Never shop under the influence of a bank holiday

BANK holidays do funny things to shoppers.

Technically it's one or two days where you might not be able to access a supermarket, and despite the fact that you may never normally visit a store for a whole week, it puts the fear of God into you.  What if you run out of mixed herbs or fishfingers in the meantime?  You have cupboards crammed with food but guaranteed the one thing you want is the very thing you will run out of, just when access to supplies is being denied.

And so this very basic and irrational fear seems to be part of the human nature, evolved after centuries of incompetence.  Everyone, no matter how sensible they may be the rest of the time, will make a mental note to pop into the supermarket before a bank holiday to stock up on bread: "Three loaves should be enough, shouldn't it dear?" You'll hear people mutter.  "Are we okay for carrots?" and classic behaviour includes stocking up on burgers and buns ready for the "traditional" Bank Holiday Barbeque which never happens because the typical British weather will put a stop to that.

So as normal I fell prey to this behaviour and found myself in the supermarket on the Saturday before Easter Sunday, and witnessed a truly spectacular incident. 

My way was blocked by two trolleys as their drivers (can you drive a trolley?) went to war.

How it started? Nobody is sure, but people were certainly sticking around to discover how it was going to end. 

In the red corner: a chav in her early 20s sporting stereotypical sportswear in various pastel shades which clashed with her bleached blonde and chocolate brown highlights. In the blue: a menopausal woman with too much eyeliner and a backcombed hairdo she hadn't changed since she first looked on at the cast of Dallas in envy in 1988. 

Such was their need to get their shopping sorted before the store closed in six hours, they were getting angry, something to do with the chav not moving out of the way for 80s woman.  The chav unwisely made some rude comment to her mother about 80s woman and that was it. The elder opponent launched into a tirade of very, very loud abuse. 

"Look at your hair!" the elder said.  The case of pot calling kettle was revealed for what it was as the Chav retorted: "Look at my hair? Look at your hair!"  It was never going to be a winning put-down, like two fat kids mocking each other's size.  With morbid fascination people began to gape like goldfish, unable to tear themselves away from the floorshow of bad taste.  Had it really come to this? People so desperate to make sure they have enough milk to get through the weekend were resorting to public humiliation.  And once started, they then realised they had no grounds for an argument but determined to win, they had stooped to commenting on appearances. The 80s woman then stormed out of the store declaring she would never, ever return to such a place.

The thing is, of course, that after the catfight had dispersed, people shook their heads, paid for their shopping and almost certainly left without the one item they came in for.

Revenge of the citrus fruit

LIVING by the sea you begin to view the weather like that nursery rhyme 'There was a little girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead; When she was good, she was very very good, and when she was bad, she was horrid.'  The weather tends to swing from extremes and in winter can seem very bleak.  I tend to get by with a decent winter coat, the hope that it will soon be Spring, and an endless supply of satsumas to snack on in a vague optimism that they will stop me a, indulging in fatty comfort foods, and b, venturing out in the cold to find said comfort foods.

Quite bizarrely, my favourites, tangerines, have disappeared off the supermarkets' radars - you cannot buy them any more. There isn't even a space on the shelf where they used to be - I only assume there must be a big tangerine cover-up by the government - and any supermarket staff who are so bold as to enquire when the next delivery of tangerines is likely to be are taken into a small hidden room and beaten with their own name-badges until they forget the fruit ever existed.   I now have to make do with the pip-laden satsumas, the unpeelable clementines or the ambiguous 'citrus fruit'  - some tasteless substitute for the fantastic tangerine which is that bland it doesn't even deserve an exciting name.  Nevertheless I have an unwritten rule that five or more of these must be within grabbing distance - a snacking device which has horribly backfired on me.

 

 My car has been smelling bad recently - I suspected it was due to a forgotten satsuma or even worse - citrus fruit - loose in my car somewhere and rotting.  Having searched under the seats I couldn't find anything and put the odd smell as being the window de-icer sprays I had bought; they were on offer so I got carried away and bought enough to keep 20 greenhouses defrosted for about two years.  With the snow last week I congratulated myself in being organised enough to buy this spray in advance and with a certain smugness ran outside before work to get the car cleared in time.  I mentally high-fived myself for my preparation skills, stuffing the car with a fleece blanket and a shovel. I hasten to add this was advised by people on the TV for anyone braving the snowy conditions and not because I wanted to shift a dead body as suggested by a suspicious neighbour.  As I opened the car boot I could hear heavenly choirs sing in celebration of my triumphant ability to be ready for the snow as I grabbed my wellies (which had sat in the car since my death-hike up to the Centre for Alternative Technology).

 Car running? Check. Snow cleared? Check. Blanket and shovel ready for snowy (not murderous) conditions? Check. Wellies on? Almost. Wearing the obligatory three pairs of socks required for wellies-in-snow situations I jammed my right foot in a boot... And screamed.

 Soaking through all three pairs of socks was what used to be a citrus fruit. A very mouldy, soft and smelly citrus fruit.   Source of bad smell in car identified? Check.  With no other option for practical footwear I cleaned the inside of the wellie as best I could, changed the socks and spent the entire day smelling like a rotten bowl of fruit and squelching when I walked. 

 

 How did the fruit get in my boot in the first place? I have no idea - probably linked to my carrying them for snacking with me all the time. But I just can't shake off the vision of a government official sitting at his large mahogany desk somewhere wringing his hands, smiling to himself and muttering: 'That'll teach her for asking questions about tangerines.'

Supermarket sorrow

A LOT of my posts on here will no doubt be related to television - I do tend to watch a lot.

 However despite having literally hundreds of channels and programmes to choose from, my first post has to be about an advert.

 I won't name the supermarket, but honestly who ever thought the set of ads were a good idea should be forcefed supermarket own-brand grey non-specific species fishcakes. 

 I'm talking about the ones in which a bedraggled-looking woman turns up after a hard day's work and is complaining about her shoes pinching, to another considerably more smiley person - the latter turns out to be one of the said supermarket's employees (although seriously I've never seen anyone who works in a supermarket smile that much, or in fact at all) who welcomes the woman in to the supermarket.

 All the staff know her name and they indulge in a spot of banter before listing the special offers. See it as the Cheers of supermarkets if you like.

 There are other ads in this series, my particular favourite is the one in which another middle-aged woman is very pleased with herself as all the staff remark on what a lovely dress she is wearing; she gloats that her husband bought it and he will also be cooking dinner for her. 

 I know the supermarket is obviously trying to show that they are nice and welcoming, but to me it just shows it's a sanctuary for tired aging women; that this is as good as it gets. Their only friends are the staff who humour them as they turn up time after time in slippers/pinching shoes.  Their only glimmers of hope involve getting their lazy teenage sons to do the washing-up, or that their husbands will finally return from the high-powered job to offer a bit of home cooking and attention - an offer which she has evidently been nagging him to do for ages. Seriously, is that it? Is that all there is to middle-aged life for a woman? Somebody pass me the fishcakes.