Shoe Pockets

My instructions to the daughters upon entering the house are "Shoes off! Slippers on!" or, a variation on that theme - "Wellies off! Slippers on!" My instructions to the daughters upon exiting the house are "Slippers in the Shoe Pockets! Shoes on!" These are usually bellowed, on the basis that upon entering, there are wafts of hard-earned warm air pouring out the front door and so I want them to hotfoot it in that door pronto and slam the door shut; and upon exiting, we are probably not far off running late.

I was being driven mad by the fact that, despite having this being a nice roomy house, it has an oddly narrow and under-equipped hallway, with no porch and thus nowhere for the throwing off of the vast number of garments we are requiring in this inclement weather (my favourite being those lovely -6 degrees days - ah, the frozen toes, ah the rosy nose...hm.). As a consequence, there was no order, and I could never find anything and it was driving me round the bend.

So, I made the Shoe Pockets, and also A New Rule. Or rather two - No. 1 is that these daughters shall possess no more than a sum total of 3 pairs of footwear each - slippers, wellies, shoes. That's it. If their shoes don't match what they're

wearing, hard cheese. Rule No.2 is that there will always be one pair of foot things on their feet, and two pairs in their shoe pockets. Things must live, on pain of death, in the Shoe Pockets. But what about when they're in bed, I can hear you saying - ah well, they have the Shoe Box upstairs, where they put their slippers, so they're ready for the morning. I don't make them wear their slippers in bed. Or in the bath or anything. Not that there is anything wrong with that - I once wore my wellies to bed I loved them so much. (This is when I was a child, I might add).

There is only one thing which scuppers this very sensible set of rules to help keep the blasted hallway tidy and that is the thing known as Their Father. Their Father whooshes in the door with the daughters in a whirlwind of chaos and smarties, and shoes get flung willy-nilly and you can't find their slippers and there's half a pair of wellies in the car and the other half up someone's sleeve and coats beflung on sofas and shoes in the fireplace and oh, well, it all goes pear-shaped. Instead of pair-shaped.