Forgive me if this becomes a rambling shaggy dog story but I think there must be a moral in here somewhere. Something about synchronicity and shopping strategies? I don’t know yet.

For a long time (coming on ten years now) I’ve had this rule about buying shoes: only two pairs a year, but make sure they’re really good ones. I’ve rarely stuck to the letter of the law but it’s served me very well in spirit and by now I’m very happy with my little shoe farm.

The downside is that this has made me a shameless shoe snob, and being so very fussy about footwear means I don’t always know what I want. How could I when I haven’t found it yet? For instance, it took me several years to track down last year’s OTK boots, and when I decided this year that I wanted to wear skirts more and should probably consider another pair, of course I found myself looking at duplicates of boots I already had. What would be the point of that? So I decided: OK. I really don’t need more boots. I can make do with what I have.

Meanwhile, for ages a friend had been goading me to visit our local TK (that’s TJ to you) Maxx. We don’t have many of these here in NL and they tend to be in remote locations. We spent weeks trying to align our respective agendas so as to make this excursion happen.

We finally met on a glorious autumn afternoon. We had lunch on the terrace. I ran through my mental shopping list - more socks, loungewear for Mr Edge - but I wasn’t expecting to find much and I swore blind I wasn’t going to buy anything if I did. We made our way to our destination.

Now, I’ve talked here in the past about the mind tricks I use to keep myself from shopping indiscriminately. As usual, I’d dressed up nicely for the occasion to keep temptation at bay, but I’d made one fatal error and I didn’t realise until it was too late. I was wearing my wide legged jeans.

And I’m not kidding, I spotted them as soon as I walked through the door. I’ve no idea how this works, but sometimes I get this laser focus. They weren’t even in my line of sight, but they were the first thing I saw. This shouldn’t happen, but somehow it keeps happening and I can’t believe my luck.

Margiela MM6, priced right down. White, high shaft, a chunky block heel, too cute to pass over. Of course. Finally. This is how I’m supposed to wear cropped flares. Cuff them just so and I’m in business.