploration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Patricia ran a catalogue for family and friends, with whom she did not share commission; she cajoled them to buy, encouraged them, weekly, but being frugal I resisted, though, to please, I leafed the pages. Only once did I succumb: the brown elephant-skin brogues, hand stitched, hand-tooled, with leather soles. Expensive, for me, who would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":12,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-71","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jeremyduffield.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/71","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jeremyduffield.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jeremyduffield.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jeremyduffield.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jeremyduffield.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=71"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/jeremyduffield.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/71\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":320,"href":"http:\/\/jeremyduffield.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/71\/revisions\/320"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jeremyduffield.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/12"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jeremyduffield.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}