Tuesday 13^th February, 2018 1630

Oh God, what a shopping trip............

I really had to get it done today, tomorrow will be much, much worse and Thursday like an England v Ireland maul. The strange thing was though that although the supermarket was busy even mid-afternoon, it wasn't too bad in most areas. The mayhem had its epicentre in the vegetable section. So much so in fact that I forewent getting the fruit I had decided to buy for making desserts and trying to bake a madeira cake using baking soda and a little yeast instead of powder.

The problem arose because of the store itself. Whilst there are two weighing machines for veg, there was but one person manning. Two people were having a gay old time weighing, pricing and pre-packing mushrooms, which are of course available loose as well and have a dedicated scale solely for them. They were oblivious to ever-lengthening queue of tomatoes, onions, peppers etc and of course being China, not a soul pointed out to the mushroomers that they could better serve by manning a veg scale. I would have abandoned the veg but really did need decent spuds and “proper” mushrooms, the closed cup type were annoyingly not being pre-packed.

And guess what I couldn't get? Peas! I buy the pre-priced bean type (cheap) which are frozen. They weren't in their usual freezer so I searched fruitlessly (literally and figuratively) and the only specimens were the half and half packs of peas and prawns. No bloody fish fingers either, although I managed to get battered fillets that seem to be mini chippie things. Other things I dropped from my list (no canned tuna either and I was going to have a tuna baguette for dinner) simply to be done with it.

Even so, it set me back 450\ or, taking into account different living standards/cost of living, around 200 pounds sterling. Not bad for a singleton!

Adriana contacted me earlier, she wants to “hang out” tomorrow evening for a few hours – dinner followed by the little gin bar. I have just realised tomorrow is Valentine's day but I assume that as it is on a different date here it is not significant. I damned well hope so!

The Dragon is back in town on Sunday so I assume I will be setting up my soup kitchen again, no idea when Annie returns, she hasn't answered my email. I would like to make a welcome back meal, next week shopping should be less crowded. And now of course I have no need to shop until after new year, anything I need is available around the corner on the stalls. Well, not fish but lamb, beef, chicken and pork anyway.

The local supermarket I think is definitely closed for the duration, not that I use it much, just for the odd snack or litre of milk. Also now I have bought a fedora I don't need it, the weather lately sees me wearing a short sleeved shirt under a coat. Typical.

Now I need to go and buy some extra large fresh eggs. The stallholders will think I have come to liberate the pigeons of course but no, that is for Thursday!