Is this the definitive list of stylish yet comfortable shoes?

One of the biggest gripes I have heard about getting older is finding shoes that not only fit well but are fashionable and stylish.

Here are a few suggestions which have come my way. Is this the definitive list of women’s shoes or do you have some more favourites?

1. Marks & Spencer Footglove range

These are a firm favourite. Comfortable shoes in smart designs at reasonable prices.   http://www.marksandspencer.com

2. Hotter

Hotter shoes are made by a family company in Lancashire and are all about “delivering comfort and style”.  They are only available online but offer free exchanges if you get the wrong size http://www.hottershoes.com/

3. FitFlops

Recommended to me by a friend awaiting a foot operation, FitFlops are part of the new wave of footwear promising exercise whilst you walk. FitFlop sandals wearers have apparently also reported relief from plantar fasciitis, heel spurs, chronic back pain, sciatica, osteoarthritis, RLS (restless leg syndrome), scoliosis and degenerative disc disease. I’ve not tried them myself but they may be worth checking out if you have problem feet. http://www.fitflop.com/page/home/

4. Wolky

This is a Dutch company (which delivers to the UK) and its shoes are not cheap – but they are by far the most fashionable range of designs I have seen for so-called “comfort” shoes (shouldn’t they all be?!).  And their boots look great too. https://secure.wolkyshop.com/

5. Josef Seibel

Shoes which I am told are “stylish – no good for wearing with a floaty summer skirt, but look great with a denim or cord skirt. Soooo comfortable too” http://www.josefseibel.co.uk/  They have just opened a flagship store at 37 Neal Street, London and two factory stores at The Bishops Centre, Taplow and Meadowland Retail Park, March.

6. Duo

Specialises in “well fitting shoes” and offers sizes 2-9 in 3 foot widths and 3 fitted boots styles available in foot size 2-9 and in up to 21 calf fittings http://www.duoboots.com/products/shoes/

7. Crocs

Some of you love ‘em, others loathe ’em  http://www.crocs.co.uk/

8. Cinderella Shoes

An independent company run by Gina Hennessy  which carries a variety of styles ranging from size 8½ – 12 and more importantly different width fittings. ww.cinderellashoes.ie  

9. Katie Long Shoes

Also caters for women’s larger shoe sizes (from 7) and has a selection of wide fittings- www.katielongshoes.co.uk .  For bigger sizes, try also www.amberandjade.com

10. Large Size Designer Shoes 

Specialises in sizes 6-11 www.large-size-designer-shoes.com

So, is the ultimate list or have we missed some? Where did you buy your favourite pair of shoes from?  Let us know.

With thanks also to http://www.womensthoughts.co.uk/ for their suggestions.

Bringing childhood memories to life with Spoken Memoirs

Last year I wrote about Lewes-based Sarah Hitchings and her business, Spoken Memoirs which records personal life histories using high quality digital equipment to create a broadcast quality CD.

This Christmas I finally got to see an example of Sarah’s work with the publication of my father’s childhood memories covering the years between 1941 and 1954.

In addtion to two CDs of Sarah’s interview with my father, there is also a written transcipt illustrated with some precious family photographs.

Whilst none of the material is new to me, many of the stories having been told to us throughout our lives, it is fascinating to read them all together as one narrative.  The verbatim quotes in the transcript also capture my father’s voice perfectly.

The finished result is an extraordinary record for the family to keep for future generations. How amazing to be able to read the words and hear the voice of one’s ancestor!

There are many ways of capturing and storing memories via digital archives and social media but Spoken Memoirs make the whole process really easy and by using taped interviews, ensure that the final memoir is as coherent and comprehensive as possible.

For more information about Spoken Memoirs, visit  www.spokenmemoirs.co.uk

Happy Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year!

Happy Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year 2012 to all our friends and customers.

Image courtesy of  Caitlin Aldrich-Wincer

Perfect age-friendly Christmas gift ideas for Mums, Dads and Grandparents

£10 and under

The perfect gift for the seasoned traveller, these Travel Notes are designed to be just the right size, small enough to tuck into a pocket but large enough to include notes, photos and keepsakes.

