Home is a good place at the moment.
After braving Tesco, our second nearest supermarket yesterday it was good to get home. We went to our second nearest as we felt a bit guilty last time we ventured out going to the Co-op in Llanrwst. We had called there as we were close by picking up animal and chicken feed from the farm supplies shop, but we realised as soon as we got there that we should really leave that for the locals of Llanrwst the majority of whom walk to it and have it as their only supermarket, save for the Spar. So we made the decision that next time we needed shopping we would visit Tesco instead.
It's surprising how many folk from the hills around the valleys here never venture further than this town for all their needs. A small town I first heard of many years ago when I read the book Hovel in the Hills written by Elizabeth West, never for a moment thinking I would end up living so close to where she used to live.
Is it weird that I suddenly feel a need to read this again ... and her others?
Anyway what I was going to say before I went off on a tangent is that we have the luxury of our cars and the ability to drive in either direction out of our property, so an extra five miles in the other direction is really neither here nor there.
Tesco was strange, slightly different to the last time we went right at the start of the lockdown.
Lanes of marked out areas for queues of shoppers in the car park, tape across the floor all the way around the store so you could see exactly how far two metres was for good social distancing. Only three of the manned checkouts were open, with Perspex screens protecting the till operators and also just three of the self service ones with one masked employee to oversee them. And in some areas empty shelves. There were lots of toilet rolls and lots of pasta, not that we needed either, but no flour or baking goods save for the flavourings, hundreds and thousands and other decorating sundries and rather weirdly boxes and boxes of Betty Crocker cake mixes. Luckily there was some vanilla extract ... which was all I needed.
Flour would have been nice but I will make do with my half bag of out-of-date plain flour for now. I treated myself to a pack of ready rolled puff pastry, at just £1 a treat well worth having when it would seem plain flour or any flour is worth it's weight in gold.
Heading home was once again a happy experience, it really does seem the best place to be right now.
Someone asked me about how I managed to get such good photos of the animals when I share them on here. I'll let you into a secret ... I wait for something like this to be happening, I quietly grab my camera or phone and then say ...
'Suky do you want one....?' in a loud voice.
Suky looks round ... et voila, two interested looking dogs looking straight into camera.
If I miss the shot that's it, she doesn't fall for it a second time!!
Ginger is a bit easier.
chh, chh ...
... and you have his attention.
Just the once though.
Sue xx
I also have that book. I must dig it out and re-read it as it's many years since I did. I remember them having a very tough time of it.
ReplyDeleteI must have read it at least a dozen times, but each time it's like returning to an old friend, so it must be due a re-reading during these strange times.
DeleteYes it is the great flour shortage here too in New Zealand, although there was a fair amount of pasta in our supermarket tonight and as you say a fair few cake mixes. As someone suggested, everyone in lockdown must be doing the great lockdown bake off.
ReplyDeleteIt was kind of you to leave the groceries for those that walk to their local. Luckily here our buses are free during the lockdown and as an essential worker, I feel ok to go to the supermarket after work and pick up my supplies on the way home. I can usually last going in every week and I try and zip in and out in 10 minutes.
Love the photos of your animals, it is hard to get their attention, and Miss Pops excels at looking away from the camera.
Julie
I felt really guilty when I realised how little food was left in the Co-op at the time we visited it, my guilt was only assuaged slightly by the fact that we were picking up some supplies for our elderly neighbour too. We ended up just buying bread, milk and of course custard doughnuts ... I can't go in the Co-op and not buy custard doughnuts!!
DeleteI think they might be better stocked by now though as the huge Co-op lorries have been passing our house at least twice a day every day.
Those are books I have returned to again and again - Hovel was part of my inspiration for moving to Wales (along with Jeannine McMullen's A Small Country Living and The Wind in the Ash Tree.) I was looking at her recipes when we knew we would have to go into Lockdown. The only one I've not read/seen is the Forest of Dean book as it's too prohibitively expensive to buy! Have you ever driven up and seen Hafod "in the flesh"? What we would call, in Archaeological landscape terms, "marginal living", very marginal.
ReplyDeleteI have plenty of flour (had foresight and a 10 Kg bag of flour from Wessex Mills just before Christmas, plus I bought strong white bread flour when it was on offer, just because it was a bargain.
I am glad that Tesco seem to have their act together and floors marked etc etc. We are excited about our Click and Collect delivery this week - how pathetic is that, but then we have had to wait 3 weeks for the spot!
I first read the book in the early eighties and sank into the romantic ideal of living in a remote cottage, it captivated me. Ironic that I should then end up living so close to the setting of the book.
DeleteNo I have never seen it in the flesh nor have I tried to track it down the house now is pretty modern looking on the outside, it would possibly take away some of the magic. It was never called Hafod as it was known as in the book, it's real name being Bron y Haul or Bron Haul. Although there are thousands of Hafods around here as it simply means 'summer living place' so is a popular name for care homes and cottages.
Oh you lucky thing having flour, I really slipped up not having a stash of flour in stock didn't I!!
So THAT'S your secret for the brilliant pet photos! They are always lovely x
ReplyDeleteHaha ... yup!! I simply promise them a treat I haven't actually got ;-)
DeleteGreat photos of your pets. Bertie is pretty good most of the time. The flour mills are working 24/7 to keep up with demand which is a direct result of stockpiles creating the shortage. I hope they're using it!!
ReplyDeleteGosh I hope the people that bought it all are actually using it too, what a waste if they're not :-(
DeleteI love the pics of your pets - so cute!
ReplyDeleteAnd well done on the secret of a snap. I shall remember that when we get owned by pets again. x
Oh you should always be owned by pets :-)
DeleteI think I know the Hovel books off by heart! except the Forest one which I have borrowed from a friend and read just once.
ReplyDeleteWe found "Hafod" once, I have photos but all the trees had gone. Amazing to think it was almost 60 years ago since they were there.
Looking at recent photos the trees are mostly back now, and the house is very white and fresh looking. Sixty years since they were there ... and almost forty since I first read the book ... WOW!!
Deletedear little mavis xx
ReplyDeleteShe's a little sweetie isn't she. It's the 6 year anniversary of her getting stolen, so she's getting extra cuddles today 🐕💕
DeleteI have the hills books but not seen the forest one. There didn't seem to be any flour in SB but as I looked up, I saw 2 big plastic wrapped packs of flour on the very top shelf. It was too high up really but I managed to grab a piece and pull it down. Helped myself to one bag and left the rest lower down for others.
ReplyDeleteI was noticing the top 'staff only' shelves actually had spare stock on in some areas for the first time. But not along the flour shelves in our Tesco unfortunately 🥴
DeleteNice of you to lift some down for others, I always try to leave awkwardly placed things more accessible to shorter or more elderly folk too 🙂
Your fur babies are so cute!
ReplyDeleteThey look like little angels don't they ... they're not 🤣🤣
DeleteThe pet pictures are beyond cute. Glad you were able to get vanilla.
ReplyDeleteIt will make my cakes taste even better, I should be able to make at least one more cake out of the flour I have 😄
DeleteI just checked our local library in the north of New Zealand and there is a copy. I have put it on hold as all libraries are shut due to our Lockdown.
ReplyDeleteOh brilliant, something to look forward to after lockdown then 🙂
DeleteI have all four books , three of which are rejects from the library maybe some day I will buy myself new copies .
ReplyDeleteMine were all charity shop finds over many years.
DeleteIt's nice to have them all, but I have no need for them to be a matching set, something that my brother does with his books. There's something comforting about them being different. Although saying that I did used to have the original of the Hovel in the Hills and gave it to someone when I found this newer version ... I should have given them this one and kept my original.