Ingrid still has long, painful-sounding coughing attacks, but is otherwise back up on her feet and not feeling too unwell. Perky enough to try on all the shoes she’s ordered. She desperately needs winter shoes, gym shoes, and running shoes.

We’ve arrived at that magical moment where Ingrid, Adrian and myself all have more or less the same shoe size. 39 is the magic number. We could all borrow each other’s shoes – if we didn’t have entirely different taste.

Ingrid wears classical sneakers like Vans and Converse, both low and high, mostly in black and white but sometimes also sky blue. She’s interested in shoes in a way the rest of us aren’t, and would gladly buy more shoes only because she likes them, not because she needs them.

Adrian also likes sneakers but values ease of use above other things (except comfort) so he can wear any brand as long as they have a velcro closure and no laces. In practise he ends up wearing black.

I choose shoes in soft leather in warm, deep colours.

Eric is the odd one out with his size 42 feet. Soft leather, like me, but usually black.

Although Adrian is surely bound to end up there as well in a few years. Ingrid’s feet may actually be near her final size, which would be practical because then we could stop buying new winter boots every single year.