Notes from a Nervous Planet - 2

So this is the new normal.  We eat everyday at 6.30pm ish and usually watch the Channel 4 News afterwards.  For the last two weeks I've been recording the news and maybe watching it later, or the next day., or never. I no longer watch the news at 1pm, as I've been doing for years.  There's just too much dread out there. 

I've never been in a war situation, but one look at the supermarket shelves tells me that things are not the "normal" they were. Wondering when they will bring in rationing.  I just thank god for my hoarding tendencies. (about which my fella has complained bitterly in the past.  He ain't complaining now.)  I think I got it from my Mother, she had lived through a war, and left overs always ended up in a kind of "Shepherds Pie" with tomatoes and Mashed Potato on top.  Thanks to the food hoarding tendencies and something called the "McGahon Frugal Gene",  I have at least three months supply of spaghetti.  And that came about by accident.  

Six months  back spaghetti appeared on my local M&S shelves priced at 50p.  (Have a feeling that these cheaper foods are in response to Lidl and Aldi and Waitrose Essentials's range.)  Anyway a quick glance told me that the spaghetti I normally threw in the trolley without a moment's thought was three times the price, yep £1.50, so I threw 6 in my trolley on that visit.  Then on subsequent visits I realised that the 50p spaghetti shelf was often empty.  So on every visit where the 50p stuff was available I took as many as I could.

Rice we buy by the sackful from Costco, so that's no problem.  What is a problem are potatoes.  They do not keep as well as pasta or rice.  So that means I go to the supermarket when it opens and buy.  Less people, shorter or no queues.

On our last visit to Costco, we and the trolley were sprayed as we entered. Safety first I thought, good idea.  Then we saw the queues and so many trolleys piled high with, yes you guessed it, Toilet Roll.  The checkout woman commented that either Nuclear War had been declared, or, there was a mass outbreak of Gastro-Enteritis!!