I Went to the Shops and I bought…

This morning it was time to restock the freezer. Obviously, deliveries are impossible to come by, so we managed to get a click and collect in Maldon. At 7 am in the morning.

Naturally, I didn’t know about this until just as I was about to go to sleep, at which point Sue turned to me and said, ‘oh, and don’t forget you’re driving to Maldon in the morning.’

I was still delighted when she nudged me awake at 6.15 this morning and said, ‘come on. You should have been up ages ago.’

To be fair, she often says that to me.

We spent the drive to Maldon listening to Chris Moyles and speculating whether he was broadcasting from home or had made the journey into the studio. Considering he was bantering with his posse, it was a reasonable bet he was in the studio. Either that, or he’s a little closer to his work colleagues than I had realised.

It’s odd that I’ve come to consider working from home to be the norm and travelling in to work as unusual. It’s particularly odd when there are so many people for whom working from home would be a luxury. You can do, for instance, construction work, from home but only if you’ve got a large garden and a ready supply of bricks. Being a traffic warden is right out.

Anyway, we such musings we wiled away the time to Tescos. The Tescos in Maldon, it turns out, is huge. Just navigating the car park was like crossing the Sahara. Even the sign to the Click and Collect was huge. It was so big, we almost missed it because we assumed it was a billboard. The next one was almost as large. We followed a sequence of signs around and around the car park ring road until, abruptly, the signs veered to the left. At first, we thought we’d made a mistake. We thought we’d followed the signs to the hand car wash instead. It wasn’t a click and collect, it was a small tent. There was barely room for a single car at a time, never mind the three that were queued behind us.

The usual negotiations occurred. We stayed in the car while our groceries were retrieved and placed at a safe distance. Then the staff retreated while we emerged and completed the hostage negotiations.

The bags contained the essentials. Usual lockdown fare: four apple strudels, plenty of ice cream, a chocolate fudge cake. You’ll be pleased to know we had Nobbly Bobblys.

Then, groceries safely bundled into the back of the car, we sped off home, ready to start the day.