Food for Thought

Well, following on from my last topic of Organic food v Supermarket food, I would like, I suppose, to have a bit of a rant about supermarket shopping generally.

Today, we tried to go shopping – for normal stuff, salad, bread etc. After categorically stating I would never go back to our local Tesco after last weeks chaos, we went to our less than local Tesco Extra store.

I suppose I should really explain what happened last weekend before continuing…. We got to Tesco, queued to get into the car park, managed to grab one of the last few trolleys that were left, and then proceeded to manoeuvre around the hoards of people that seemed to have descended on the store. At one point I got so frustrated by the whole experience I stood in the middle of isle blocked with people, trolleys and internet shopping staff and said “I hate this Tesco, I really, really hate it! I hate it soooo much, I swear to God I am NEVER coming back here!!” and I meant every word and hadn’t exactly said it quietly. There were a few raised eyebrows from other shoppers, although I did get one knowing nod from the lady who was squashed next to one of the shelves. Then as if to add an extra evil twist, we then had queue to get out of the car park.

Anyway, back to this week…. We got to Tesco Extra, and queued to get into the car park (again), drove around the car park not finding a parking space twice before leaving and feeling frustrated. Still needing shopping, we decided to try something completely different and go even further a filed and go to Morrisons. Got there, found a parking space relatively easily, and feeling hopeful entered the store. We were met by utter madness. People everywhere! And of course, now it becomes clear why the entire world was out shopping today, its Mothers Day tomorrow. The basket that we had picked up on the way in was quickly abandoned in an isle and we left hurriedly, and once again shopping-less and feeling frustrated.

Ok, so, “third time lucky” they say, we made our approach to supermarket number three – Sainsbury. So far it looked good, no queuing to get in, we found a parking space easily, even picked up a trolley without any problems. Then we entered the store…. For the first time in the past two weeks, shopping actually wasn’t the traumatic experience we were preparing ourselves for, it was fine! We came away with all the shopping we wanted with a minimum of fuss, but feeling relieved that we had actually finally achieved what we had set out about 2 hours earlier to do.

I guess, my question really is, why on earth is shopping like this. It shouldn’t be. Everyone has to do it, and we can now do this 7 days a week and quite often 24 hours a day. So why is it at the weekend, when everyone should be doing “fun” shopping in town for clothes etc. are they now going to Tesco, Asda and all the other big supermarkets. To me this really doesn’t make sense. Is it that society is getting greedier? or is that more people are working between Monday and Friday so the weekend is the only opportunity? Is it the fault of the supermarket or consumer? – Why? And when did this happen? It hasn’t always been like this.

I am perhaps over analysing this social hobbit a little too much, but the sheer frustration and annoyance we went though today is beginning to be a regular thing and am really beginning to understand the popularity of internet shopping (although that in itself poses questions – if more people are grocery shopping online, whey are they at supermarkets as well?).

Exploring a couple of these ideas, the supermarkets certainly don’t seem to help the whole shopping experience at times. Parking is obviously important, especially if the store is out of town, but is it absolutely necessary to cram cars in like sardines in a can? This I know isn’t solely restricted to supermarkets, as I recall recently getting into a parking space at a local shopping outlet and not being able to open the doors of our car wide enough to get out. It does seem that unless you have Smart car, its virtually impossible to park in a sensible sized parking space.

It also seems that as these stores get bigger and, obviously want to stock more products, the isles get smaller and smaller. I may as well also point out, whey do they put fruit and veg at the front of the store when all the heavy stuff is at the back – so, you put all your nice fresh soft and squashy fruit and veg in the bottom of the trolley and then pile in the bottles and frozen goods on top? Is this really practical?

Consumers play an equally big part in making grocery shopping quite unbearable. The bigger the trolley the ruder people seem to get! Is there any reason why people can’t just use the words “excuse me” when reaching for something you’re stood in front of? Or, equally say “sorry” when they ram you with their basket? And whilst on the subject of consumers, what on earth do people do with the quantities of things they buy? Admittedly, we have no children, and although are on a tight budget we can more or less not have to think too hard about how much we buy to put in the freezer. But it does astound me when I see people buy goods in the quantities they do – what do you do with 48 packets of crisps?

What worries me is that there used to be trends in shopping, Christmas, Easter, Public Holidays, would always increase supermarket popularity. Now every day is the same. It does seem to me that people and stores alike are getting greedier. Consumers with the goods they buy, and stores with the goods they sell and profits they make. Is there an end? Will things change with people being encouraged to ditch cars for a more eco-friendly mode of transport? Questions, I’m sure, that will get answered in time. I can only hope, however, that shopping in the future will not be the experience I am now finding it.

