It’s no secret I have an illicit love affair with Pinto’s in Glasgow ever since it opened & things just got better….. they are sharing the love!

My immune system is terrible. Any bug that is going around the office, I catch. I’m a chest infection gold medalist, 6 times in under a year is my record. On that sadly, I’m not proud of. I don’t know why I keep picking up bugs… air conditioning at work? sitting close to others who have the dreaded man flu? or just plain bad luck?

My local GP knows me by name without looking at my encyclopaedia thick medical records & I’m quite lucky that he’s only 5 minutes down the road. I can normally get an appointment within 48 hours or an emergency one on the day if really needed.

Most recently, in between quitting my hell of a last job (blog post on that coming up soon!) and starting my new dream job, I got a really bad dose of the flu which turned into a really bad chest infection, I couldn’t breathe without coughing my guts up, I started choking from coughing so much, got into a panic attack because I couldn’t breathe properly then started crying in pain. Not really a great first impression when you start a new job? But there I was, stuck in a hotel away with work, so ill I could hardly move but I couldn’t take any time off ill and out of antibiotics that I was prescribed by my doctor back home.

I called NHS24 for help and they suggested I find UK medical centers nearby the hotel I was staying at & register as a patient but the only problem with that was I had to wait nearly a week for an appointment. So, with no antibiotics, I had to try battle through a killer of an illness with the help of a local pharmacy picking out cough syrup, pain killers and a nose inhaler for me to help control the pain. It was the longest month of my life being that ill & touch wood I haven’t been ill since!

I hate the fact that GP’s in the UK do not have work friendly hours, which was featured in this BBC broadcast. They operate between 9-5pm and sometimes, especially in my case, I couldn’t go to a GP between those hours as I was hundreds of miles away from home & even though I went back home on a Friday afternoon, it was too late to ever get an appointment.

I don’t understand why they do not open on a Saturday to cater for those who can’t make appointments Monday to Friday due to other commitments. Growing up in Kuwait, our local GP was in a hospital nearby and you could go 24/7 without even making an appointment! Just wait in line & you were seen practically straight away. I miss those days! Maybe each local district in the UK is different, but it’s something that should really be looked at UK wide.

Now, due to working in another city every 3 weeks for the foreseeable future, I’ve had to register with another GP just so that if I do get ill again during my week away, I have a backup. I don’t want a repeat of what happened to me & being unable to do anything to help.

Do you have this problem? Do you have another GP you are registered to? Does your GP surgery open on a Saturday? OR are you one of the lucky ones who never needs to visit a GP? If so, I hate you. Yes. I do.

Shoes. Who doesn’t love them? From Casual Flats to Killer Heels…. all girls love them, some more than others. Personally, I have a love hate relationship with shoes. In my younger years, I used to walk around for hours in 5 inch heels with no problem, I could walk all around the malls in Kuwait with my killer heels, my feet never once hurt.

Fast forward a good few years later & a fractured coccyx, I had to give up my love of killer heels. I now rarely wear them because my feet & back end up killing me after an hour. It’s a shame really, why do killer heels need to look so pretty? Christian Louboutin teases me with shoes that I can never wear.

Instead, the 5’7 me wears flats on a day to day basis. Sure, I’m tall enough to not really need heels, but sometimes you want a little boost. Right?

In my work place, heels are not wise, especially with the amount of walking you need to do from one end to the other to get a good cup of coffee & food, so flats are the best thing ever to guarantee pain free toes. I was recently asked by Next to review a pair of shoes from their online collection. What girl could say no to a pair of shoes? Not me that’s for sure!

After browsing hundreds of shoes, wondering if I should get a pair of killer heels then being unable to walk in them, the practical me decided to get a pair of tan coloured loafers (approx £18) which I can colour co-ordinate with black & tan clothes (I’m a huge believer in colour co-ordination FYI!) in the office. Flat, so the potential of ripping my feet apart is limited & of course a pair that look good (you do get some hideous flat shoes!).

48 hours after ordering, they arrived at home. I took them out the box and my first thought was that they look even better than in the photograph online. The colour is a very intense tan colour which looks great with the clothes that I’d co-ordinate the shoes with. I tried them on and walked up and down the hall way to break them in a little.

Normally with wearing shoes for the first time, your feet would hurt after a while, but this was not the case with these shoes. Even after walking around for a good hour, my feet didn’t pinch, my heels didn’t rub or start burning which normally happens to me.

I ordered a Size 7 (41) and sometimes, depending on the style they can fit perfectly or be too tight, these fit perfectly. I was a little hesitant at first after I ordered the size, then I thought to myself, if they don’t fit me perfectly, then my mom could have them as she is a perfect Size 7.

Luckily for me, my mom never got to steal the shoes. She did however, model them for me so I could take photographs….

I have since worn the shoes to work several times, walked from one end of the campus to the other, went shopping after work in them & my feet are still in one piece, for a change! They were a great work wear choice & I’ve purchased a few other pairs of flat shoes from Next with the same pain free results.

Perfect.