I do also return by bus with the trolley if it's been the Heavy Or Awkward items shop- but only if I've managed to find the 15 minutes time slot between commuters and free bus pass time on weekdays! Or before 8.00 a.m. on a Saturday... Evenings are also variable - again, it's finding the time slot between the shifts changing at the industrial park, or the shifts finishing at the hospital - a number of hospital workers live at my end of the route about 3 miles from their workplace and the bus can be surprisingly busy at times one might not expect it.
Our major bus company has a useful app which you can get on your phone, that tells you exactly where each bus is in real time and also roughly how full it is. (I don't use it, but I've seen it on the website). At present the live "next bus" displays on the stops have been turned off as (I believe) it's a complex job reprogramming them for the constant timetable changes.
Our bus app does real-time arrivals, (when it's sticking to the main timetable - which it's currently not due to Half Term, and didn't all through the worst of the constant timetable changes from March - June) but it would be useful if it did a "How full am I?" update. It's kind of frustrating seeing the long-awaited bus approach with the "Bus full - Social Distancing" when I stand and I think "I could've walked home the scenic route and been home before now".
Almost all journeys in East Anglia I live at the top of the only hill for miles around - and sure enough, the shop is at the bottom of it so I get the uphill return journey.
One of the reasons for choosing this house was because it is on level land. There is just a very slight uphill on the way back from the town centre and if I have heavy bags I take the bus, free with my bus pass.
For the past three years though, we have Aldi about 300 yds away, so I can avoid buses, uphills and crowds too by choosing my time. This morning the car park is packed out. Stockpiling?
Panic buying.
Stockpiling is slowly building up a stash over the months so that you don’t need to panic buy.
I can’t see it being like that round here - we’ve been locked down since mid July.
It’s blowing a gale and raining sideways today. Our puppy training will be in the indoor shopping centre which has an indoor car park!
I'm feeling sad this morning as Nenlet2 is heading back up north to his house after a few days with us - work-related. It seems he'll just be squeaking home before another lockdown. It's pouring with rain and very windy here so definitely a day for coffee and online browsing and reading. I've been reminded on the Health and Fitness thread of the Christopher Robin verses which I haven't read for years and today seems an ideal day to curl up and lose myself in them for a while.
James James
Morrison Morrison
Weatherby George Dupree...
Is it actually called that or is it just known as that locally? The city near to me has Heart Attack Hill - I don't know what its true name is but everyone knows it as that because of the very steep nature of the incline.
I can heartily recommend a cargo trike for shopping purposes - I've carried everything from groceries to furniture to a small marquee in mine, and with three wheels hills are no great bother. Prior to that I used to use a wheeled holdall such as you might take on holiday. More capacity and less "old lady" looking.
The one in Lincoln really is called Steep Hill. We went to a Steampunk Asylum weekend there once, and the meeting place for the first evening was a pub called Mother Cullen's Well on Steep Hill. Our b&b was at the bottom of the hill, so we started to climb.... By the time we saw the pub, we were nearly on our knees, and we still weren't anywhere near the top of the hill.
Many years ago when I lived in Glasgow, there was a (now demolished) Maternity Hospital at the top of a steep rise that was known locally as ‘Induction Hill’...
@Piglet Nothing old ladyish about wheelie shopping trolleys in my part of the world. The vast majority of Parisians do our grocery shopping on foot and people of all ages use a trolley. Think of it as French chic
In a similar vein, I now find it strange that British people associate slipper wearing with being old. French people all wear slippers, partly to keep the floor clean, and partly to avoid disturbing the downstairs neighbours.
@Piglet Nothing old ladyish about wheelie shopping trolleys in my part of the world. The vast majority of Parisians do our grocery shopping on foot and people of all ages use a trolley. Think of it as French chic
It’s the same here in Cambridge, possibly because it’s a very eco-friendly city, there are loads of people who use trolleys if they walk to the shops. Generally they start using them when their younger child grows out of the pushchair. I see just as many people below 50 with one as I do older people. Mine has green psychedelic swirls on it, my next door neighbour’s one is bright pink.
Maybe these shopping trollies are part of *The New Normal*? No bad thing if so, IMHO.
Just to be different, our village shops are at the top of a very steep hill - the street runs along the line of an escarpment, and much of the housing (and, of course, the river) is at a lower level. When I couldn't drive a couple of years ago, the steep gradient back down the hill was of some help!
