When I looked out of the bathroom window this morning, braced for the snow to be deep, crisp, even and a damn nuisance, I saw tufts of grass still poking through the sprinkling on the lawn. It was still snowing, though, in a half-hearted way, so I thought I'd better get to the supermarket before it got more whole-hearted about it. The traffic going into Colchester was light, and Waitrose was very quiet. Evidently the new mini-beast from the East had not prompted a wave of panic buying.
In fact, we had enough of everything to have lasted until next week, unless the milk went off, except for cat biscuits. The trouble with running out of cat biscuits is that Mr Fidget prefers them to tinned food, and you cannot explain to a cat why you have run out. If the milk's off we can drink black coffee and have porridge instead of cereal, but you cannot use that logic on a cat.
The Systems Administrator reappeared safely just before noon, having left the Forest of Dean before seven. Hotel prices in Cheltenham rocket during the Festival, and the SA's racing circle went self-catering a long time ago. One of them spotted a wild boar in the forest this time round, but the SA was driving so had his eyes on the road and didn't see it. The SA sympathised about my ear, promised to come and help me put the stage up tomorrow morning for the music society's concert as long as we weren't snowed in by then, and was grateful not to have to turn round and go out again to go to the supermarket.
It is a sign of what a quiet day it has been, what with the snow and the earache, that when Waitrose sent me an email asking if I'd fill in a questionnaire about my shopping experience to help them improve their customer experience, I clicked on the link to the survey. I felt bad when I found I'd got to the end with no opportunity to make comments, because I'd clicked No when asked if any member of staff helped or inspired me. I hope they don't get into trouble for that, because honestly I was happy not to be Inspired and didn't need any help, since everything I wanted to buy was in the same place it had been the last time I shopped there. When you have earache and half an eye on the snow falling outside the last thing you want is to be accosted by some desperate John Lewis group partner trying to Inspire you with new recipes. I wanted cat biscuits, the ingredients for a Flemish lamb stew, a loaf of bread and some long dated milk and to be out of there. And since my ear was making my head feel like a balloon and half deaf I didn't want to make cheerful small talk with the young lad on the till. He was a bit slow scanning my basket, but he had lovely curly hair and looked as though he was doing his best, so I rated him Good in the survey.
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