i have no toes

This last Saturday I managed to flay the skin off of my little toe on my right foot.

I think flay is the right word.  It wasn't deliberate, as such.  I mean, I didn't set out to remove the skin, but the thing that caused its removal was something I kinda thought may cause that to happen.

I'll stop being cryptic - basically, I put a plaster on the toe next to my little toe and the action of me walking has caused rubbing which has initially formed a blister, but that's then quickly burst and so the skin has scraped off.

I was kinda afraid this would happen, as I've had the same effect before where a plaster on a toe has rubbed and taken the skin off or otherwise injured another toe.  The irony of course is that I put the plaster on in order to protect the first toe from the effects of rubbing.

The reasons for both incidents of rubbing are somewhat complicated.

Essentially I need some new shoes.  In fact I actually need a complete set of new shoes.  I need some new work shoes as the soles are nearly worn through on my current pairs (I have two for stupid reasons not worth explaining).  I need some new trainers because my current ones are rubbish.  I need some new walking shoes because my current ones are worn out.

Luckily I'm on holiday next week so I'll take the opportunity to buy all my new shoes then.

The other cause is I have feet that are very wide but not very long.  I think if you measure the length of my feet I actually only have something like size 9.  However, because my feet are so wide I generally have to wear size 10 or 11.

And you know what they say about men with wide feet - difficulty finding shoes that fit properly.  I can occasionally get wide fittings, but generally only in work shoes for some reason.

Anyway, the wide foot thing means that my toes get squished together.  Now I don't know if it's a reflection of this squishing, but my smaller toes tend to curl under quite a lot and are very close together.  This means that the two combined - close toes and ill-fitting shoes tends to lead to le getting the rubbing effect that's cause my skin to flay off.

My toe is very much on the mend.  I've been strapping it up with plasters and that worked quite well.  I obviously didn't do any walking on Sunday or Monday and this rest has also helped.

I'm sure I'll be totally fixed by the weekend and I was already fine doing a very short walk this morning.