Lists

By rights I should not be writing this post. It goes against all the rules of what is decent and proper because I haven't got it on my 'to do list'. The things which are currently on my list are;

I am an inveterate list maker. I have lists of things to do, lists of stuff to pack for the holiday, shopping lists, ideas for blog list. The list is almost literally endless. Up in my bedroom I even have a list of hymns I might like at my funeral. I'm hoping that one will not be put to use in the near future, but you never know.
I can't speak for other people but I have my own fairly rigid view of 'list etiquette'.

1) Lists have to be written by hand on a piece of scruffy paper - an envelope, a page torn out of a diary. It has to be a stand alone piece of paper. Writing a list in a notebook is not acceptable. I have even tried writing a list on my phone on a special app I got but I can't do it. It just doesn't feel right.
2) You have to cross things off the list once you've done them. This is necessary for that sense of smug satisfaction. If you do something 'extra' (such as writing this blog) it has to be added to the list and crossed off anyway.
3) You are allowed to add sub-sections. For example, if I am writing reports and have 60 to do I can have reports a, reports b and reports c and cross off one for every 20 reports I complete.
4) I am not strict about doing my lists in order but I am sure that some people reading this have just started screaming at the very thought of doing lists randomly. These people are 'extreme listers'.

Anyway I had better stop now and add this blog post to my list so I can have the joy of crossing it off. Then I am going to phone the repeat prescription line and go and pay for my bathroom. Hooray! Only just gone 9 o'clock and three things pretty much done!

A nice bit of British classism

As you all know by now I have what some may consider an unhealthy obsession with the relative merits of local supermarkets. I do particularly like the posh one up the road from me and when I go there I feel all middle class and grown up as I choose between the chargrilled artichokes and the olive and manchego platter. However, on a recent visit I was left feeling quite shocked and confused after spotting a customer buying a copy of ‘The Sun’ newspaper. Now I don’t like to be judgmental but I’m going to be anyway. To explain to anyone from a different country who may be reading this, ‘The Sun’ contains pictures of scantily clad ladies, no news and could easily be accessed by someone with a reading age of 7. In a nutshell, it is not what you expect ‘Waitrose’ clientèle to be buying.

When I relayed this dismaying news to a friend, he asked if I was sure they weren’t buying  ‘The Sun’ in a kind of post-modern ironic way, a bit like people who send their children to fee-paying schools buy ‘The Guardian’. (Kerrching! I have now managed to alienate the remaining 50% of my friends, the ones who were smugly chuckling about ‘The Sun’) I assured him that this was not the case as I had overheard them talking and they didn’t even know how to pronounce ‘cous-cous’ properly. I grabbed my elderflower and raspberry terrine and practically ran out of there.
This story takes me back to the early days of my marriage. A semi-
famous soap star had died in an accident and the only paper covering in was ‘The Mirror’. I asked my husband Geof to buy a copy on his way home so I could read about it. He said he would, but that he would have to divorce me afterwards!

(Disclaimer – I love all my friends and family. I don’t care what newspaper you read, where you shop, where your kids go to school. You are all lovely, warm, caring people and that is what matters!)

One to scare my hetereosexual male readers: PMT

When we lived in the great metropolis that is Wakefield we came across an unusual phenomenon, namely supermarkets being open outside the hours of 9-5. Whilst I am in no way an advocate of the 24/7 society, I must say that being able to go shopping outside working hours is quite useful.
Our local store (not the posh one) opens at 8 o'clock and one day I went in before work for a few items. I think I had managed to beat the pensioners on this occasion so my visit was a fairly speedy affair. However, I did have time to spot one young man who was unloading his goods behind mine on the conveyor belt. Flowers, chocolates and a 'feminine hygiene' product. The poor man. The breakfast things were barely off the table and he had already managed to upset a pre-menstrual woman to the extent that a mercy dash to Sainsbury's was necessary. I wonder how that one turned out...?

Supermarket Turf Wars

Food shopping in North Walsham can be a frustrating experience especially if, like me, you are not blessed with a huge amount of patience. I tend to do my main grocery shops on-line, which perhaps makes me even more irritable when it comes to actually going into the store.
Until recently there was only really one supermarket in North Walsham and whilst I like their products, their customer service leaves much to be desired. As I normally only pop in for a few items I do not consider it wholly unreasonable to expect that such forays would last a matter of minutes rather than hours. Not so. (Ok, allow me a little poetic licence please)
Let's say, for argument's sake, that I have bread, milk, eggs and wine (or Mummy juice as Bryn used to call it) in my BASKET. As I have a BASKET I make my way to the BASKET only checkout only to be greeted with a queue of more mature people with TROLLEYS. There is only one, single, solitary BASKET only checkout in this supermarket. There are 7 or 8 TROLLEY checkouts. Why do you do it? Can you not read or do you just choose not to?
On one or two occasions, God forgive me, I have been persuaded to use the 'Self Checkout' tills. Now that's a mistake I will not be making again. It is quicker to queue behind the trolley pensioners believe me. 'Unexpected item in bagging area'. YES! THAT WILL BE THE SEVERED HEAD OF WHICHEVER GREY-SUITED MIDDLE MANAGER THOUGHT IT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA TO INSTALL THESE ****** THINGS!
Then, just before Christmas last year a new more 'upmarket' store opened just down the road. Very polite staff, lots of basket only spaces and so convenient for those few bits and pieces I always forget. OK, you need to re-mortgage the house or sell a kidney to shop there but it's worth it!