My husband sits down on the stairs and takes off his shoes. He looks balefully at each sole and tuts quietly.

What’s the matter, I ask, watching him pad barefoot down the hall. Actually, I’m watching the damp patches he leaves on the tiles evaporate.

Internally, I tut to myself as well. The soles have apparently finally caved in. Literally. Only the thickness of his socks separates his feet from the wet pavements. Bless his little cotton socks.

But the situation cannot be allowed to continue. The floor tiles will dry out but the living room carpet will be left with watermarks. It is clear that we are going to have to waste, er, spend this weekend buying shoes.

Saturday arrives and I’m up early, buying the papers, making breakfast, but it turns out that Saturday just isn’t the right time to buy the shoes. There are too many other things to do. Like the crossword, and the quiz in The Independent, and thinking and stuff. We’ll go tomorrow instead, he tells me. OK, I say. Whatever.

Sunday arrives and I’m up early, buying the papers, making breakfast. There is no question that Sunday isn’t the right time to buy shoes, unless he’s prepared to go to work on Monday in a suit and his snorkelling flippers. But we don’t seem to be making much progress towards going out. At least let’s agree what we’re going out for, I suggest. What type of shoes are you looking for?

After some considerable hand-wringing and profound deliberation, during which time you or I could have designed an extremely large hadron collider and still had time for a cup of tea, it emerges that the footwear in question will be mid-brown, of the low boot variety, almost certainly slip-on, possibly with optional speed-jets at the back for flying (OK, I made that bit up).

I sigh, from weary experience rather than obstinate pessimism, and off we go, me with my chin jutting out with determination to nail these boots today, and him treading gingerly round puddles in the thin cream canvas shoes he bought to go to Mallorca in 1992.

The first shop is, well, just too busy. We walk on by. The second shop has some very fashionable shoes in the window. By definition, apparently, the magic brown boots could not possibly reside in a store that accommodates platform soles. They’d have far too much self respect for that.

The third shop, thank heavens, seems like it might be a goer. It sells coats and shirts and hats, all of which look like the type of apparel a Canadian lumberjack might stick on before going out to the woods. Why someone who wears a suit to a job in an albeit small British city would have a wardrobe in common with a foreign woodcutter is one of life’s many little mysteries, but there you go.

We spot some brown bootlets and he tries them on. Too narrow. And a bit tight. And don’t actually look that good on. I stare at the mountain of boxes against the wall, which are categorised by six-figure item codes, non-UK shoe sizes, and many colours, and begin the ascent. Twenty minutes later, we’ve established several things. That one of his feet is still bigger than the other. That the brown boots are no good. And, looking round, that an awful lot of men who clearly have jobs in offices seem to nurse a secret hankering to be a lumberjack.

I leave my husband sitting on a stool and wander off for a few moments to look at leather bags. I turn round, and there he is, looking at his feet, a stunned smile on his face. He’s put on a plain pair of black lace-ups.

These are perfect, he says.

I nod my head. Yes, they are, I say. Spot on. We take them to the till.

Did you find what you were looking for, asks the cheerful assistant.

Oh yes, exactly, I say, the sole of discretion.