Food Update

Well, we had our Venison last night and actually it was delicious. Not too dissimilar to beef really, but with a slightly different flavour. I did a garlic and mustard mash to go with it along with a pepper sauce (although that was a packet so I cheated a bit there). Its an expensive treat but I would recommend it!

Tonight we are having the garlic chicken – hmmm, I’m going to be popular in the office tomorrow with all this garlic LOL. We’re cooking it with a stirfry so hopefully they’ll go together ok.

Organic V Supermarket

Ok, well, for my first entry into my blog in 2008, I thought I would start with something a bit different – Organic Produce.

Today we basically did the rounds where food shopping is concerned. We started at about 10am this morning with a farm shop selling a small selection of just about everything including a butcher and a fishmonger.

I must admit, that this was not the first farm shop we had been to and I if I’m honest, I think I prefer the other one. But, we did get a few things, chicken, and some salad bits. We got these amazing Spanish tomatoes (although I’m sure that isn’t good for “food miles”) which were absolutely fantastic. The chicken we’ve not sampled yet, but its currently stinking out our fridge with garlic as it had been marinated.

We then went on to an organic butcher, and I have to say their meat looked amazing – I don’t think I’ve ever seen beef like it! We spent quite a lot of money there on not very much frankly. Having said that it was probably our own fault as we bought some venison – God only knows what I’m going to do with it mind you. I’ll keep you all informed!!

Next on the shopping agenda was Tesco and then finally Sainsbury, although Sainsbury was only because we forgot something at Tesco.

It was surprising when comparing what we had bought at the farms to what was in the supermarkets. There was in most cases a complete difference in price, but when we had the salad for tea tonight it was quite clear that the supermarket salad did not have as much flavour as the organic equivalent – I noticed this particularly with the peppers.

Well, I’ll write again tomorrow when we’ve had the venison – wish me luck! Ha ha ha .

Well, ok, its been a couple of months again – I’m just not very good at keeping up with everything that is happening.

Since my last update, on camping, we have actually made it out again! This time we went to Duxford in Cambridgeshire. We had tickets to the Duxford air show and so we made a long weekend of it – in fact, I braved 4 whole nights under canvas!

Despite having a bad cold in the week before we went, once again it was surprisingly good fun, and even though we found that we were in bed by 9 each night (it was September and it was getting dark earlier then) it was fine – still got up half way through the night for the loo though!?

The air show on the Saturday was really good too and Rob took about 40billion pictures of planes LOL, but really enjoyed it.

So, all in all it was a good long weekend.

Camping - pt 2

Well, the first night in the open air actually went ok. We weren’t quite brave enough to do a meal on our camping gaz thingy so we had our food at a local shopping centre, but we did manage to get a game of travel scrabble in before snuggling up in bed. We decided we would get a double sleeping bag (Tesco’s are quite reasonably priced!), and despite I really did think there would be lots of spare limbs floating about – everyone has that spare arm that they only find when in bed - it was actually quite cosy, and not as “arms and legs” as I had thought (there’s a pattern emerging here “not as I had thought”?)

One thing that bothered me more than ever is that I did think that I was going to have to get up half way through the night to use those “excellent facilities” this site has, but much to my amazement, midnight was the last time I had to leave out tent, and I have to admit Rob was really sweet and came with me.

Now, something I hadn’t actually mentioned was that it had been raining since about 8pm that evening, so everywhere was beginning to get quite wet and squelchy by the time midnight came about. So, we squelched to the loo at midnight, after being in bed for about an hour, and probably just getting to sleep. But that being said, once again it really wasn’t really that bad and once back in bed, the morning came around quite quickly and I found I had made it through the night, without being eaten by anything and with actually getting more sleep than I had thought I would have! I don’t want to admit this, but this really isn’t that bad (keep this quite, but I actually quite enjoyed it!)

Its been a while - but here's to camping!

I know! Its be simply ages since I last updated my blog, but, well, things have been rather hectic…. although, saying that I really don’t have that much to write about.

Anyway, here is your long awaited instalment of my life……………

In true British style, we have made an exceptionally brave decision and invested in some camping equipment! Most people who know me are probably staring dumbfounded at the computer screen now as this is something that I wouldn’t have even contemplated before. But, after a rather nightmareish few weeks at work and an even worse month end at work, I feel that a weekend camping is better than a weekend thinking about work and being at home. And so, equipment bought we have ventured out on our first weekend experience of the out door life.

Of course, I hasten to add its basically poured with rain ever since we bought everything – only we could think of doing this in probably the wettest year the UK has ever experienced.

