Stock-trolleys

I am, as a friend once used to say, trauma-ed.

I have had a trauma.

I have been shopping.

For those who do not feel that this exactly qualifies as a traumatic event, I invite you to give it a go tomorrow. I invite you to recollect in the morning that your fridge is empty and you have got a small procession of friends and relations arriving over the course of the next week. You should then rush out to remedy this, all in one afternoon, a couple of days before Christmas.

I was so completely trauma-ed that I was actually glad that neither Oliver nor Mark were home to help me unload it, because I had already had more human contact than I could bear in a single day.

There was a mad lady in one shop who refused to take cash and who gave me a small lecture about the correct order in which I should remove things from the shelf, first the price label, then the item, otherwise you might knock the price label off on to the floor, and then what would we do. I was run over by a trolley in Aldi and there was a man with an illuminated beard and dangling baubles in Asda.

Aldi reminded me of nothing as much as watching stock-car racing in my youth, although today I was not a mere spectator but a participant. In stock-car racing the best drivers start at the back and have to bash their way through to the front. Girls and novices were allowed to drive at the front, where they were amusing targets for the savagely reckless on their high-speed route to the finish line

Imagine that scenario, only instead of cars substitute shopping trolleys overflowing with sprouts and Stilton cheese and cut-price salmon, although it was Aldi so probably they were cut-price fish fingers. Imagine a narrow aisle with previous sprout-casualties bouncing all over it. Imagine desperate mothers of shrieking toddlers and old-age-pensioners with a killer streak. Things got so serious in Asda that an ambulance was called for somebody, and it was a measure of the awfulness of the situation that one actually turned up.

Ther shelves were emptying at an astonishing speed. I managed to seize the last box of Halloumi Fries, which you don’t actually fry but shove in the oven. I like these because they keep for ever in the freezer and are a handy picnic food in the sort of emergency when you realise you have forgotten to make any bread. I rather suspect that I might not have been the only contender and I was obliged to keep a careful watch over them in the trolley, because I saw several people eyeing them up speculatively until I managed to bury them under a couple of bags of parsnips and a box of grapes.

I was so trauma-ed by the whole experience that I forgot to purchase alcohol. I noticed this when I got home, but was so shell-shocked by then that I did not actually care. I was simply relieved to have escaped with all my limbs intact and bags of dog food and carrots safely in the boot of the car, next to a box of Halloumi Fries.

We would be having them for Christmas Dinner had I not finally managed to get my act together and book the Indian restaurant. I had the presence of mind to organise this last night, and felt very pleased with myself, another job done.

In fact, for all my grumbling, I think probably I am almost at a point where I could contemplate celebrating Christmas. I have purchased and wrapped the only Christmas presents I am likely to bother to give, I have filled the fridge with a dozen different and exotic varieties of cheese, including Gin And Lemon flavour, and Chip Shop Curry Flavour. I have booked the restaurant, and although I have not yet earned sufficient cash to pay for it, there is time yet, and I am quite sure everything will fall into place.

All I have to do now is prepare food for visitors, which includes all the usual daily stuff like mayonnaise because I have been too busy for ages, and when I have finished I will be able to start writing my assignment.

It shouldn’t be a problem at all. I have still got a whole week to go.