Make light work of peeling all those vegetables this Christmas. Known as The King of Peelers, this OXO Good Grips potato peeler is simply the best peeler you will ever try! The OXO Good Grips range was originally designed with arthritis in mind and all the tools are very comfortable and easy to use. 

Or  treat someone special to a Weekend Pamper kit from the Green People . The ultimate organic spa experience, perfect for more mature skin.

Under £20

For the golfer in your life, the Bionic Golf Glove is the only golf glove to be designed by an orthopaedic hand surgeon.  Promising longer distance and greater accuracy these gloves are made of top-grade cabretta leather to make them feel like a second skin.

This practical Gardening Journal is the perfect place to make notes as the seasons change and record future plans  with its colourful loose-leaf section and storage pockets.

Keen gardeners might also like our OXO Good Grips tools which are designed to give maxmimum strength for minimum effort. OXO Good Grip’s pruners have a hardened, steel cutting blade with non-stick coating, and soft, comfortable, non-slip grips to maximize cutting strength and power.

Or how about one of our colourful handmade double handled mugs?  The unusual two handled design makes holding them a delight and is particularly comforting when you are feeling under the weather or just wanting to relax

Or for those keen on researching family history, this lovely Family Tree file  comes complete with keepsake box.

Under £50

Our gorgeous Typhoon shopping trolleys are sure to cut a dash on any high street.  Let this smart shopping trolley take the strain with its fully insulated cooler bag and, two spacious side pockets for additional storage and a drawstring and Velcro fastening to keep items safely tucked away.

Or how about the versatile Trabasack, part bag, part table? So much smarter than the average laptray. Perfect for picnic lunches or using the iPad, crafting or even eating breakfast in bed.

As featured in Design Week and brimming with character, our best selling handmade doublehandled teapot, has a helpful second handle by the spout, making it easier to pour. 

Under £100

Treat someone special with our ever popular Healthy Back Bags in gorgeous soft leather. Style with comfort, these bags manage to combine practicality with elegance, whilst taking the strain off your back.

Over £100

Any Christmas gift  list would not be complete with an Alex Table Lamp. See life more clearly with the ultimate in reading comfort. Perfect for reading the Sunday papers.

Less Vera Lynn, more Adam Ant

Yesterday I overhead the following conversation:

“Been settling Mum into the care home. Have bought her some more DVDs today. There they play war songs all the time but actually she likes music from the 1950s and 60s..” 

It’s a good point. How often do we see images of elderly care homes with the residents sat around in a circle listening to music from the 1940s and singing along to Vera Lynn?  Yet if you do the maths, even our current generation of 80 year olds were young adults in the 1950s and 1960s – very different music eras.

And there does seem to be an assumption of homogeny when in reality we often don’t have the same musical tastes as our spouses, let alone a group of strangers who just happen to be our age. And with the huge range of music now on offer, this diversity is likely to increase as we all get older.

So maybe we will all be sitting around in a circle with our iPods plugged into our ears instead!

What do you think?

A Grand Design with real passion – Update on rebuilding of Kevin McCloud’s eco house

You might remember earlier in the year that I wrote about a project being undertaken at the University of Brighton to rebuild an eco house first built by Grand Designs’ Kevin McCloud live on Channel 4 in 2008. (http://blog.thefutureperfectcompany.com/2011/02/09/help-build-a-grand-design-from-as-little-as-2/)

I am pleased to report that good progress is being made. Planning permission has been granted by a very enthusiastic Brighton & Hove City Council and Mears Group are about to start laying the foundations.

This is a fantastic project on many levels. First off, as an eco project this is an examplar, a project which as Kevin McCloud says, will demonstrate “the viability of locally sourced materials in meeting and challenging a serious threat, which is that of climate change. It is not just about the process of putting it together. It’s also about the lessons learnt from the methods of construction, the materials and the lifecycle analysis of those materials”.

Within the University the techniques and methods tested and pioneered through the building of the house, some of which were not available in 2008, will feed into research and teaching and ultimately contribute to the knowledge of the entire construction industry.