I have to say that some of the Cambridge pavements are awful! Downing Street/Pembroke Street (from John Lewis towards the Fitzwilliam Museum) I remember as being particularly bad. But they may have been improved since I was last there (about 4 years ago).
I am mid thirties, and my trolley has owls, and pink wheels. The travel system is a combination of black and lime green.
I have always worn slippers at home as I grew up in a house with a quarry tile kitchen floor, and it was always freezing cold underfoot in there. I am a bit fussy though as I don't like the opened back sort, and they need to have a proper solid sole. That reminds me I need to find where Mr Dragon's have vanished off to.
Today I am going to a free online conference about grieving called Good Grief https://goodgrieffest.com/ The talks and seminars are free over the weekend but I’ve also paid £20 to have access to everything afterwards as I teach on a module on Death, dying and bereavement. This afternoon I get to listen to one of my favourite people, Dr Alice Roberts, talk about death.
I’ll probably get my spinning wheel out while I’m listening.
This is brilliant, Heavenlyannie, perfect for the weekend of All Saints. I've just registered and paid up, too, and am now watching Alice Roberts et al, as well!
We weren't up with the news so were taken aback by the numbers in Waitrose when we went for a brief foray in the early afternoon, and by the enormous gaps in the obvious places on the shelves when it was quiet enough for us to feel comfortable there.
This would happen when we have got through all the loo roll I bought when it was on offer, and I was having to buy at the full price, just one lot at a time until it was on offer again. I have some ordered for Monday, but I feel it will be cancelled. We've enough of the real emergency stuff we haven't been using because it looks a bit flimsy for a week.
I've got enough of everything else, and milk deliveries, so we are OK without the panic.
In normal times, my wife and I would have been avidly watching the Rugby on TV this afternoon.
Today we didn't. Quite apart from the lack of a crowd, the whole sports thing seems so irrelevant just now.
I did watch (Scotland won!) but I had to turn the sound off because the taped crowd noise in the empty stadium was just so wrong.
Back to watching European Tour golf (Cyprus this week). There's a sport which works fine without an audience. In fact, the absence of stands around the greens is a plus.
Took my driving test in Cambridge many years ago. Hill start was done on a railway bridge!
Yes! My mother the Dowager's too!
Coincidentally, she was heavily pregnant at the time and at the end of the test the examiner looked at her and said 'I really don't know whether to pass you or not'.
(She wondered if he was looking for a bribe - she had a rather suspicious nature)
'Oh well, I don't suppose you'll be driving anywhere on your own for a while. All right'.
We’ll be walking three dogs this morning. My friend’s dog usually comes to us for holidays. This time it’s not a holiday, it’s Covid. Their daughter is a nurse and has tested positive. No symptoms, but they all have to isolate for fourteen days - so we are on dog walking duties. Zaba is a lovely black Lab, the same age as Tatze. 🐾🐾
Typical seasonal dense fog in the morning, here in Continental WesShire, now clearing up a bit, but rain forecast for most of the day. Still, rather busy inside: ironing to do, some cleaning, and will watch more of aforementioned (and very worthwhile) GriefFest on web broadcasts.
Just had breakfast, consisting of dark bread, butter and forest berry jam, a few cherry tomatoes and some spicy bacon, which appears to be a specialty of the area, plus a few mugs of rather lovely coffee.
On Saturday, another set of DVDs arrived from Blighty, The Complete Victorian Farm Collection (see e.g. here). Bliss! - Have already watched from these 1620 AD Farm, aka Tales from the Green Valley, and am now watching again Victorian Farm - which interestingly comes with subtitles in English; so could use that in class, if the occasion arises!
Otherwise, some stuff to prepare for next week's teaching, and in the evening, co-watching a YouTube (or Vimeo or Dailymotion) film with a friend and Shipmate, while on Skype chat.
Have a good Sunday, all - whatever the circumstances may be. <votive>
My driving test was also in Cambridge. I don’t remember where we did the hill start, but I know I’d tried very few of them. A few months afterwards I was driving through Bradford to stay with my future parents-in-law for Christmas and thoroughly regretted the lack of practice; it’s not a skill you want to learn in a long queue for traffic lights in December, halfway up a steep hill that looks about a mile long.
Typical seasonal dense fog in the morning, here in Continental WesShire, now clearing up a bit, but rain forecast for most of the day. Still, rather busy inside: ironing to do, some cleaning, and will watch more of aforementioned (and very worthwhile) GriefFest on web broadcasts.
