Back in December, our good friend Marie gave Amelie a £20 Clarks voucher for Christmas. To be honest, we were lucky to get anything out of her at all, as she decided not to send cards last year due to concerns about the environmental impact of paper production. And the fact that she couldn't be bothered. But fortunately Marie has taken on the role of official guardian of Amelie’s feet, and having heard that the sandals she bought her in November were likely to be bursting at the seams come January, she stepped into the shoes of the Fairy Godmother and sent a donation to help pay for her next pair.

So having watched Amelie tottering around the dog track (and falling flat on her face) like a Chinese girl with bound feet on Sunday, Lisa decided to take her and the voucher into town yesterday for her first proper shoe fitting. Two hours later, they came back with this...


Apparently Clarks don’t just sell you shoes, they whip out a camera and take a photo of you looking shocked at the price. It’s the next generation of store surveillance. They obviously took one look at Amelie and thought they’d better get a mugshot for the security files. Mind you, the way she’s staggering about like a white-faced zombie, they’re hardly likely to forget her.

In addition to taking your mind off the price of the shoes with a mini photo-shoot, they also give you this...


So at the age of 16 months, Amelie’s shoe size is 5H. If she was a pencil, she’d be well hard. The H refers to the width of the shoe, which is interesting because according to Wikipedia, they only go up to G. My daughter has the wide round feet of an elephant. She'll make some man a gorgeous umbrella stand one day.