But this is not an experimental building in the middle of a research park miles from anywhere. This building is being constructed in the very heart of Brighton within a University which has always championed public access and taken very seriously its connections and responsibilities to the City in which it is located. So not only will the contractors and staff and students from across the University have access to the project, local schools and other communities will also be able to get involved.

This is a project with real passion for the people involved as well as for the architecture. Mears Group, for instance, agreed to take on the foundations not only because it gives them the opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to sustainable materials and low carbon building but also because it gives their apprentices, many of whom have not achieved academically, a glimpse into the life of a University with the possibility that one of them might then be inspired to study for a degree in architecture.

A great project all round. And you can contribute to this particular Grand Design from as little as £2. For more details of how you can get involved visit http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/business-and-community/the-house-that-kevin-built/funding-for-brightons-thtkb

I shall keep you posted!

The most delicious chocolate brownie ever?

Now, I am a bit of a connoisseur when it comes to all things chocolate and today I was treated to the most wonderful sea salted caramel pecan brownie from Paul A Young’s fabulous boutique chocolaterie at the Royal Exchange in London.

Ronnie Fox  who introduced me to this chocolate heaven (and kindly bought me the brownie) assures me that the hot chocolate which is made on the premises is also particularly good. And it certainly smelled divine.

Paul was in the Royal Exchange shop today and told us that he is busy working on his mother’s day collection. We have offered to act as tasters – if the current selection is anything to go by, the mother’s day chocolates will be sensational!

If you ever get the chance to visit, do so. Paul also has a shop in Camden Passage in Islington where he hand-makes the chocolates. And there is a website where you can look longingly at some of his creations  (but sadly can’t yet buy). 

A word of caution to anyone planning to buy Paul’s chocolates as presents for other people or indeed asking someone else to buy them for you – there are many stories circulating of chocolates being consumed on the way home and never reaching their intended recipient…You have been warned!!

For more information, visit Paul A Young’s website http://www.paulayoung.co.uk/

PS Since I first posted this, I have been in touch with Judith Lewis who is a big fan of Paul and regularly blogs about his work at http://mostlyaboutchocolate.com/ A great blog for chocoholics!

By all means sell to me but don’t scare me witless first

I know these are hard times for businesses but I have had four examples this week of very hard sell.

Example 1

Telephone call on my mobile from an insurance broker telling me she “needs to speak” to me about my home insurance. Then a letter, saying there are a few “points on your home insurance which need clarifying”. Feeling rather unnerved by this point and wondering whether there is a problem with the cover, I ring up. Of course, the brokers are just trying to secure the renewal of an existing policy. Actually, I am still comparing quotes.

Example 2

Letter from accountants warning that the risks of an in depth tax enquiry by HM Revenue & Customs have continued to increase. “HMRC officers are now using new wider powers to visit premises and inspect financial records…and the professional costs of defence are rising” and moreover “Even if you have done nothing wrong, the taxman will not give up and will still try hard to find errors”.  And the way to provide “peace of mind” against such an onslaught is of course to pay for “Fee Protection” which incidentally costs almost as much again as the cost of preparing accounts. Terrifying.

Example 3

Letter from a party wall surveyor informing us that they understand from council records that our neighbours are building an extension to their property and that they are writing to let us know some “important legal information”, namely that the Party Wall Act applies if the extension involves “digging foundations within three metres” of our house.  In these alarming circumstances we should appoint a surveyor “to safeguard” our legal rights and here’s a handy form we can complete nominating them. All very well except that we know that the “extension” is in fact a new bungalow our elderly neighbour is building at the end of her garden, nowhere near our house.

Example 4

Telephone call from the call centre of a nationwide optician telling me that my “next appointment is due” and indeed “recommended” by the optician and offering to arrange it.  That’s fine except I have no ongoing relationship with any optician and this was simply one of the last companies which checked my eyes a couple of years ago.

Whilst I am happy to consider buying all these services if I need them, I do object to being frightened or pressurised into buying them. Anyone else had similar experiences?

Help build a Grand Design from as little as £2!

Love Grand Designs? Always wanted to build your own but lacked the funds? Interested in sustainability, innovative building methods and all things green? Here’s the chance to help rebuild Kevin McCloud’s famous eco house.

