“Amateurs talk about tactics, but professionals study logistics.” – Gen. Robert H. Barrow, USMC (Commandant of the Marine Corps) noted in 1980
Julia has had a lecture from Number One Son. She let something slip about her trip to hospital and he wanted to know why she hadn’t told him. I’m beginning to know what my grandparents felt like when my parents told them off for various misdemeanours (like the time we called on my grandmother and found her standing in the kitchen sink to replace a light bulb).
I have a fairly hands-off approach to the care of the elderly and, as with my child rearing, feel that they turned out well despite my neglect.
Anyway, Number One Son and his partner sent Julia flowers. That is what is in the picture. I’m not actually sure whether partner is accurate, because nobody ever tells me anything. I’m considered to be “tactless”. However, he’s been hanging round with her for several years now and she hasn’t applied for a restraining order so I deduce that they may be an item.
We bought the curtains at a car boot about 15 years ago
Then it was my turn, as he texted me to make sure we had enough food in.
Ha! Do I look like I’m going to let myself starve? I read a quote recently – you can see it at the top of the post. It applies to many other things too. The fight against coronavirus shows how important it is to have the right equipment. The food shortages show how important it is to have strong supply chains.
Anyway – I have enough food to eat well for the next two weeks. After that I will run out of bread and milk, so will have to have black tea and make porridge with water (yes, I know that’s the proper way, but I do like milk). After that I have food for two more weeks eating out of cans and packets – including Spam and canned haggis. I’m pretty sure there are enough odds and ends for a few days beyond that too, but they really don’t bear thinking about.
At the moment I still can’t get a food delivery for this month, so I’m going shopping on Wednesday morning. TESCO has a Wednesday morning slot for the elderly and infirm. If it cuts down on queuing I have no pride.
The top two pictures show the flowers and, regrettably, the Car Boot curtains we bought about 15 years ago. Garish, dated, but functional and cheap.
The other shows roasted veg (carrot, parsnip, leek and broccoli) with cauliflower and cheese sauce. I made the sauce like Welsh Rarebit, hence the yellow colouring – it’s from the mustard.
My tea tonight
We can’t get a supermarket delivery slot either and have given up trying. We can get deliveries from a greengrocer in a local town and have made a bulk order with a few neighbours to make it a worthwhile trip for him. There is also a meat-smoking business about a mile away which usually supplies hotels and restaurants. They have been making up meat packs and selling and delivering them to locals. I still can’t get ordinary plain flour/self-raising flour or yeast though a local health-food shop gets organic bread flour now and again and we have bought some. We go to the supermarket once a week to get a few things we need but mainly to get Mum’s shopping.
It’s very annoying when you are told to avoid people but don’t actually have the choice.
I know people who are travelling 60 miles to deliver food to elderly relatives, which isn’t really good for them.
Hope it all works out for you.
Thank you, Simon – and you too.
🙂
I would leave the tinned haggis right until the last if I were you.
I was thinking Fray Bentos tinned pie, Haggis, Haggis, Spam. However, I may move the Spam forward, based on your recommendation. Shopping trip tomorrow – I wonder what treats I will find.
Many and varied, I hope.
I have high hopes. It is ten days since I last went shopping and I am sure the shelves will now be groaning with with treasures like flour and tinned tomatoes.
That tea looks delicious! My mouth is watering. And how lovely for Julia to get those flowers.
It cheered her up. And the tea cheered me up!
The curtains are a perfect backdrop to the flowers; the mustard is a must.
I wonder what you would have commented if we had eaten cauliflower with shitake mushrooms? 🙂
Hope you are both keeping well.
I’d have run for the toilet paper 🙂 We are fine, thanks
🙂 Good to hear. Hope it continues.
I agree, your tea looks good. We still have to get out for our own groceries and supplies, but shop as quickly as possible, and not any more often than necessary, reasonably stocking up on what we can, where we can,
It is our plan too. It is ten days since our last shop, apart from the bread and milk we bought when we were out at the pharmacy last week.
It is the best most of us can do. We have tried but cannot get a supermarket delivery slot.
Your tea looks pretty good. Especially the cauliflower cheese…
It was healthy and reasonably palatable. I liked the mustard – the first time I’ve used it in cauliflower cheese.
Good supply chains are a big part of what won the Napoleonic wars for Old Nosey–he brought in lots of food overland, and actually also paid the farmers whose land they passed through when they took food, versus Napoleon’s bunch being forced to forage and loot, and hence losing a lot of solidarity with those whom they ripped of. Our supply chain is shorter and does not go through Portugal on a regular basis, but it gets the job done.
Yes, the more history I read, the more I realise wars are won by the most organised side.
Absolutely, armies running on their stomachs and all, having to have clothing and supplies–boots and well-fitted footwear, and lack thereof, killed many the US Civil War, I think it was, and probably in others–
Bad boots and trench foot were still an issue in the Falklands (1982).
We use a good approach shopping, back when there was shopping. Sales provided a lot of our supplies of nonperishable or hardly-perishable goods, hence our now having lots of the chocolate and toilet paper and coconut oil and mayonnaise since it was all on sale in the last few months and still in good shape.
Good plan. I will be reviewing our shopping methods after all this is over.