Real stories · The heel I can actually walk in

I'd given up on heels because of the cobbles — these wedges gave me back a little height without a single wobble

The heel I can actually walk in — that's what these are. I'm 67, and I live at the top of Guildford High Street, which is beautiful, historic and made almost entirely of cobbles. Somewhere around sixty I quietly retired every pair of heels I owned. Not because I stopped liking them, but because every trip into town in them turned into a slow, careful audition for a hip replacement. So it's been flats ever since: sensible, steady, and about as exciting as a bus timetable.

What I wanted was a little height back — without the wobble.

Then I found the Signe from Susan and Kate London — ankle boots with a wedge heel and a neat round toe, and I chose the black, which goes with absolutely everything in my wardrobe.

The wedge is the whole point. A normal heel balances you on a spot the size of a coin; a wedge keeps the whole length of the sole on the ground, so there's nothing to tip over and nothing to catch between the cobbles. That's why I get the lift of a heel while my feet behave as if I'm in flats. The ankle sits comfortably without squeezing, so they're fine from the first coffee to the last errand, and the side zip means they're on in seconds — no tugging, no sitting on the stairs wrestling with them.

A wedge keeps the whole sole on the ground, so I get the height of a heel with the steadiness of a flat — and the cobbles have finally stopped winning.

They were £39.95 in the sale, half the usual £80. I hesitated for about a minute, then reasoned that they'd replace both the heels I'd stopped wearing and the flats I'd stopped enjoying. And with 30 days to send them back and free delivery, the only real risk was liking them.

Three weeks in, they've done the Saturday market, a long lunch with Pauline and a christening in Godalming. Pauline asked where they were from before we'd even sat down, and Graham — who has heard me complain about my feet for a decade — noticed I'd walked the whole High Street without once taking his arm. He seemed almost disappointed. They were £39.95 in the sale, half the usual £80.

If you also quietly retired your heels years ago, do have a look. The Signe is rated 4.8 out of 5 by more than 240 women, it comes in black, khaki, beige and brown, in sizes 3 to 8 — and at half price, the black always goes first.