I Can Now Sleep Easy

Like millions of households across the country, we don't generally stockpile and my freezer, for instance, tends to be reserved for a surplus of fruit and vegetables from the garden during the summer. Consequently, we, as many other people, were caught short by the run on so many basic items from our supermarkets.

When we first retired, it took us a while to realise that just because we had more time to pop into a shop to buy groceries, didn't mean we should go more often. After all, apart from the small village community shop providing those items you may forget, our nearest store is 8 miles away meaning that shopping has been very much limited to one or two slots a week.

Today, we went for the first time since being required to stay at home and avoid all non-essential journeys; fortunately food shopping counts as essential, otherwise a few of us might be significantly lighter at the end of this crisis. Come to think of it, that might not be such a bad thing in my case, although I'd rather not give the Government any more ideas as we wait to see what further steps might be introduced in the coming days.

It was actually a pleasure; there was no problem parking our car and whilst it was a strange experience having our hands and trolley sprayed as we went in and being asked to obey sticky tape lines on the floor as we approached the checkout, we were delighted to find the shelves relatively well-stocked. Numbers entering the premises were being limited but none of the places we visited were anywhere near the total they had set. Consequently moving around whilst keeping 2 metres away from others was not an issue, although I countered Mister E against his usual maze like dash around the aisles whilst I try to negotiate them in order. 

In the end we had to visit two supermarkets and the local speciality shop on the High Street in order to find most things on our list. Milk was being rationed to two containers, so a second supermarket was a  necessity in order to buy that extra bottle to make yoghurt and with no toilet paper in the first, we thought we'd check out the second more in hope than anticipation. The shelves in that aisle still looked desolate, but could you believe it we struck lucky and, without having to challenge anyone into battle over it, picked up a whole 18 roll pack. This fortuitous lady is going to sleep easy now at night!

It was a little surprising to see that there now seems to be a shortage of cleaning products especially those containing bleach but so long as it's being used on countertops and not hands, I guess that's a good thing. On my part, it might provide an acceptable excuse for not washing the floor!

Fresh fruit and vegetables were on display again but yeast and flour for our breadmaking are scarce or non-existent, although the speciality shop came up trumps with a whole island stocked with pasta.

I certainly don't think it is advisable to be trailing around a number of shops in the present climate, not least when there is a police car outside with a tannoy broadcasting a very simple message to a virtually deserted street: "Stay at home." Oh and word of warning, we still saw what appeared to be a Traffic Warden, Community Parking Officer or whatever they are now called!

As a confirmed retailphobe, I can't even believe that I have devoted a blogpost to the topic of shopping. Now we've managed to renew our store cupboard staples, buy fresh meat and vegetables, however, I think we are nicely set for at least another 10 to 14 days. By that time, yeast might be available and who knows, even paracetamol and floor cleaner, either that or, heaven forbid, the army could be delivering supplies..

P.S. For anybody who has forgotten what they look like, the photograph at the top of this post is of toilet rolls!