The test I apply to any shoe now is simple: what do my feet feel like at four o’clock on the first day? With these, the honest answer was nothing in particular, which I have decided is the highest compliment a shoe can be paid. The upper is soft rather than stiff, so it gives where the foot is widest instead of pressing back, and there was no rubbing at the spot where every other pair has left its mark. I wore them to work on day two, which I would not normally risk with anything new.

Most shoes in my size narrow to a shape my foot has never been. These are cut with extra space through the toe and forefoot, so my toes sit side by side the way they do barefoot, and nothing digs in across the joint where my bunion is. I take a UK 6 and ordered my usual size, which was right. They go from UK 3.5 up to UK 8, and if you are between sizes or have a wide foot I would take the larger of the two — the laces pull it snug again.

Underfoot there is a padded, shock-absorbing sole with a little more under the heel, which gives a steadier feel than I expected from something this light. The difference shows up late in the day rather than early. A morning on the hard floors at the garden centre used to leave my heels aching by the evening. Now it mostly does not. I am not going to tell you a shoe will cure anything, because it will not. But there is a real difference between standing on something that gives and standing on something that does not.

They lace, but only in the way a slipper laces. The opening is soft and cut low, so the foot goes in without bending down to hold the heel back, and the laces stay tied. I tied mine loosely in the first week and have not touched them since — they go on and off like a slip-on. If your fingers have given up on fiddly fastenings, as mine largely have, that matters more than it sounds.

I have worn them four or five days a week since the start of July — to work, to the market, to my sister’s in Guildford and back — and they have held their shape. The colour has not faded and the pale sole has picked up exactly one scuff, which came off with a damp cloth. That is the whole of the care routine as far as I can tell: wipe them, keep them out of the washing machine, let them dry away from the radiator.

This is the part I did not expect. I thought a loafer would be the difficult one in the wardrobe, saved for something. Instead it turns out that a plain shape in a soft colour goes with nearly everything — jeans, navy trousers, a plain dress, my green work fleece. It lifts an outfit rather than arguing with it, and I get asked about them roughly once a week. There is a black pair as well, though the beige is the one I would choose again.