Shoeless In New Zealand

Last year I was sitting having a coffee in Emerson Street - the semi-pedestrianised street in the centre of Napier which has many of the smart shops and cafés.  A young and exceptionally smartly dressed young lady walked down the road.  She would have turned heads in any society dressed in a smart summer dress complete with hat and handbag.  But what struck me was that she was barefoot.  In almost any other City I can think of she's have been wearing elegant shoes - probably with significant heels.  But not necessarily in New Zealand.

I thought of that today because an elegently dressed lady reading the weather report was also shoeless.  In actual fact, of course, we weren't supposed to see her feet.  But after the news was over and she walked over to the newsreader to chat the cameras remained on longer than usual and as she walked off the set there she was, barefoot.

I just love New Zealand!

Bare Feet

In New Zealand we all expect bare feet. Lots of them. In fact bare feet is a way of life. See That Season from last visit's blog as an example. It is usual, for example, to remove your shoes when you enter a house. It is not unusual in the summer to see people walking barefoot even in the streets. It was, however, a bit of a surprise after the News tonight to see the otherwise impecably dressed presenter run across the screen barefoot.

That Season

It's back into the Summer routine. Not a lot of difference to the usual routine except for one important step. Get up, shower, shave, and then cover all the bits that will be exposed during the day and which you have just got clean with factor 30 (thats a minimum at this time of year). The UV factor in New Zealand is very high indeed and one can burn very seriously in a few hours.

The incidence of skin cancer is very high amongst the older Pakeha who had neither the products to slather all over themselves nor the knowledge of what the long term results could be if they bared themselves to the sun.

Many children go to school either without shoes or discard them when at school. Bare feet is a way of life here. But go to school without your sun hat and you are confined to inside. Factor 30 and sun hats are compulsory at school.