Welcome to Saturday! We spent the first hour or so doing a risk assessment of how we were going to get our essential supermarket shopping – seriously, we did! The circular argument that kept us busy for the first 45 minutes of the discussion was the definition of “essential”.
We didn’t essentially need to go as there was some food in the house that would mean we wouldn’t starve but none of it actually went together, e.g. peanut butter and pasta. What we concluded was the longer we left it, the more people would have C-19 and therefore more chance we had of contracting it in a shop so, on balance, it was essential that we went today.
Okay, so that’s the first bit. The second bit of the amicable argument was how could we avoid as many people as possible to make the trip as safe as possible. We decided that going in the evening would be best and going to a big supermarket rather than one of the smaller ones would give us more space to do our C-19 waltz. Decision made, as an experiment, I decided to take my blood pressure to see how I was doing and, it was up a bit little and it’s not been that high for ages. I never would have thought a trip to the supermarket would have stressed me out so much.
As we weren’t going out until later, we had several hours to fill so did the cleaning and ironing. I suffer with lots of allergies, including dust, so my husband took the cleaning part and I did the ironing. I honestly think it must be about eight years’ since I’ve done any full-on ironing.
In our house, largely driven by me, one of our mottos is “never knowingly under outsourced” and we like to adopt this where ever possible. I know that is a bit of a luxury, but we both work full time and it is a price that we been happy to pay and will certainly be delighted to have our help back as soon as all this is over. I did get an enormous sense of satisfaction from seeing the bottom of the ironing basket and all the beautiful bedding and shirts hanging up in front of me but I don’t want to be repeating it too often.
One of the downsides of my husband doing the cleaning is that he found my secret bin full of the sweet wrappers I mentioned yesterday in respect of my 4 pound weight gain. Rumbled – ha ha – and looking at the evidence, it probably really should have been even more! I really do think I’m going to have to watch all of these secret calories as, by the end of Saturday night, I had also finished a bottle of vodka that I only started 2 weeks’ ago.
I am going to root out the jigger from the back of the cupboard so that I can make sure I’m having single measures like I do in pubs and restaurants and not these house measures – even though they are more delicious! We’ve also made a pact now to only drink on a Friday and (or, I can’t remember?!) Saturday so this will help as I was definitely guilty of a panic blip drink a few days’ ago when the consequences of the virus began to be a reality.
We finally made it out to the supermarket and I was very edgy. I was getting quite frustrated with our satnav, Polly, who kept telling me to turn half right – what does that mean surely you can only either turn right or not. There was a specific tannoy announcement in the supermarkets to remind all customers to follow the one way system that I had completely missed in my panic led state. They really were enormous arrows and once I saw them, I couldn’t believe that I’d missed them. Part of it was that I had turned into a little girl and was hiding behind my husband as if he could protect me from the virus – ridiculous behaviour from a grown woman.
I had a lovely little moment with the man on the till as we were comparing notes around getting to know our neighbours and he started singing the song, “Who are the people in your neighbourhood?” from Sesame Street way back when. We had a nice little duet in the shop and a bit of a laugh when I explained that my husband had never ever ever seen Sesame Street. What sort of deprived childhood did he have, hey?!
One of the young boys in our road posted a drawing through our door telling us to be happy and safe. We noticed that some of the neighbours had put theirs in the front window, along with the one from yesterday, so now I was in a terrible pickle as, we know I put the little girl’s one in the bin in case it had the virus. I wrestled with it and, fuelled by vodka, concocted a little white lie and sent the little girl note to say that we had spilt tea on it so could she please draw us another one so we can put that in the window too. Let’s see if it arrives tomorrow so I can assuage my guilt!
My random thought if the day was when I was putting something away, I found a really lovely handbag that I had completely forgotten about. And then, involuntarily, made a pact with the universe not to buy any more expensive handbags ever if all of my friends and family were safe at the end of this. Then I remembered the film, “The End of the Affair”, and realised it was just a ridiculous notion to be bargaining with the universe at this moment in time. So as quickly as I had made a pact, I retracted it. I really do hope I do not live to regret that little incident.
My List: Oooooh, there’s quite a lot today – Sorted out all the bedding in a cupboard including vacuum packing it to minimise space; Cleaned all my makeup brushes and put away the ones I don’t use for another day; watched some of the DVD mountain (finished season 4 of ”VEEP” so leave the next one and started watching season 1 of “Mistresses” – it’s a bit old and you can tell this from the ancient mobile phones but is good TV); and read another chapter of “The Power” (it’s back to being “OK” again & I’ll be glad when it’s done!)
My lowlight: Finding out that my sister has a cough and feels rotten – it might be her asthma or hayfever but hopefully it isn’t C-19.
My highlight: Getting back home after the supermarket dash and knowing we don’t have to go back for a good few weeks’ due to our new definition of “essential”. We will have what’s there rather than what we fancy but at least there is stuff that will now go together.
My Anxiety levels: Medium – who’d have thought planning a trip to the supermarket would do this to me.
