Tag Archives: shopping

Tales from Lockdown

“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

The Back of the Cupboard

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It is five days since I last went shopping, and we are planning a new expedition. I’m not looking forwards to it – I don’t really want to queue around the outside of the shop as they allow us to enter one at a time for a tour of the empty shelves. We have tried ordering home delivery, but can’t find a delivery slot – they are all booked up for weeks to come.

I won’t carry on with this complaint as I’ve said it all before, but I am confused as to why the shelves are still empty despite the restrictions on buying.

I feel a bit guilty about buying more food while we still have plenty, but it’s a question of quality rather than quantity. We have food, in the sense of having things to eat, but in terms of having a proper balanced diet we are nearly out of a number of staples.

To manage our food more efficiently I have been checking the backs of the cupboards. I didn’t find Narnia but I did find some mango chutney to go with my previous discoveries. I even found a tin of rice pudding whilst I was shuffling packets and counting tins.

We have, I think, enough food for three weeks, if I really push it. Unfortunately, this is only one week of balanced meals, as we are running out of fresh vegetables. It won’t include bread, as we are about to run out. Nor, soon, will it include milk, eggs, or salad. Our vegetable stew will be served without dumplings due to a lack of flour.

Happier Days…

Week Two will see us running out of fresh fruit and relying on tinned vegetables – beans, mushy peas and sweetcorn. Sadly, the fish fingers and tinned mushy peas will be served without potatoes, which are in short supply. The cheese will have gone by the end of the week. On a brighter note, we will have plenty of marmalade, though without toast to put it on this is a mixed blessing. If we have any surplus cheese biscuits I will try them with marmalade.

Week Three will see some real culinary horrors as the tinned haggis comes into play, teamed up with chick peas and lentils. I bought two tins of haggis when I was worried about Brexit but haven’t been able to face actually eating them.

Julia told me that there is a spoof email doing the rounds, and taking advantage of the fear of food shortages. It promises tins of pork, but people are advised not to open it as it’s just spam.

Sorry about that – when Julia told me I couldn’t stop laughing. We have a tin of spam on the shelf next to the haggis. We will have to see if I’m still laughing when we are reduced to eating it.

Haggis and root vegetables

A Week I Wouldn’t Want Again (Part 2)

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The day after the hospital trip we both had the day off. Julia didn’t feel like doing much so we sat at home and watched TV. Little did we realise, but within days this would become official Government advice.

After an hour I cracked and went out. I had errands to run and, as Julia pointed out, although I was trying to be solicitous and empathetic, I can be irritating in large doses. It was a bit of a strain for me too, as solicitude and empathy are not my natural territory. I tend more towards grumpy and sarcastic.

Julia decided to go to the gym while I was out, but after walking to the bus stop decided that was enough exercise for the day.

Thursday followed much the same pattern, though this time I went to work and Julia walked to the shop with a borrowed shopping trolley in search of vegetables for tea. There was still a reasonable selection of goods on the shelves, apart from toilet rolls and pasta, but we have plenty of toilet rolls and enough pasta so why worry?

There was, at that time, no sign of the Government descending into headless chicken mode, or the impending retail apocalypse.

On Friday Julia was back in hospital having a number of tests, including two brain scans which found nothing.

When she told me that, I smirked.

“You’re going to use that as a joke on the blog aren’t you?” she said. She has a low opinion of me as a humourist.

“No,” I said. “What sort of man would make light of his wife’s ill health.”

I think we all know the answer to that question.

The flowers – primroses and forget-me-nots – are from the Mencap garden. We are on holiday at the moment but nipped down just to check everything was alright.

A Better Sort of Day

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It was a better day today.

The tree is topped, the pigeons are inspecting the result, and the neighbour across the road has said she is already missing the view. She liked it as it was. This proves you can’t please all the people all the time.

The tree fellers have done a good, tidy job, despite there being just the two of them. (If you pretend to say “tree fellers” with an Irish accent the last line will make more sense. That same accent also explains why Leicester Tigers’ Billy Twelvetrees was known as Thirty Six.)

To make things even better, they worked quickly and charged less, so it was an economical sort of day.

Before…

…and After

Work went well, starting with me getting there early and taking loads of photos for the presentation. It’s only five or six days away, depending if you count Monday as one of the days.

That click you may have heard then is the sound of tension moving up another notch…

After work I had to go shopping. I lost the stylus that goes with Julia’s tablet, and she can’t use it by using a finger tip like I do. Did I mention I lost the stylus? She did. About a dozen times a night for the last two nights. It was getting to the point where I either had to go shopping (which I don’t like) or commit murder. I’m pretty sure they don’t allow WordPress in prison so I decided to go shopping.

