dainty little footsteps

I'll fill this in tomorrow, if I remember what I was going to say. I'll just add that I've finally got round to watching the first of the new beer-sponsored Alan Partridge clips and am finding that there's something about this incarnation of the character which really reminds me of a colleague, though the colleague didn't noticeably remind me of previous incarnations of Alan Partridge, though he will henceforth.

***

"Good afternoon...

A colleague has recently booked our office's winter festive period meal in your Edinburgh venue for this Friday (10th Dec). Unmentioned at the time when the deposit and balance of the meals' cost was collected, a reminder email she issued today stated that you apparently operate a dress code including "no trainers". Whilst I can understand that you might want to prevent the ingress of people wearing distastefully neddish white trainers, considering the slideyness of the conditions underfoot at present and the likelihood of conditions underfoot at the time our meal is scheduled to finish on Friday being equally slippy, how strict is this section of the dress code? Do you also discourage the wearing of walking boots, the only other sensible form of footwear for these conditions (though which provide much less traction than sensible non-white hill-walking trainer-shoes and which would probably be deeply uncomfortable to wear indoors during the three course of a meal)?

Regards...

wingpig."

"Good afternoon wingpig,

Our dress code policy is very strict, our stewards are trained to a very high standard and part of this training is on this policy, I would reccomend [sic] bringing a pair of smart comfortable shoes to change into once you are in the venue and you can put your walking boots in the cloakroom until you are ready to change back into them for the journey home.
Please let me know if this is unsuitable and we can try to create another solution.

Many thanks again and warm regards,

Venue Operative"

***

I'm tempted to see what other sorts of solution might be created. Perhaps I could pop past on the way home this evening and present the footwear I prefer to wear on my feet for walking any distance outside to see if they would be considered acceptable, especially when mostly concealed by trousers. I haven't checked their policy on shorts yet, though if they're going to get insistent about the shoes thing then it makes the wearing of trousers necessary. Although it's getting a bit more thawed outside it'll hopefully still be wintery enough between office and venue for my trainers to be dripping with slush by the time I swap them and hand them to the cloakroom-attendants, even though the stupid policy is not their fault.