On Christmas Eve, we found ourselves in Tesco.
Circumstances required a last minute pharmacy call (don’t ask), and so there we were, in the slip lane on the approach to The World’s Busiest Supermarket, made all the worse for the roadworks currently affecting access to the shop, and the fact that we were there on Christmas bloomin’ eve. It did not bode well…
Happily, however, for some reason, all the other sensible people in the world had done their shopping, and neither Tesco nor its approach road were too bad at all. We moseyed on in, found a lovely big parking spot and headed into the store, stopping for a quick “Abbey Road” mock up on the zebra crossing just outside the Click’n’Collect.
As you do.
First stop – The Pharmacy. And after arguing for a solid five minutes with his sister about trolleys and scan as you shop devices, Boy Seymour was discovered to have left his sodding prescription the the sodding van. He had ONE job…
Off he went to fetch it.
We tried again, and after a fraught moment when we thought we couldn’t get the prescription because they only had 30mg when we were prescribed 15, we managed to procure our anti-fungal cream.
I had but a few items on my last minute shopping list: curry, coleslaw, conditioner.But I made the mistake of finding some cut-price salad, and I couldn’t resist. Then I found prepared vegetables down to 10p and less. We came home with sweetcorn, chopped and seasoned potatoes, filled peppers, red cabbage, diced onions, soup bases, veggies for steaming, couscous salads, edamame beans, sprouts, not to mention noodles, pineapple chunks, coconut slices and a broken yule log.
We did not go short on food come Christmas Day. We had a feast! I even managed to create a Camembert-cum-puff pastry ring, complete with cranberry sauce garnish, so by the time the turkey was served, nobody had much of an appetite. There were leftovers galore, much to Big Seymour’s horror. He is not, sadly, a fan of The Leftover – a mindset I simply cannot abide in this time of excess. After a few days of eating turkey and duck soup, turkey curry and glazed ham sandwiches, he saw that complaints were futile, and realised that the leftover food was actually very edible. I threw a few seasoned sprouts into every dish, and nobody seemed to notice.
One problem remains – all that veg’ I bought cheap on Christmas Eve was largely used up, but I still have a few packets of sliced red cabbage and other assorted legumes that I simply can’t face eating. I strongly suspect that when (and if) I peel the plastic packaging back, there will be a small nuclear explosion of putrid fizz.
In conclusion, next year, if faced with a tempting array of cheap food before Christmas, I will try not to go so mad. There is, after all, only so much red cabbage a person can eat. And whilst I have no objection to leftovers, it would be nice if my kitchen didn’t smell of farts for a week after Christmas whilst I struggle to use up all the excess sprouts.
Happy New Year!
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