The first shop stocks them, but had sold out. The second didn’t stock them. The third only had one left. At this point the full horror of coronavirus struck home – when China sneezes the whole world of cheap consumer goods catches a cold. (If it develops into a pandemic, with people falling dead in the street, this will probably seems like an unfortunate turn of phrase, but at the moment it seems apposite).

Magpie, shortly after being bested by a Gull

In the car park of the first one I saw two Magpies engaging in a tug of war with a packet of crisps, and reached for my camera. By the time I had switched it on a Black-headed Gull had swooped and taken the bag. The Magpies are looking shiny, and the Gulls are developing their (chocolate brown) heads. Spring cannot be far away, despite the plunging temperatures.

I have found out why hand gel and soap is in short supply – local school head teachers have, it seems, being laying in massive stores of it. Because nothing averts a pandemic like panic buying and hand gel.

Now, where was I?

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As far as the blog is concerned I’m eating cake in Derbyshire. In real life I am back in Nottingham, where I passed three increasingly unpleasant days at work and finally had a day of rest.

Today, Sunday, I had a lie in, read, shopped, snacked, snoozed and cooked.

As I speak, I am on the verge of serving ratatouille with Lincolnshire sausages, and also have a pan of vegetarian cottage pie filling simmering away. Tomorrow we will have the pie, with a topping of mash, and on Wednesday we will have the remains of the ratatouille, probably with a baked potato.

We used to serve Italian style sausages with the ratatouille (Italian style meaning British sausages with Italian flavoured fillings) but they cost more and didn’t taste as good as a Lincolnshire sausage.

They are also better for use in sandwiches, and tomorrow we will have sausage sandwiches for lunch.

And that, for the benefit of future researchers, is the way middle-aged men and their wives spent their winter Sundays in the early 21st Centuries. By the early 22nd Century you will probably need a license to own a sausage, or at least pay a punitive tax, and the use of plastic wrappings will be superseded by the use of potato-starch substitutes which can be composted or used as a topping on pies.

TESCO Top Valley – an hour later

While I was looking for a potato starch/plastic links I found this one. It’s one of my favourite subjects, but I wouldn’t advise reading it if you are eating. In the 22nd Century people will probably wonder why we ever thought cremation was a good idea.

Back to work.

On Thursday I was referred to as “disabled” by my co-worker. It’s funny what goes through people’s minds. We were discussing whether coin dealers would have made it to heaven in Egyptian times as we spend a lot of times destroying dreams when people ring up with a “valuable” coin. I checked this up – I think we’re OK. If you read this, it’s about doing good deeds, not necessarily about valuing coins.

We moved on to Christianity and he asked me if I thought I would still be disabled in Heaven or if all would be corrected. This was news to me, as I didn’t realise I was disabled. Anyway, as I pointed out, we don’t go to Heaven after we die, we have to wait for the general resurrection and, theologically, only need a skull and two femurs (the Skull and Crossbones) to gain eternal life, so I’m not sure a dodgy knee comes into play at any time.

I then asked him if he saw me as “disabled”. He changed the subject.

We then move on to a couple of days of him continually arguing with the shop owner about minor details of what we do. It’s like being in the middle of a divorcing couple. Fortunately I was given a set of ear plugs last week (the reason is too long and involved to explain) so on Saturday afternoon I put them in. It helped cut out some of the noise.

Wheels 1

Wheels 2

Wheels 3

Sometimes, when there is no other subject, I take pictures of wheels.

Another Routine Sunday

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I eventually prised myself from bed just after mid-morning. I had been up earlier but my back was so stiff I’d gone back to bed to get some warmth and do some straightening exercises. At that point I fell asleep and, as I say, reluctantly emerged. I’m tempted to say “like a butterfly from a chrysalis” but that wouldn’t be an entirely accurate picture.

We breakfasted on what was supposed to be smashed avocado and eggs on toast but Julia is such a gentle soul the avos were no more than moderately roughed up. It’s a shameful thing to do, offering any sort of violence to an avocado – they should really be filled with prawns and thousand island dressing. Or mayonnaise with ketchup, which is my version. However, this is the modern way and Julia likes it so who am I to complain?

After that we had toast and marmalade whilst watching The Hound of the Baskervilles. It was the 1988 TV version with Jeremy Brett. I like him as Holmes, but there are several other versions of the story which I prefer. Holmes really should be in black and white.

Then it was off to the laundry for Julia and off to the supermarket for me.

Shopping

The laundry was crowded, because it was a dull wet day. The supermarket was not crowded, but the people in it all seemed to be on a mission to get in my way.

That was the first part of then day. On our return I wrote the first 240 words in twenty minutes as I cooked pie and beans for a meal that was a mixture of late lunch and early tea.

