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Well, it's a bit belated (Happy New Barefoot Year, everyone, BTW), but I was able to be barefoot outdoors on the final day of 2010, due to temperatures being as "mild" as around 0°C/32F, although the weather was holding a potential danger, since it was drizzling, rather than snowing, which might have turned sidewalks into treacherously slippery black ice tracks... Fortunately, it didn't, and since the sidewalks I regularly use were mostly cleared of snow and slush, I decided to make a barefoot shopping trip to town.

And since I was about to show my bare toes to the the world, it was time to get them into nice shape, including cutting my toe nails. And as I was doing so, holding my toes, while cutting the nails, I felt the formerly blistered skin underneath the frostbitten toes of my right foot coming loose, and as I carefully pulled, it came off, revealing fully-healed, new and quite tender skin below. So, the sources I've read were right in telling me, that a full healing can take up to three weeks... in my case it were 15 days, which tells me that my body deals with such small injuries quite well. From one of the two toes, the old skin, which had felt like leather, when it was still on, came off looking like a tiny leather bag. To show the size of that - literally - self-made piece of leather, I put a European penny, a 1-cent coin (diameter: 16.25 mm - 0.64 inches) next to it on my palm. Certainly, those crime shows on TV must have influenced me in using a scale marker like a penny and taking a picture of it:

http://www.barefoot-spring.net/barefoot/fri311210-2.jpg

I wonder, what my favourite TV criminologist, Abby Sciuto, might think about this... After all, Pauley Perrette was seen barefoot a few times on NCIS and elsewhere as well...

http://www.barefoot-spring.net/baref...e-barefoot.jpg

Anyway, in some spots a bit of the old skin remained, and the danger was, as it is with any open blister, that the tissue underneath might be too tender for my plans to go out barefoot and have my toes meet near-freezing cold ground (or even colder in spots where salt had been used), possible skin irritations from that salt, the occasional still-frozen slush and snow, or the melted slush, which feels even colder than the frozen sort. Those two toes now felt like totally untrained tenderfoot toes, very soft and fragile. I decided to take a few precautions to protect me feet from the cold, such as putting on my leg warmers, not putting on toe rings, packing a pair of emergency shoes (my usual office Birks, to be precise) and applying bag balm to my soles and toes to keep the skin supple and warm - the massage effect from rubbing it onto my feet as well as the insulating quality of that thick cream warmed my feet up considerably... and made them smell nicely of marigold, too (that being one of the ingredients of that cream). Furthermore, the protective layer of grease also prevented salt to gnaw on my now partly tender toes. Thus prepared, I went out, felt the pavement underfoot, which was not as cold as I figured it to be, and went on my way to the tram stop. On one short strip of sidewalk, I encountered partly frozen slush and hard-packed snow, with fine grit strewn over it, for anti-skid purposes. On this, bare feet again proved best as far as traction is concerned. And even though I stepped on little spots of frozen slush with a fine film of rain water on it, I never slipped. Score one for bare feet in winter. I made it to the tram stops, with feet showing no signs of coldth damage, and even the tender toes felt OK, with only a slight tingle from the cool temperatures.

