Sunday
I went to get some milk at a well known local store that specialises in frozen food (you know the one that the Mums go to). I go there for small items on a weekend as I’d rather saw my toes off with a blunt hacksaw than step inside a major supermarket on a weekend.
The Woman In Front
I stood staring into space waiting for the woman in front of me at the checkout to pack her food stuff away whilst she slowly realised that the amount of food she purchased cannot possibly be carried by just one person.She was flustered and stressed and I could feel it.
The Tomboy Behind
The tomboyish woman behind me was talking quite loudly and with a deep earthy voice as she bemoaned her lot to her friend behind (the general theme about being run off her feet and having no time). She placed her Sunday shopping onto the checkout conveyor belt and behind my singular item. She had 8 cans of beer and a small tub of cream.
The Traveller
I walked back through the nearby green space area. The travellers there have moved on leaving rubbish piled up in the centre spot of a football pitch. Refuse is strewn around the nearby church. This seems to be a regular feature now. Travellers come, they leave, they return. A game of cat and mouse with the local authorities.
We usually do our main shop on Sunday morning, after breakfast at one of the local cafes. I don’t mind naming the store: Sainsbury’s. We go there because it is close, not because we like it. In fact, it annoys me intensely as they are always running out of things and when they do, you may have to wait a long time for replacement stock.
Sainsbury’s is busy on a Sunday morning but not as bad a later in the day. Not a bad time to go, if you must go there, I suppose.
I don’t get much time to watch the people. As soon as Tigger has unloaded the trolley onto the belt, I take it back to reclaim my pound and return in time to pay. (Tigger is our business manager and I am our accountant!)
During the week we top up either at Tesco beside Liverpool Street station or at Iceland in Chapel Market. What would we do without our supermarkets, I wonder? Traipse around a dozen shops buying a few items at each as in the Good Old Days, I suppose.
Hello SilverTiger- I’m not a great fan of the supermarket experience but maybe that’s because a few years ago I couldn’t face the crowds anymore and so tended to shop either ridiculously early (6am) or very late (after midnight) at one of the 24 hour stores (shopping for stressed out agrophobics). I prefer to just order via the Internet but always seem to have to get a few bit and pieces in between. Our nearest (everything else is a long bus ride away) large supermarket is Asda (don’t get me started…) and sometimes standing in a checkout queue for 10+ minutes even though every checkout has an operator is, to me, like a vision of hell (the crowds, the jostling,the blank faces, the constant blip of bar code scanners can begin to unhinge my mind sometimes). It’s almost an out of body experience for me these days as I note what’s going on around me but feeling like I’m not quite there.