Just had breakfast, consisting of dark bread, butter and forest berry jam, a few cherry tomatoes and some spicy bacon, which appears to be a specialty of the area, plus a few mugs of rather lovely coffee.
On Saturday, another set of DVDs arrived from Blighty, The Complete Victorian Farm Collection (see e.g. here). Bliss! - Have already watched from these 1620 AD Farm, aka Tales from the Green Valley, and am now watching again Victorian Farm - which interestingly comes with subtitles in English; so could use that in class, if the occasion arises!
Otherwise, some stuff to prepare for next week's teaching, and in the evening, co-watching a YouTube (or Vimeo or Dailymotion) film with a friend and Shipmate, while on Skype chat.
Have a good Sunday, all - whatever the circumstances may be. <votive>
Oh, I love that series as well! Must dig mine out again.
A few months afterwards I was driving through Bradford to stay with my future parents-in-law for Christmas and thoroughly regretted the lack of practice; it’s not a skill you want to learn in a long queue for traffic lights in December, halfway up a steep hill that looks about a mile long.
Perhaps the folk of Bradford etc. need special instruction for driving on the flat ... some of those Fenland roads are actually pretty hairy! https://tinyurl.com/y583cvpk
Yesterday I found out that Hurtigruten is now offering no single supplement on selected dates of the cruise I was taken by, so I will have to have the discussion again about going, depending on the dates on offer.
Maybe no one will be going anywhere cruise wise @Penny S though I hope not as we recently booked our summer holiday in Italy for next year, and it would be rather sad to have it cancelled. Yesterday we went to the National Gallery for the afternoon. It was a miserable wet day and we had to be out of the house so some viewings could take place. We very much enjoyed their small exhibition on sin. I guess we won't be able to visit for a while.
I'm sneaking a visit up to where we want to move to to look at a property on Wednesday. It is a bit on the small side but we could buy it without selling this place, which we could rent out for a while. Of course if we do get a buyer on Monday those plans mat change.
Late next year, and circumnavigating the British Isles, with one stop I might need a passport for. It looks possible. Without the single supplement waiver, it was going to cost far too much. I did wonder if this might surface.
Good luck with both bits - buying and selling, Sarasa!
It didn't look like too bad a day today, so after a rather nice brunch of scrambled eggs, smoked salmon and TOAST, I had a stroll along the street, stopping in a quirky little gift/antique shop which had a pleasing collection of Rennie Mackintosh-inspired jewellery - like I need any more of that.
Sadly, after I'd got to the end of the street and bought a few things in Tesco's, it had started to rain, and by the time I got home I was a rather soggy piglet.
Maybe time I got a waterproof coat ...
Time to contemplate supper - prawn and tomato risotto, I think.
“... beeches strip in storms for winter
And stain the wind with leaves”
I’m glad you quoted this. I’ve been looking for it in a half-hearted way for a while. He liked his stormy winds didn’t he, “On Wenlock Edge the wood’s in trouble…”
Today I panic-bought 2 bottles of tomato sauce from a fairly empty Waitrose. I think I’m stocked up now ready to face the next 4 weeks, partly helped by Provisions that I had ready for the caravan trip that is now cancelled. Oh well, at least I can get on with making my Christmas cake & puddings.
Ooh, Christmas pudding, must put that on the list of things to do (or hubby to do, he’s the house baker).
Usual Monday of emails, forums and admin. I’ve also got to download and check the mountain of essays I need to mark over the next 2 weeks (around 50 of them; a cloud of gloom descends...). And this afternoon I need to prepare and practice a three minute presentation of my research for Saturday.
Today I panic-bought 2 bottles of tomato sauce from a fairly empty Waitrose. I think I’m stocked up now ready to face the next 4 weeks, partly helped by Provisions that I had ready for the caravan trip that is now cancelled. Oh well, at least I can get on with making my Christmas cake & puddings.
I'm still wondering why two bottles of tomato sauce were needed for Christmas CAKE etc....
Comments
Panic buying.
Stockpiling is slowly building up a stash over the months so that you don’t need to panic buy.
I can’t see it being like that round here - we’ve been locked down since mid July.
It’s blowing a gale and raining sideways today. Our puppy training will be in the indoor shopping centre which has an indoor car park!
James James
Morrison Morrison
Weatherby George Dupree...
Took my driving test in Cambridge many years ago. Hill start was done on a railway bridge!
And of course there is Ely, and Steep Hill in Lincoln.