Planning permission has just been granted for the University of Brighton to rebuild The House That Kevin Built which was first erected in London’s Docklands live on Thames TV in six days in 2008 for Channel 4’s Grand Designs Live and heralded as the UK’s first low-energy prefabricated house made from eco-friendly materials.

The house was later dismantled but  – and here’s the exciting part – the concept is being reborn in the courtyard of the University of Brighton’s Faculty of Arts.

Kevin McCloud, the British designer who presented the TV programme, is backing the idea along with Brighton & Hove City Council and the Building Research Establishment . The house was designed by architect Duncan Baker-Brown, a Brighton graduate.

In an article for Grand Designs Magazine, Kevin writes:

If you made it to Grand Designs Live at ExCeL in London in the spring of 2008, you will have been greeted by the sight of my house.Thousands of you tramped round it. I slept there during the exhibition, in fact, spending my 49th birthday there. It wasn’t, of course, the house where I spend the bulk of my time and which is full of my detritus. It was the house that I built, admittedly with the help of around 73 muscular adults, in just six days as an exemplar project of where domestic house building might go…..

The house came down, sadly, as it was there only for the duration of the exhibition, but being a component-built project it was always intended that it might go somewhere else. The exciting news is that it now has a new home in Brighton where we’re hoping to reincarnate it as a project for the University. The House That Kevin Rebuilt is goingto fit in the quadrangle of the Faculty of Arts in Grand Parade, which is a lump-of Hemcrete’s-throw away from the Royal Pavilion, so it’ll be available to see for anyone in the towncentre.

It will also provide a working laboratory for researchers to monitor the building’ s performance, carbon footprint and evolution. Different faculties will be involved and the building adapted and furnished by students.. ..

And here’s where you come in – £300,000 is needed to re-build the house. All donations to the University are eligible for both Gift Aid and the government’s matched funding scheme; for every £2 received in philanthropic donations, the University can claim an additional £1 from the government.

If you would like to make a donation to the project, click here and you will be taken to the University’s secure JustGiving site. Mention The House That Kevin Built in the comments box when you make the donation to ensure that your donation goes directly towards re-building this unique Grand Design.

More information HERE.

How to tell your Baby Boomers from your SWOFTIES

I was reminded to write something about labelling certain sectors of the population when a friend I met on the train this week (a self evident “Baby Boomer”) was trying to hold himself out as a “Generation X-er”.

So here goes:

Matures

By far one of the more complimentary names, “Matures” purportedly refers to people born before the Second World War.

Baby Boomers

People born roughly between 1946 and 1964 are often called baby boomers after birth rates boomed following the return of the soldiers after the Second World War. The term “baby boomer” divides opinion. Some like its rather positive, upbeat overtones while others consider it pejorative, suggesting pre-geriatric toddlers.

Generation X (or the Baby Busters)

People born between 1965 and late 70s /early 80s.  According to some, this is the generation with a fondness for leisure which is not afraid to spend money.

Generation Y

Also known, rather dashingly, as the Millenium Generation, Gen Y-ers were born in the 1980s and 1990s.

SWOFTIES

A new one, this, coined I believe by the Financial Mail this week, SWOFTIES are Single Women Over 50 who like clubbing, Twitter and exotic holidays.

SKI-ERS

Baby Boomers and Matures spending the kids’ inheritance. We seem to be hearing less about this group these days, perhaps because the kids are just as likely to be spending their parents’ retirement fund in an effort to get on the housing ladder

Sandwich Generation

These are people caught in the middle of looking after their parents whilst raising their children. Not to be confused with :

Club Sandwich Generation

Grandparents looking after grandchildren, helping children out financially and caring for their own elderly parents.

So there you have it.  Although a marketeer’s dream, labelling like this is not that helpful and noone comes out of this sort of classification well (although the SWOFTIES seem to be having fun!).

PS

Since first publishing this list, www.virtualgranny.com have also suggested MAPPY = Mature Affluent Pioneering People with Youthful Enthusiasm  which has a nice ring to it!