Big Foot Syndrome

Here in beautiful Florence you can see so many churches and galleries you can develop something called Stendhal Syndrome. When the famous writer visited in 1817, he experienced a dramatic attack as he was leaving relic-drenched Santa Croce.
“I felt a pulsing in my heart. Life was draining out of me,” he wrote. “I feared I’d fall as I walked.”
There have been dozens of cases documented at Florence’s hospital since then. Symptoms range from dizziness and physical weakness to fainting and hallucinations. Some sensitive souls are said to reawaken past traumas amongst the endless majesty of all the masterpieces here.
It’s understandable. Which is whyI spend several hours a day holed up in my hotel room working on an outline for my next book (Florence must be on a creative vortex. It’s so easy to write here! But then beds miraculously make themselves and food appears in the pizzeria downstairs when I’m hungry).
Occasionally, I venture out and look at a gallery or an old castle awash with tapestries, paintings and statues – any of which would have pride of place in a museum back home. Stendhal’s right. It IS overwhelming.
The temptation is to wash it all away with a good dose of shoe shopping. The shoes here are amazing. Specially the evening shoes, covered in spangles and with heels tall enough to qualify as office blocks. I love them. I want them.
“Do you have a size 42 in these?” I shout at the shop assistant in case she can’t understand English.
She looks startled, then sad, as if I’ve shared news of a family bereavement.
“I’m very sorry, but our sizes only go up to 41,” she replies in perfect English.
“Are you sure?” I ask looking down at my two T bone steaks of feet in their holiday friendly jandals.
“You could try something a size down in another style…” she suggests, pointing at the closest thing she has to medical support boots.
I excuse myself and hurtle out of the shop.
 What’s wrong with my Antipodean feet?
I feel a pulsing in my heart. 
Just because my forebears strode dairy paddocks instead of piazzas doesn’t mean we don’t want to be glamorous sometimes.
Life is draining out of me. 
I feel like a freak!
 I fear I’ll fall as I walk – even in these sensible jandals.

Call an ambulance.
I have a serious case of Big Foot Syndrome.