View from the Driving Seat

I then frittered the rest of the afternoon in front of a fire, watching quizzes, snoozing and drinking tea. No, not all at the same time.

It is now 8.00. Washing up is done, the roast vegetable as are in the oven for tonight’s meal and the ones for tomorrow are boiling as I type. We will be having gravy tonight as we eat roast veg, Lincolnshire sausages and Yorkshire puddings.

Monday night’s veg will, with the addition of last night’s rice (which is currently frozen, to avoid food poisoning) and some other bits, will provide another go at veggie burgers. I will have two on Tuesday night with ratatouille (Julia is dining out for a birthday celebration) and on Wednesday we will both have veggie burgers and ratatouille. My capacity for repetition of meals means I can happily eat the same thing for three or four days if necessary.

You could chart my life from pictures like these

The timer just went off – time for a trip to the kitchen, where mounds of steaming vegetables are waiting for me.

Later I will return to load some photos and publish the post.

The writing has taken 37 minutes according to the kitchen timers I had running at the time. I bet the photos and Tagss take at least another 20, if not more.

This blog hates me – it’s just taken twelve trouble-free minutes to do the photos and Tags. It’s trying to make me look like a liar by doing everything the easy way…

Scone Chronicles XXIX – Dry, Disappointing and Drizzleless

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We saw an interesting sign today whilst shopping. It was outside Wagamamas, and advertises “Vegan Tuna”.

Vegan Tuna? No chance!

This is slightly confusing from a grammatical point of view. As a lifestyle choice, this is unlikely as I can’t see tuna ever sticking to an ethical vegetarian diet. It is even less likely from a biological point of view as tuna are made of meat.

I’m also tempted to say that there’s something strange about a vegan eating something dressed up to look like meat. Not just vegans, any vegetarian in fact. I’ve never really been a fan of any vegetarian food dressed up as meat.

We had Thai green curry tonight, with mini corn cobs, mangetout peas, broccoli, carrots and cashews. You don’t need quorn or fake tuna to make perfectly good vegetarian food.

Talking of which, and getting back to the point, vegan tuna is made from dried watermelon. It looks like thinly sliced tuna and, it seems, tastes like watermelon. It’s £12.95 a portion. That seems like a comfortable profit margin.

This isn’t actually the thing I was going to write about. We had coffee and lemon drizzle cake at Costa Coffee this afternoon after we bought socks.

Coffee and Cake

The coffee was good, but it should have been considering the price and the fact that it’s pretty much the only thing they do. On a volume to cost basis it was reasonable value as it came in a cap that is smaller than some of the mixing bowls we use at home.

The cake was very lemony in a nice fresh way. Sadly it was also quite dry and very lacking in drizzle. This would be acceptable in lemon cake, but not in lemon drizzle cake. I won’t labour the point but it doesn’t say much for your professional standards if you can’t get the drizzle right on a lemon drizzle cake.

Dry, disappointing and drizzleless

I will say no more.

This is the Way the World Ends

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It’s three sleeps until Christmas, and about 80 sleeps until I embarrass myself in front of the Numismatic Society of Nottingham with a dull, boring and badly presented talk. I can feel the iron hand of doom closing around my throat…

I will not be able to look my fellow members in the eye and people will point at me in the street like one of the sad figures from a Bateman cartoon – The Man Who Couldn’t Use Powerpoint.

In the end, I suppose it won’t be too bad, but I am a bit apprehensive.

Meanwhile, having airily stated “Christmas is in the bag. There are a few things left, but the essentials are in place and we are ready to go.” just a few days ago, I came face to face with reality.

A late listing of things we needed for Christmas, which was supposed to be a few veg and bits and pieces, ended up filling a page on my pad, and filled a trolley (though just a small one).

Murder was contemplated on more than one occasion, though I also smiled a lot, gave way a lot and quipped “It’ll soon be over!” more than once.

It’s amazing how many people come out just before Christmas who seem never to have seen a shop before. They dawdle, they gawp and they get in my way. They have uncontrolled children, slack jaws and, often, resentful partners in tow. Zombies have more life behind the eyes, more spatial awareness, and more charm than many of these shuffling, gangway-blocking lost souls.

Today’s poem is dedicated to those shoppers trapped unwillingly in a vortex of Christmas shopping. It’s quite long but you can get the gist from the first part before scrolling down to the last line.

Yes, I do have a cavalier attitude to classic poetry, but life is too short to be serious about poems. This is particularly true where the poet has, as my father-in-law used to tell me, a name that is an anagram of “toilets”.

I’ve returned to Julia’s reindeer pictures for a bit of Christmas cheer.

Mission Accomplished

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I went shopping this afternoon, with the outline of a plan in mind.

