I picked up my orthotic insoles today, and what a relief.

Raised on all those jokes about Captain Mainwaring and his arch supports, I had rather envisaged myself hobbling about like Igor with a hump, but far from it. They are thin, feather-weight and very discreet. And they feel like angels' wings on my feet. 

What it has shown up, though, is how parlous, in terms of support, my current summer shoes are. In summer I tend to wear peep-toe sandals of various kinds. Not ideal, says the podiatrist - they should be close-toed to prevent the orthotic slipping. It looks, therefore, like I can't put off the Crocs for very much longer, even though they are not within my budget, and until then will have to manage with plimsolls. 

One other relief was the price - 74 euros, pretty much every cent of which is reimbursed by the state and by my medical insurance.  "That's a lot less than I was expecting," I said. "In England it would be a couple of hundred pounds."

"In Paris too," said the Pod, smiling. "For the same soles there I charge 180 euros."

I suppose the idea of paying three or four times as much for your treatment in Paris as in rural Normandy would strike a lot of English people as weird, but there it is. It's because there is no NHS in France as such - the system is a collaboration between the state and your 'mutuelle', or top-up health insurer. For this, we currently pay about 1,700 euros a year.

Emergency treatment is free, of course, and treatment for people with specific diseases (cancer, permanent health problems such as thyroid deficiency etc) or on low incomes, or who are pregnant, but for the rest of us, many treatments and medicines are only 70 per cent covered and medics have the discretion to charge what they like for their services. 

The Orne, where I live, is a poor area and everyone here is here is 'conventionne', ie: medical people stick to the state-recommended tariff for treatments, which is one reason that I lucked out today.

I did not quite luck out with my dental plate. The price is 588 euros, of which the state pays only 142 and my insurance pays 70 of the rest, so I still have 132 euros of my own to find - a lot for me, but it will be nice to have my bite back. 

Hello girls - you may have noticed that I've been away lately. The reason is that we were switching this blog from Wordpress to ModX. Don't ask me why, but it's meant to make things better.

Anyway, I'm back, and this week I'm feeling much happier for having paid a visit to the chiropodist - something I haven't done since I was 11 (when it didn't go well at all...).

I had never had a pedicure before either. I don't mean one of those poncey beauty-parlour things. This was the real deal, with a man armed with the world's sharpest scalpel. 

The reason I had to go is that for a year or so now, I've been getting some pain in the sole of my left foot when I walk, a bit like there's a stone in my shoe. There's hard skin building up on both feet, too - one of those unglamorous things they never tell you about that get worse as you get older. Once you hit 40, the skin on your feet thins out generally, you can't wear heels so easily, and you have to start taking better care of your feet. Your toenails get yellower and thicker too, and you're more prone to fungal infections. All very delightful.

I have been putting this off for ages, but after a trip to a rose garden near Saumur a couple of weeks ago, where I walked for over three hours, I was a near cripple. A quick search on the interwebs found that these patches of rock-hard skin, immune to my daily and fervent scrubbing with a pumice, are called calluses. Oh goody I thought. Isn't that what carpenters get on their thumbs? If they were on the tops of my feet, apparently, they'd be the even more glamorous corns, which takes me back to my mum and her best mate Sylv paying their monthly visit to trim each other's corns, feet propped up on stools, laughing their heads off as they wielded their scalpels. Do women still do this? Not any that I know, thank God.

I was a tad miffed to find myself with this problem, as I have always paid the earth for good shoes - leather, leather linings, heels not too extreme. In summer, I mostly wear Footgloves, with low heels. My reward, I felt, should be decent feet in middle age.

Anyway, the doc sent me next door to the charmingly named 'podologue', Monsieur Robert. He turned out to be a nice man from Paris, who fitted me in the next day, installed me in what looked like a birthing chair and began to arrange a large tray of scary-looking instruments. "Don't worry..." he said, sterilising his equipment. Mmn. 

In fact, it was sheer bliss. 45 minutes later, my feet felt like a new set still in their wrapper. Pink, soft, glowing like a baby's, with tiny little soft pink nails. I can't remember when they've EVER felt like this, and the pain has completely gone. He even polished my feet all over with what looked like some sort of dental instrument before giving me a foot massage with essential oils. Bliss.

Monsieur Robert also explained that the problem I have is due to genetics. My big toe tendon is too short, which pulls up the ball of the toe, leaving the centre of my sole to take too much of my weight, which then reacts by producing calluses. It also makes my toenails rub against the tops of my shoes, causing the nails to become hard and yellow in self-defence. From now on, therefore, for the rest of my life, I must come in once or twice a year to get my feet treated. Otherwise, I suppose, they will end up like bear's claws.

Although it's not remboursable, unlike most medical treatment here, it was well worth it at 23 euros. In fact I can hardly wait for January to come around so that I can go again...