My feet hurt

I've got problems with my feet. I need to share this on the world wide web and with my small readership. My heels on both feet have got skin on them that is as hard as my mothers personality, as hard as the application form to join the the British Home Office, as hard as the backside on a white Rhino. It would take a laser gun to remove my feet skin. They both became hard when I started running again. I have tried in vain to find what we call in civilized society a "Chiropodist" (a foot man) here in Moscow, after all, we have them in England, so why not here? No such luck. After various emails to different people asking them this very question and annoying as many people as I could, I found out they don't exist in Russia. You can have a "pedicure" and visit one of the many and very popular nail and pedicure salons that are in abundance here in Moscow, if you don't mind sitting with many women while they gossip in Russian about their husbands or menstrual cycles.

I took matters literally into my own hands the other day. I took a large kitchen knife and cut off what I could reach on my feet. It was enjoyable in a masochistic kind of way, although delicate and hard to do with one hand while sitting on a stool in the kitchen and trying not to cut off 3 inches of foot. It was like being let loose on an old Dutch cheese that had been left to mature in a cold dark cellar for three years. My feet had (and still have) a thick hard crust on them. I sliced through my cheesy crust with the knife, watching small bits of yellow crust litter the kitchen floor. I did this before my wife came home or she may have thought I have finally lost it. I had started this "self surgery" a few days before in the bath. It began by picking a tiny flap of loose skin on one foot. I began pulling it, as you would a lose bit of wallpaper or a bit of sun burnt skin, once you begin its hard to stop and becomes an obsession. Now as a result, I have painful heels and am limping around, before Christmas a woman did come to my flat (a home visiting pedicurist) to do my feet, she came with one of those old fashioned razor blades like your dad or grandfather used to have and nothing else. I had expected her to have come with fresh soft towels, creams and a foot stool etc. No such luck, my dreams of professionalism were once again thrown into the flames . A smile was not part of her service, although if I scraped feet for a living, I would not smile.

This morning on my daily 5.30 PM treadmill jog, I limped and ran on my toes. I hope my feet will get better soon or that I find a good foot person, it will probably be a pedicurist. Sorry to share my foot problems with you dear reader.

Cheesily yours, English Dad In Moscow.

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