A shopping Saturday

[Mr D trying to keep a straight line on the Sainbury’s slope]

It’s not going well this soggy Saturday morning. Mr George – our veteran 18-year-old moggie was nose to nose at 1.30 am. Standing on my chest and waking me from a nightmare in which l was suffocating from a dead weight pressing on my lungs!

This demanding food in the early hours is getting out of control. I think I have joined the middle-of-the-night have-a-cuppa-wide-awake club.

It’s the reason l make mistakes as l search for a visual for my Pic of the Day.

Thanks Adrian who messaged to tell me that the Lunar New Year Lion Dance in on Saturday the 14th at the Holburne and not today. Also that today is the 7th and not the 6th!

We like to get up quite early and hit Sainsbury’s at Chippenham even before the papers are on the shelves. Though you have to be prepared to manoeuvre through the staff doing the shopping of those who – for whatever reason – stay at home.

I think they are timed against the clock as it’s grab a front of the shelve item on the pre-programmed list and on to the next aisle – asap.

Those of us who do drag ourselves out get the added bonus of being able to reach to the back of the shelf where they hide the produce with the longest sale by date!

My smugness produced bad karma. We always take the electronic ‘gun’ and ‘shoot’ barcodes to make paying faster and getting out easier.

Now l know we’ve been flashed up for staff checking (is it 14) items before but horror of horrors, the blinking red light brought an apology from a Sainsbury’s staffer but they have to go through every item.!!

It felt like a retail strip search watching our goods being emptied out and feeling like a criminal into the bargain. My initial reaction is never to shop in Sainsbury’s again but l know l will get over this public shaming and continue a habit of at least sixty years.

It’s easier for us to head to Chippenham than to cross the city to shop in the Green Park store but today’s shop search reminded me of another niggle l have concerning that place.

The pathway leading to the entrance is on a slope. Fine when you are wheeling an empty trolley in but not so much fun trying to keep a straight line when heavily laden. Then you struggle – often in wind and rain – on the rumbling journey to where you have parked the car.

I have another bone to pick with this publicly traded company. Its shareholders include a Czech billionaire and a Qatar sovereign wealth fund. My concern is about a certain wind-driven mobile sculpture. It was commissioned to mark the opening of their now-demolished Homebase store in Bath. This store was located across the way from their Green Park supermarket.

The work of artist Peter Logan was given pride of place in 1987 but the mobile – entitled Nails – is now lost in bush and bramble.

The Homebase site is being redeveloped for housing. I am trying to confirm if the mobile lies within the developer’s land or Sainsbury’s.

I have received positive feedback from the developers. They asked me to mark the site on a Google map image. This will help them check.

I have also twice emailed the Sainsbury’s press office and have had no response. What does that say about them, eh?

By the way, that bad karma travelled with us back home. Parking up to unload our ‘adulterated’ goods, we noticed a vehicle seemed to have emptied half its fuel tank down our sloping road. A rainbow stream of petrol running downhill as far as the eye could see.