By Susan

It had been a busy day and Julie was on her way to the last appointment. Mr Patterson lived alone in a big house and was looking to renew his property insurance. His house was located up a small lane and access to the property was then via a wooden gate big enough to take a vehicle. Julie was looking forward to concluding this meeting as soon as possible so that she could get home, take off her high heels and take a relaxing bath. Pulling up at the gate Julie saw that it was closed. This was no problem as the lane had a compacted hard gravel surface, and although wet was not going to be a problem to stand on. Julie go out of the car and went to the gate only to discover that it had a chain and padlock keeping it closed. "Oh, crap!" Julie thought to herself. There was no time to mess around so Julie got back into her car, pulled it off to the side of the lane took her brief case from the back seat of the car and started back to the gate. Julie's black patent high heels crunched across the hard gravel surface and fell silent as she entered a small strip of firm grass just before the gate. To the right side of the gate was a stile allowing her to climb over the fence, which was no mean feat in her skirt suit, but she managed easily enough. The other side of the fence was completely different terrain with some corrugated iron sheets to step onto. These had obviously been set here because it looked as though water collected here from the field above. Stepping on to the corrugated iron sheeting was difficuly because of the ripples on the surface but it did at least serve the purpose of getting Julie past what seemed like the worst of the mud. Julie stopped at the edge of the iron sheeting to quickly survey the land ahead. She then stepped off of the sheeting and headed to the fence running up to the house, the damp grass tickling her ankles. Keeping a firm grip on the fence with one hand and the briefcase in the other Julie walked slowly up the slope toward the house coming to a small stream of water and some boggy ground. Testing the surface with the toe of her shiny right pump, Julie decided to take a step foward but felt the ground give a little making her withdraw her foot. Julie thought to herself that it might be a good idea to phone Mr Patterson to see if he could come down and give her a hand. Resting her brief case on top of the fence, Julie slid the catches open to take out her mobile phone. As she did this she lost balance and dropped her brief case, along with paper work and phone over the fence onto the muddy grass on the other side. Although the case could be seen easily it was out of reach. Cursing herself for her stupidity Julie stopped to think about what to do next. Julie then decided that if she were to put her leg through the fence she may be able to drag the case back towards her with her heel. After a few futile attempts at snaring the case Julie decided that the best thing to do would be to get herself up to the house and then get the case retrieved. Forgetting herself, she stepped forward into deep cold mud which instantly enveloped her right foot and lovely patent high heel, making her yelp with shock. Trying to keep her balance caused Julie to place all her weight on this foot forcing the pump down into the deep mire. Fighting to keep her balance and also trying to keep her other shoe from the muck Julie managed to stabalise herself and reaching for the fence pulled with all her might to get her foot out. She could feel the cold muddy water squelching around her nylon clad toes, and then with a slurping sound her foot came free leaving the pump stuck out of sight im the mud. Composing herself Julie was now thinking about how silly she looked immaculately dressed in her skirt suit with one muddy unshod foot, in a muddy field. There was now really no option but for her to get her shoe back and get to the house. Gingerly approaching the muddy patch where the shoe was buried, Julie pushed her hand slowly into the mud and sure enough a few inches down Julie felt the cup of the pump. Grabbing this Julie was able to extricate the muddied shoe, turning it upside down the slop hit the ground and splashed back on her other pump. Running her fingers around the inside of the shoe removed most of the mud so she could put the shoe back on, deciding that maybe it would be wise to grab the case now and head for home, phoning Mr Patterson to make her excuses once she'd cleaned up. Squelching back to the fence Julie crouched down and decided that if she got on her knees she would be able to reach under the bottom bar of the fence and grab the handle of the case. Gritting her teeth she knelt down and the toes of her pumps dug into the mud, popping the heel of the muddy right shoe off. Resting on one hand, Julie reached for the case and when just touching the handle she over reached and fell flat into the goo. The wet ground instantly soaked through the front of her suit, and she could feel the cold disgusting water run around her breasts. Grabbing the handle of the case Julie pulled it back under the fence. Pushing all the muddy papers back into the case and shutting it, she stood up stepping in the mud again. Once again, the now loose shoe, came off leaving her balancing precariously on one foot, dripping with mud. It was at this point that she heard a mans voice, it was Mr Patterson. He came over, retrieved Julies' shoe and helped her up to the house and it was at this point that he said "Why did you come this way? You should have driven round to the front!!!"