Now I know we have been here before but with six of us living in the cottage food shopping has become a nightmare. We had it sorted when there was only two of us, it was something Christine did by herself while I sat in the coffee shop and had an Americano with an Apricot Croissant. A good allocation of duties I thought!


But now it’s shopping for six and I have been recruited to help. No longer do we wander down the market to buy our weekly supply of vegetables which even with Christine’s love of all things green still only just about fills a carrier bag. The local pork butcher has seen a big dip in his trade no longer getting our £12 a week for a two person roast, some sausages and a few chops. Our bread and cheese no longer comes from the local deli or our wine from the local merchant, instead we go to Tescos.


That’s the same Tescos that I refused to shop at in an attempt to ruin their profits and force them into closing. Which seeing as we were only shopping for the two of us did not seem to have any noticeable impact but we can but try! And whilst on the subject of Tescos has anyone else noticed how confusing they make their half price offers, I know I am getting on in years but I am not easily confused, that is until I go into Tescos. I do wonder if it’s part of their company policy to boost profits. For instance this week there was a half price offer on Hardy’s Chauvignon Blanc and as most people know I am quite partial to a glass of wine, only after the school bus has passed of course, so I pick up a couple and add them to the trolley. A good deal, or so I thought!


I realise later that I have been charged full price for these two bottles and return to the store in Beverley to look at the offer again and sure enough it still says “Half Price”. The problem of course is in the small print, the offer is for Hardy’s Chauvignon Blanc but mixed on the shelf above the offer is indeed some Hardy’s Chauvignon Blanc but also some Hardy’s Semillon Chardonnay both having the same label design except the words Chauvignon Blanc being replaced by Semillon Chardonnay and these of course are not half price. Deliberate company policy or what? I leave you to decide.


But that is nothing to do with today’s posting. We are now shopping for six which means instead of picking odd and ends from here and there we have a very large trolley. Not even one of the shallow trolleys, we now need a very deep very big trolley and these are even more difficult to push in a straight line than the shallow ones. But even that is not the point of the story, it’s the amount of food we get through that is hard to believe. We arrive home with dozens of bags of shopping, spend the next hour or so finding somewhere to put it all and then what happens, Amber walks in the kitchen to tell us we have run out of shortbread for her to have with her afternoon cup of tea. Run out! Run out! We can’t be out of anything we have just picked something from every counter in Tescos.


The next day we are down the shop again getting everything we have forgotten. The problem is people keep eating whatever it is we have brought in, if we all stopped eating for a few days maybe we could get on top of situation. There must be somewhere that does lessons in how to shop for six, we need help.


But it isn’t even just the shopping. I know it’s hard to believe but Christine has been baking! It certainly surprises me that I can write a phrase like ‘Christine has been baking’, forty odd years we have been together and suddenly Christine has been baking. When we got the new Range Cooker I knew it was only a matter of time until scones and sausage rolls became a regular feature of our diet, what I didn’t anticipate is that it would take getting on for two years and that there would be six of us eating them.


So last week a tray of a dozen scones come out the oven and naturally we need to try them whilst they are hot so that’s six gone followed by one each after lunch and that’s it, scones all gone. The Drop Scones got no further than the plate as they came out of the frying pan, six people sampling them made short work of a bowl full of batter and even the dozen Blueberry Muffins only lasted into the next day. Christine has decided baking is pointless as people only eat whatever she bakes as soon as it comes out the oven. So she has stopped.


Well the shopping is all put away, fridges and freezers are again bursting with food, the school bus has passed and we are settling down in the Garden Room with our full price bottles of wine, all’s well with the world. Then in walks Joe, who is making some Brownies and tells us we are now out of cocoa.


I top up my glass and go looking for a cracker to have with a little cheese while I read my book and wait for our evening meal. Guess what? We are out of crackers, I top up my glass again and eat the cheese by itself. We will get the hang of this soon, perhaps.