In a similar vein, I now find it strange that British people associate slipper wearing with being old. French people all wear slippers, partly to keep the floor clean, and partly to avoid disturbing the downstairs neighbours.
So pergaps there's something in it!
It’s the same here in Cambridge, possibly because it’s a very eco-friendly city, there are loads of people who use trolleys if they walk to the shops. Generally they start using them when their younger child grows out of the pushchair. I see just as many people below 50 with one as I do older people. Mine has green psychedelic swirls on it, my next door neighbour’s one is bright pink.
Just to be different, our village shops are at the top of a very steep hill - the street runs along the line of an escarpment, and much of the housing (and, of course, the river) is at a lower level. When I couldn't drive a couple of years ago, the steep gradient back down the hill was of some help!
I have always worn slippers at home as I grew up in a house with a quarry tile kitchen floor, and it was always freezing cold underfoot in there. I am a bit fussy though as I don't like the opened back sort, and they need to have a proper solid sole. That reminds me I need to find where Mr Dragon's have vanished off to.
This is brilliant, Heavenlyannie, perfect for the weekend of All Saints. I've just registered and paid up, too, and am now watching Alice Roberts et al, as well!
Thanks!
Today we didn't. Quite apart from the lack of a crowd, the whole sports thing seems so irrelevant just now.
This would happen when we have got through all the loo roll I bought when it was on offer, and I was having to buy at the full price, just one lot at a time until it was on offer again. I have some ordered for Monday, but I feel it will be cancelled. We've enough of the real emergency stuff we haven't been using because it looks a bit flimsy for a week.
I've got enough of everything else, and milk deliveries, so we are OK without the panic.
I did watch (Scotland won!) but I had to turn the sound off because the taped crowd noise in the empty stadium was just so wrong.
Back to watching European Tour golf (Cyprus this week). There's a sport which works fine without an audience. In fact, the absence of stands around the greens is a plus.
Yes! My mother the Dowager's too!
Coincidentally, she was heavily pregnant at the time and at the end of the test the examiner looked at her and said 'I really don't know whether to pass you or not'.
(She wondered if he was looking for a bribe - she had a rather suspicious nature)
'Oh well, I don't suppose you'll be driving anywhere on your own for a while. All right'.
We’ll be walking three dogs this morning. My friend’s dog usually comes to us for holidays. This time it’s not a holiday, it’s Covid. Their daughter is a nurse and has tested positive. No symptoms, but they all have to isolate for fourteen days - so we are on dog walking duties. Zaba is a lovely black Lab, the same age as Tatze. 🐾🐾
“... beeches strip in storms for winter
And stain the wind with leaves”
Just had breakfast, consisting of dark bread, butter and forest berry jam, a few cherry tomatoes and some spicy bacon, which appears to be a specialty of the area, plus a few mugs of rather lovely coffee.
On Saturday, another set of DVDs arrived from Blighty, The Complete Victorian Farm Collection (see e.g. here). Bliss!
Otherwise, some stuff to prepare for next week's teaching, and in the evening, co-watching a YouTube (or Vimeo or Dailymotion) film with a friend and Shipmate, while on Skype chat.
Have a good Sunday, all - whatever the circumstances may be. <votive>
Oh, I love that series as well! Must dig mine out again.
I'm sneaking a visit up to where we want to move to to look at a property on Wednesday. It is a bit on the small side but we could buy it without selling this place, which we could rent out for a while. Of course if we do get a buyer on Monday those plans mat change.
It didn't look like too bad a day today, so after a rather nice brunch of scrambled eggs, smoked salmon and TOAST, I had a stroll along the street, stopping in a quirky little gift/antique shop which had a pleasing collection of Rennie Mackintosh-inspired jewellery - like I need any more of that.
Sadly, after I'd got to the end of the street and bought a few things in Tesco's, it had started to rain, and by the time I got home I was a rather soggy piglet.
Maybe time I got a waterproof coat ...
Time to contemplate supper - prawn and tomato risotto, I think.
Yes @Piglet - I recommend a Macintosh coat rather than Macintosh jewellery!
Thanks for the reminder
Usual Monday of emails, forums and admin. I’ve also got to download and check the mountain of essays I need to mark over the next 2 weeks (around 50 of them; a cloud of gloom descends...). And this afternoon I need to prepare and practice a three minute presentation of my research for Saturday.
Living on the edge of the forest as we do, I love that poem!
I'm still wondering why two bottles of tomato sauce were needed for Christmas CAKE etc....