http://www.barefoot-spring.net/barefoot/fri311210-4.jpg

After waiting five minutes, the tram arrived and I got on, feeling my feet warm up immediately, the protective bag balm coating still working. And even though I had walked on parts of the sidewalks that had been salted, there was no burning or irritating sensation on any part of my bare soles. I sat in the tram, reading a book, listening to my favourite music (of course, I had my acoustic shielding device - the MP3 player - with me, as usual). There were next to no reactions on my barefoot state from other passengers on the tram, "The Look"® did not occur as yet.
On getting off the tram at the central station underground stop, some people saw my bare feet, and those were the first occurrences of "The Look"®, but only mild ones. I didn't see people making fun of it, but just astonished faces on the way from the underground stop into the mall and to the ATM. On entering the supermarket, it felt like someone had issued a warning of sort, that people should get out and hoard comestibles, since there was a long weekend ahead. All checkout lanes were open, with ten or more people queueing up at each line. I got a shopping cart, and made my way through the aisles, getting the goods I needed, and never thought about the only danger for bare toes while doing so: the cart's rear end with the wheels to stub toes on... and so, I went through the supermarket without any toe damage. After I had what I came for, I joined the trend of the other shoppers in queueing up at one of the checkout lanes. Standing there, my bare toes met the unbelieving stare of a little girl, who then pointed out my bare feet to her mother. She glanced at my feet, then at my face, both disapprovingly, then ignored me. Since that girl and her mother were of Turkish - and most likely Muslim - origin, they treated bare feet in public as looking at something "unclean" in the terms of their religion. I have often met looks of disapproval and even loathing on the faces of Muslim people when they beheld my bare feet - and sometimes they even spat out disdainfully after seeing me walk barefoot. Talking about bare feet and hygiene... I think that such behaviour, leaving wads of their spittle on the sidewalks, is way less hygienic than walking barefoot. Other than that occurrence of "The Look"® from that kid, my shopping went by unhassled, and after paying and packing my bags, I went out of the mall - which was way overheated, as usual - and went outside, to cool down a little and have a smoke before my tram was due to leave. At the mall's exit, a few spots had been cleared of snow and slush, and the pavement was feeling cool and wet underfoot.
Standing there, enjoying the cool and relaxing sensation of the wet pavement, I met two strong occurrences of "The Look"®, as a woman, accompanying an elder man, was about to enter the mall and took a quick glance at my bare feet and hery eyes went so wide that they were in danger of popping out of their sockets, her mouth open - with that expression, she looked me in the eyes, then back at my feet, then poked her accomplice, just as they entered the mall. Had her jaw been unhinged, it would have done the typical Tex Avery cartoon wolf's jaw drop to the ground with its trademark metallic clang. The wide-eyed look of shock also reminde me of that typical wolf's reaction before wolf-whistling and howling (typically on beholding a cartoon bombshell of a woman)

http://www.musclecars.net/parts/part...0696410762.jpg

The second reaction was a man, who also had a smoke a few steps away from me, not noticing my bare feet for a few minutes, but as he beheld them did a double-take, and moved his lips, most likely asking "Isn't that too cold??" while pointing at my feet. Since I had my MP3 player turned on, I could most easily ignore his question and on seeing my non-reaction, he shrugged, went to the ashtray/trachcan combo, stubbed out his cigarette and went inside. At least he properly disposed of his cigarette butt other than flicking it to the ground, as some other people passing by did.
Other than those two strong reactions, "The Look"® occurred only seldomly, since people tend to look downwards less often checking for footwear in colder seasons. Therefore, as I went inside again to get to the underground stop to make my barefoot way home, I received again next to no reactions. And the same can be said about my tram trip home, with filled shopping bags placed on the tram's floor between my feet. On exiting the tram, a few passengers stared out of the window, just then realizing, that there was a man walking barefoot over near-freezing ground. I was paying more attention to the ground conditions, though, since the drizzle had increased, leaving more water on patches of frozen slush - and there was one such patch I had to master just at a ped crossing I had to use. Aside from having to wait for a couple with their pram (!) to cross the road safely, holding me up as well as car traffic - the mother had some difficulties pushing the pram through patches of almost ankle-deep, partly frozen slush - I had no problems walking on that surface. Even though sidewalks were tended to by people living in the adjacent houses (as it is their or the landlord's duty to do so, depending on their tenance contract), ped crossings were the duty of municipal winter road maintenance, and that clearly focused on keeping the roads free for motored vehicles, not caring much about pedestrians, be they barefoot or shod.
Even though the father had taken over pushing the pram through the slush, they only made slow progress, blocking my way, too, since they were en route to the same apartment house I live. Anyway, I got back home safe, unhassled, pain-free and with my "new toes" feeling A-Okay, too.

All in all, it was a successful test of barefooting for my newly healed toes as well as a fitting end of the barefoot year, spent unshod outdoors for a short while, too.
And now, it's off to a happy barefoot new year - with lots of barefooting ahead, to be sure.

Wiggling bare toes, wishing for a milder rest of winter, ;)

~*Txim Asawl*~