KEY POINTS:
Some time between 2002 and 2004, the penny dropped. It rolled out of a big old sensible bag that held everything required for Armageddon and into a bright yellow Ferragamo that contained everything required for a different kind of emergency - a selection of lipsticks, perfume and a
diary with appointments with a genius hairdresser booked months in advance.
It had taken decades but it had finally dawned on me: a pair of modest heels was not selling out the sisterhood; hair colour was not a cardinal sin. There was joy to be had in decoration and it did not require public floggings or hours spent in the feminists' confessional.
Trouble is, a few of us had taken the "women can do anything" mantra of the 80s and contorted it to mean "women can do everything", except of course be like women.
So we owned power drills not hair dryers and our clothes shouted sensible, sensible, sensible. The rule of unmanicured thumb: if you couldn't sprint in it or swing an axe in it, you couldn't possibly wear it.
But there was nothing in the rules to say you couldn't keep the girly trimmings. And many did. The fact they had lipstick on still meant they could change flat tyres. Chainsaws could still be wielded, just not while wearing Italian pumps. Think about it: makeup and hair colour haven't stopped Green MP Sue Kedgley being a ferocious warrior - just ask the fast food industry.
By and large though, this balanced approach had passed me and my practical shoes by. But help was at hand. It came in the form of friends who I suspect cannot change flat tyres and wouldn't countenance the idea of even trying, and two TV vixens who've made millions out of telling us all What Not To Wear.
The friends - truly the Kiwi equivalents of Trinny and Susannah but with firmer views - had probably had me on their radars for years.
One was encouraging in a sergeant major kind of way: "This would look great on you. Try it on. Go on, try it on. Try it on!"
The other, disparaging in a tough love kind of way. "What is that?" she'd demand to know, hands on hips and casting her eyes over the walking advertisement for retirement home chic before her.
Truth is, I'd got to the point where I simply didn't care - and I'd be buggered if anyone was going to tell me how to dress.
No, I was above such superficiality and, one day, the world would surely see the inner beauty in the bag lady look.
While I was waiting for humankind to finally have its epiphany, what the friends had been saying began to have resonance.
I began noticing the fun they had in shoe stores and the office excitement engendered by a colleague walking in with their haul from a High St sale.
What was so terribly wrong with superficial joy?
So under the guidance of the local Trinny I went shopping and - sorry Dr Bollard - flourished the credit card like a woman who had a sugar daddy rather than a mortgage the size of a small country's national debt.
A simple little frock started the ball rolling. Then a pair of flat, black boots. Comfort and style - there might be something in this lark.
Fun? It was a helluva lot more fun than moving a cubic metre of river stones or doing a valve grind on a Mark I Cortina.
Then came Trinny and Susannah, hell on heels for the badly dressed among us.
This was when they were still brilliant, incinerating track suit pants and hoisting tits into the correct size bras - and not messing around in people's marriages and mental health like they do now.
Their rules were a revelation and all of a sudden I had guidelines. Solo shopping was on the horizon.
Now I enjoy a few of the trappings, although me and my Visa still don't - can't - have the stamina of some of my seasoned campaigner friends.
Funny thing is, it hasn't stopped me railing against sexist telly ads or doing a spot of tiling. Wasted youth? Perhaps, but it's a bit like giving up smoking - never too late.
If there is a motto to this story it's this: a pair of gorgeous heels will always be there, but your knees may not.
Get in while you can.
