Day 31
C returns home, shocked and exhausted, after hunter-gathering at a click and collect event at our local supermarket. Depending which way you look at it, we are in or teetering on the verge of being in a vulnerable group.
Instead of a 2lb bread tin – there is baking going on, particularly delicious and so easy crusty apple cake, courtesy of Sam Wollaston in the Guardian – they have substituted a tray for 4 Yorkshire puddings,
and instead of strong bread flour we have cornflour. Presumably the wonderful staff who are whizzing round the store, trying to keep up with everything, have been told by those above, to substitute substitute substitute however wild the substitution may seem to the recipient. We asked for 1st class stamps but received 2nd class but there is no sign of the frozen spinach.
C’s slot was 7am-8am. She leaves home at 6.45. The store is just down the road. At 7.04 my phone buzzes, a text – ‘Chaos’. I reply with uplifting words. ‘Oh god.’
Apparently the assigned area for collection is in the disabled area, queuing is all over the place, with long lines of both cars and pedestrians, some social distancing, some not so much, and there is some middle-class shoving – ‘I was here at 10 past 7!’ The staff are doing the best they can, trying to keep order, and to be fair to all. Someone who is ahead in the queue gets the frozen chips from someone else’s bags – possibly the nice woman who is in front of C, who keeps saying ‘I’m sure you were here before me.’
It was much more organised in Walthamstow, despite the substitution of Thai basil leaves for ordinary basil. For that we scoured the internet for recipes using Thai basil . To which we shall revert, both in relation to Walthamstow and Thai basil.
And we did get clotted cream – C is going to make scones – and anchovies which have been thin on the ground. So all is not lost.
Most things go swiftly into quarantine, in the back room, which now resembles Quartermaster’s stores from guide camp, although crisps were never on the menu there. Feel we can justify all items – in the event of a sudden sweep of the neighbourhood for Public Hoarder offences – chocolate for example is to maintain morale, and sticky tape is required for all the craft work which we shall soon undertake. 
Some time later
Aha! As I said, we were charged for – and received – 2nd class stamps, but tucked inside the bags, beside the spaghetti and the chick peas, was a whole pack of 1st class stamps for which we have not paid.
Stamp/spinach letters will be written – if we can work out how to do that. I keep getting letters from CEO Mike, I think I can call him that since he calls me Elizabeth and has written so frequently, I’m sure he’ll know the answer. Click and Collect is a great idea, but in these difficult days, organisation is the name of the game. And cake of course.
