Well, I’ll be damned, but my usual routine was a wee bit disturbed again lately. You see herself, my chief household executive, fell victim to that cursed eastern invader, covid 19.
She was laid up for a full week and so yours truly was called upon to dig deep into resources of cooking, ironing, shopping, and many more household skills I never knew I had.
My first major challenge was to do the big shop for the week. The list was dictated, I took some photos of the regular household goods and off I went to navigate the shopping aisles.
It was full speed ahead with items crossed off as I pegged them into the trolley.
I was just amazed at the variety and range of milks available. All I wanted was two cartons of organic whole cow’s milk, but no such species was on the shelf. There was oat and coconut, slimline and low fat but none of the real deal. I did some negotiating with a shelf packer who went to the store and brought out some Connacht Gold whole milk. I ask myself where the Wexford cows are and then I see Jersey milk, soya milk, almond milk in plentiful supply. I was blown away on my milky way odyssey and was quite happy to support Connacht farmers and their milk.
They say variety is the spice of life and there is plenty of variety in milky products. The world is gone half daft, I think. Weren’t we all reared on unpasteurised full cream cow’s milk, and we seem to have survived OK.
Anyway, I managed to locate everything on the list and proceeded to join the checkout queue. I tossed the veggies and milk, bread and eggs on the conveyor belt and I noticed that the girl on the till placed all the shopping in a nice order,and ready for me to pack them in the bags.All veggies were placed together, likewise dairy products. I was getting a gentle lesson in the art of packing which I acknowledged.
I bagged the shopping carefully, paid up and proceeded to the car park and headed home.
Now the next part of the process involved the unpacking and putting all the shopping away in the right pressers, drawers, and fridge. My god this is all tough work and nearly outside my skill set. I must do it more often in sickness free times.
And so, it is time to serve up the tea and brown bread as requested to my covid downed wife but where is the bread.
Oh my god I forgot the small brown sliced loaf and so nothing would do only to head back out and join the traffic snarl-ups and shopping masses again.
Now I re-enter the store and go straight to the bread section. I notice that there are lots of small loaves, I wanted but none were sliced. I mention this to a lady of my own vintage standing next to me and she says that if you wanted it sliced you go to the slicing machine. I thanked her and off she popped leaving me stranded mid floor brandishing a small brown unsliced loaf with no one around to help.
I noticed a butcher behind a counter, and I acquaint him of my predicament. He was very helpful, coming out from behind the counter ,donning new plastic gloves,to show me where the slicer was and told me he was as wise as myself about its operation.
Anyway, we gazed and wondered and lifted the flap and placed the loaf in position in front of the blades, dropped the flap down and hey presto the machine started, and bread was sliced. I thanked my butcher instructor, and he told me that I was most welcome because he also was after learning something new.
I placed the newly sliced loaf carefully in the paper bag provided and headed toward the till. The friendly assistant told me that he just loved Declan’s sliced brown bread with butter and jam. I wonder did he have to operate the slicing machine.
As I was leaving, I met a couple of friends doing their shopping and I was telling them about my exploits with the loaf and hubby told me about a similar experience he had. He was requested one evening to bring home a loaf of Declan’s brown bread and he was confronted with the same bread slicing machine as myself. He placed the bread in length ways and brought home a new version of the long sliced small brown bread loaf.
They love this bread they told me as it is baked inhouse to a traditional recipe by Declan, the head baker,hence the name. Heres to healthy living.
We laughed and I went off with my bread. There’s a lot to be said for online shopping.