We now have a turkey crown in the freezer which claims to serve 6-8. It should do for three plus sandwiches. The pigs in blankets are next to it.

The gammon and smoked salmon are in the fridge with sufficient shelf life to last until Christmas.

We have stollen, we have nuts and we have seaweed crackers.

I already, as reported, have the cheese footballs.

That is it.

Christmas is in the bag. There are a few things left, but the essentials are in place and we are ready to go. I’m beyond worrying about the quality of the turkey – all I want is a stress-free Christmas and now we have the essentials there is no stress. It won’t be the best turkey we’ve ever had, but it’s in the freezer and Christmas dinner is guaranteed. It might be badly cooked, or burned, but it will be a traditional turkey disaster, and I will have done my job.

At one time I used to shop for a siege, but the shops will be open on Boxing Day so there really is no need to stock up. I may put some bread in the freezer, but that’s the limit of my extra buying.

Cards are delivered or in the post and a few small gifts for my co-workers are in place.

It is now 9.00 and Julia has just come back from seeing a neighbour. I am going to serve the evening meal now and bask in the smug satisfaction of knowing that if Christmas were to be moved forward, I am ready.

And as I write that I realise I haven’t bought the cheese…

Edward Lear Stamps (1988)

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

The pictures are minisheets of stamps – an extra way of making collectors buy more. They are buses, the Royal Family, Industrial Archaeology and Edward Lear. If we have room we just stick them on envelopes complete. Yesterdays’s collection is today’s postage, just as yesterday’s news is today’s chip wrapper.

Today’s poem is a cheery number that repeats that thought, though more elegantly, and with much more Latin than is usual in one of my posts.

Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam

Ernest Dowson

The brief sum of life forbids us the hope of enduring long. –Horace

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

The Difficult Second Potato

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After several abortive attempts at writing today’s post I decided it wasn’t depression or politics, or even the crush of ideas and bitterness that was preventing me writing – it was trying to use the netbook on my knee while I sat by the fire.

Just after 10.30 I stepped through to the dining room with the intention of sitting down and sorting myself out.

It didn’t happen -there were comments to read and reply to and sandwiches to make for tomorrow. Finally there was washing up. Yes, washing up seemed preferable to sitting down and blogging.

I now have around 20 minutes to post and keep to my target of daily posting. I’m now limited by the time, and by the fact that I am slowly getting colder. Eventually, based on past experience, I will get so cold that I stop thinking. This is’t a bad thing because since the election I’ve mainly been thinking that everything is a complete mess. I have had to discard several posts because they were a bit too serious, and probably a bit too libellous. It’s one thing saying something to Julia, or shouting it at the TV, but once you write it down you have to prove it.

We had Hasselback potatoes again today. I was a little more relaxed with the cutting, and it did not go as well as the first lot. This is often the way with the second in a series. I tried the stir fried sprouts again too, this time with added chestnuts. I’m intending to have it at Christmas. We have settled on turkey for Christmas this year (as we have done for about the last fifteen years). We will also have roast potatoes, pigs in blankets, stuffing, bread sauce, redcurrant jelly and Yorkshire puddings.

I just noticed it’s gone midnight…

I know Yorkshire puddings aren’t traditional but Julia likes them so they are traditional for us. Personally, I’d rather have beef, pork or gammon. If anyone had suggested a nut roast I’d probably have gone for that. Even a goose. They are greasy but traditional.

It was the kids who got us back onto turkey – we’d been having beef or pork for years but they started to ask for turkey because all their friends had turkey. Now it’s become a habit. It’s not so bad now that you can buy a small crown roast – enough for a meal and a few sandwiches. Much better than the days of turkey curry, turkey stir fry and, finally, turkey soup.

I’ve started the Christmas shopping list and tomorrow I start the shopping. I’ll probably also start moaning about Christmas tomorrow.

Strictly speaking, our Christmas starts when I buy the cheese footballs. This is normally when they first appear in the Shops in Autumn, as it can be touch and go nearer to the day. I’m surprised, on looking for links, that I only seem to have mentioned them twice over the years as they are an important part of Christmas.

First the cheese footballs, then the ancient Santa card I bought Julia for our first Christmas. (I’ve also bought her one every year since, in case you are wondering), then the shopping.

The two pictures from the archives sum up the full horror of the forced jollity of Christmas, and the silent fury of a man who, having realised that he has wasted his life on trivia, will never break the bank at Monte Carlo, win a Nobel prize or, in all probability, look down and see his feet again.

Time, I think, in my tour of British poets, to turn to Dylan Thomas. I’m sure you know the one I’m thinking of. I am, after all, a man of habit and small learning.

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Life after the Care Farm