Shopping.

I am not sure which evil genius made me decide that it would be a good idea to take the children with me on the trip to Asda this morning. We had run out of almost everything, so badly that we had become quite used to the experience of feeling hungry, looking in the fridge and feeling so uninspired that hungry seemed a more appealing choice than a lettuce sandwich or other equally dull option. As it happened I had earned some money yesterday: so Asda it was, and I dragged the children protesting from their beds and insisted that they accompany me.

The point of taking them was so that they could make an active contribution to their nutritional choices. I had visions of us walking thoughtfully along the aisles, discussing value for money and dietary benefits and me sagely sharing the benefits of my wisdom and experience as they listened with eager curiosity. I don’t know why I might have thought this, it isn’t as if we haven’t been shopping together before.

It didn’t get off to a brilliant start. They couldn’t find socks, or shoes, or coats, but insisted on taking their portable computers so that they wouldn’t be burdened with the irritation of making conversation with me in the car on the way there. I got so distracted at the fluster of finding all their things, and my money, and my bank card for emergencies, and Oliver’s money, and Lucy’s bank card, and getting them into the car and then going back for the things we had forgotten that we were halfway there before I realised that I had forgotten my own phone.

Asda was packed. Of course it is everybody’s half term, and every parent and child in the Lake District had decided to make a family day of it to the supermarket. I shuffled along with the trolley through the crowds and looked at my list.

“We’re on a fairly tight budget,” I started to explain, “so we need to think carefully about what we buy because we have to make it stretch.”

“Can I get my Beano?” asked Oliver. This seemed reasonable, so I agreed, and in the interests of fairness suggested kindly to Lucy that she might like to buy a magazine as well, as a nice thing to do.

She sniffed.

“Of course I wouldn’t,” she said, with an air of the deeply pained, “and if you ever thought about anything, Mummy, you wouldn’t be trying to persuade me to. Don’t you know how terribly bad for my self esteem it is to have to look at all those airbrushed pictures of girls made to look unnaturally beautiful and not like real people at all? It’s very irresponsible of you to suggest it, you really ought to think more carefully.”

I couldn’t imagine anything less than a steam hammer denting Lucy’s extremely robust supply of self-esteem, but apologised for my lack of consideration, and we moved on. They needed toothpaste for school (Lucy’s had to be one which made your teeth white, Oliver’s had to be the only one he really liked, but couldn’t remember which it was, and Asda had thoughtlessly failed to provide tasting samples) – and shampoo (full five minutes of agonising over whether she wanted Fullness and Bounce or Satin Sheen and Oliver said he’d rather use school’s because it had stuff in to stop you getting nits) then we had to open and sniff every single shower gel to see which smelled nicest, Tropical Paradise or Lemon Zesty Spice or Silky Smooth Coconut or Tangy Orchid, there were six shelves of the stuff. Oliver said he just stuck his hand out through the shower curtain and Matron squirted some soap into it so he didn’t care, but Lucy said I didn’t appreciate how difficult a time puberty was and that these decisions shouldn’t be rushed in case she made the wrong choice and her self esteem was wounded again, so I hung about by the shower gel until she chose the same one she had last time and we could move on.

We finally got to nutrition then: which was just unspeakable. Oliver didn’t like the flat chicken pieces, and Lucy didn’t like the spiced ones, and neither of them liked the sort that I wanted, and they settled on Chicken Nuggets, which turned out to be sold out: and Oliver has gone off pizza, and neither of them wanted cheese, and they would only eat the thin sliced ham but not peppered, smoked, honey roasted or breaded: and they both thought pasta might be all right but couldn’t agree on what shape it should be. I picked up their usual yoghurt, and Lucy looked at the lid and translated: “Are you sure Oliver will eat this, it’s made of cheesy strawberries, you won’t like that, will you, Oliver? ” so of course he made sick noises and we had to put it back. They wanted mango juice because the pack was a nice colour and  were aggrieved when I wouldn’t get any, on the grounds that nobody liked it, and Lucy wanted loo roll with puppies on which was twice as expensive as the usual one, and they couldn’t decide on sausages, and Oliver said to me: “Can I say something important, Mummy? I think you should try harder not to swear when we’re in somewhere public.”

In the end they pushed the trolley, Lucy was the engine and Oliver was the brakes, and I think I may have been the crash barriers; and I chucked dog food and coffee and wine into it and they chucked whatever they felt like into it, which when we got to the checkout turned out to be Pot Noodles and Haribos and Milky Ways and Yum Yums and Coke, and the checkout lady gave me the sort of look that people give you when they’re about to report you to Childline: and as I was trying to sort the cash out Oliver said to Lucy: “Shall we play running away and hiding now?” and Lucy said wisely: “No, because she might just go home without us.”

When we got home there were four missed calls from Mark on my forgotten phone, who had been made redundant.

I have borrowed a book from the library called Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, and retreated to the taxi rank with it for some peace and quiet and an assessment of other people’s parenting experiences which may come in useful until they go back to school on Sunday.

PS. Mark thinks he will be all right. He has been to see another couple of companies already and has got to go back to see one of them again tomorrow. He is good at what he does. Also he might get a job in Saudi or something as he has applied for a few. The oil rig season is starting again now. He didn’t seem in a rush to come back home anyway.