That being said we have visited our first campsite and had a fairly successful weekend. Once I had got over the fact that it wasn’t at all like the film Carry on Camping I actually discovered it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had imagined.

The “facilities” were actually excellent, and the showers had under floor heating, and as an added luxury that I didn’t think actually existed, lockable doors on the shower cubicles.

Of course, me being me had forgotten to take a hair brush with me, and the first thing I did when we had successfully put up the tent without any arguments, was have a shower and wash my hair (not realising before hand that I hadn’t actually packed that all important hair brush).

My hair, being quite thick, quite fine, and quite long (half way down my back), didn’t take long to accurately look like bushy and unkempt. Rob, much to his amusement I think, made me stay like that until we went to Tesco the next day where I could purchase a brush! Arghh.

Thursday - PT2 Hurst Castle

We eventually got to Hurst Castle at about lunch time.

The castle is on a spit of land in the Solent channel. This basically means that there is a sort of island shaped bit of land connected to the mainland by a line of shingle, sand and stone. The Spit creates a sheltered bay from the onslaught of the sea in the English Channel and ultimately the Atlantic.

The weather, being a rather typically British coastal type of weather, was gray and windy – but, it actually wasn’t really that cold and to our great relief it wasn’t raining.

We had picked up a sandwich on route and when we parked the car in one of those car parks that you get in coastal towns and we sat facing the sea, watching the waves and gray clouds and ate our what my mum would call a picnic (although it bore very little resemblance to anything I would call a picnic). We both agreed that we felt about 80 years old sitting there. It was the type of thing you always see the “older generation” do. Sitting in the car, watching the greyness and drinking dish water coloured tea from a Thurmos flask in a tartan pattern which you could only buy in the late 70’s – as if having, and indeed using, something that old is a way of trying to stubbornly defy the advancing years.

Looking around….. we had one of those sort of, Victor Meldrew moments “I don’t beeeelieve it!” there it was, a Crawley Luxury coach – ohhh GOD, is there no escape from home!? Wondering who, or what, we would bump into we left the relative comfort and safety of the car for our 1.5 mile walk along the shingle/stones to Hurst Castle.

The wind felt as though it was going at about 1 million miles an hour, but of course it wasn’t. Having said that, both of us was almost deaf by the time reached even the 1/3 point because of the wind. 1.5 miles really isn’t that far, until you’ve walked it on soft shingle/stones. Bearing in mind that we had pretty much walked a minimum of 3 miles almost every day on holiday, this should have been a walk in the park – I have NEVER been so grateful to see a castle drawbridge in all my life! I imagine that on a nice day it was probably quite nice, however on our gray and miserable day it was just damn hard work. But, lets try and be positive, it wasn’t raining!?

Wohhha! the castle was much bigger than I had thought. It was first built and used by Henry VIII as one of his many South Coast defences, and then it was used, pretty much throughout time and extended for WW1 and then again for WWII.

Getting there was basically a bit of a relief. Right, first things first, where’s the café? We neeeeed a hot coffee! Paying our entrance (even though we are members of English Herritage, I forgot the passes – another bone of contention), we made our way to the Naffi (or Café). Understandably it wasn’t exactly packed with people, until that is, a group of Private School teenage girls arrived with their posh accents and permanent giggles – we tried to make a hasty exit before the entire place was stampeded.

The castle was great. We chose to look around the WWI and WWII parts first, and saw cannons that were tested in Malta for their power before moving them to Hurst and “active” service. There was lots to see and a lot of the rooms were open to explore. Going into one room, and looking around we found ourselves joined by a couple of the “lar de dar” bunch. Both giggling, one of the girls said to Rob “you should look up into that hole there….. its sooooo dark….”Rob of course did what she said, and then told her what it would have been used for – “its for moving ammunition from a safe room to where it can be used – it’s a lift shaft”. She actually looked quite surprised (huh, can’t have that good schooling then!?). They giggled and left the room. We also left, walking around to the next room.

Rob, walked to the corner – low and behold, there was an identical looking hole here too! (you can see where this is going can’t you?). Hearing more giggling, but this time emanating from the hole in the wall, the mischievous came out in the both of us…… Rob signalled to me to be quiet, and both of us looked to the floor. As if something had read our minds, there it was a small, but perfectly formed stone….. Rob picked it up and threw it down the shaft in the wall….. Ha ha! Have that – hope you don’t watch Most Haunted!? There was a scream and a “ohhh my God, what was that!?”, and then more giggling and a lot of hasty footsteps. Rob and I walked away, as if from a scene of a crime, trying to look innocent and trying to hide the smug satisfaction we both had.

Honestly, we are over the age of 10! Although, maybe there is a good reason for being asked for ID when buying Neuophen……