Shopping Differently, Being Gentle with People

 

I've started shopping differently recently.

Obviously I'm using up a lot of what I already have, so I don't really need to do a 'big shop' ... unless there are genuine reasons for doing that (more on that another day).  I find myself taking longer in the shop, enjoying the process more, and coming home much happier and more satisfied with my purchases.

This week for instance the above is all I needed, so that was all I bought.

The bananas are all 'singles', I smile every time I see the box that the single bananas get put into in our Booths supermarket.  It's message changes slightly some days, but basically it is a chalked note that says ... 'I'm single, can I come home with you?'

Happily 🍌

I'm not the only one shopping differently.

Since she became housebound my Mum's way of shopping has changed, for one thing my brother gets it for her now.  He took her shopping virtually every week for the last few years, but as soon as she could no longer cope with the car journey to the supermarket early last year, he took over completely and he pretty much gets it right each week, he was good at noticing what she loaded her trolley with when they were together and what he packed into her bags at the checkout while she waited to pay.

The things she puts on her list are pretty much the same each week, and until this last couple of weeks she has been determined to keep buying things like custard powder and baking supplies but this is making more work for her in the kitchen at a time when she can't stand up for long to cook.  So we have been introducing her to some ready made foods, custard in little plastic cartons that she can pop in the microwave, shop bought scones, ready prepared and chopped vegetables ... and she recently discovered for herself the wonders of frozen Baked Potatoes.

One of her little 'planet saving' things, just like I do, has been to write her shopping lists on backs of envelopes, scraps of paper or pieces of card, but these are now getting lost in the piles of papers that she keeps here, there and everywhere.  We had a good sort out last week and got rid of so many ancient lists and saved brochures etc etc.  So this week to make up for it I am taking her a posh shopping list pad with a magnet on the back, so that she can have it right next to her on the storage heater ... ready to add things to as she thinks of them and ready to read out to my brother when he phones for her list on a Friday evening.

Far too many people jump to conclusions when they see shopping trollies with lots of little plastic filled bags of ready chopped vegetables or fruit, small plastic pots of baked beans, jelly or custard and think that the person is extravagant or lazy ... or both.  Or that they don't care for the environment and are shopping in some willy-nilly fashion for no good reason, and I have to admit I have sometimes looked into a shopping basket and thought exactly that in years gone by.

We should always remember that we, and people like my Mum were more environmentally friendly before it became a 'thing'.  We took our own bags to the shops, we returned our milk bottles and our pop bottles to the delivery guy or the shop.  We carried home food wrapped in paper bags, chips wrapped in newspaper and walked to the shops for our food, the schools for our children and used public transport in preference to individual cars if we ever ventured further afield.

So if in our twilight years we have to take some shortcuts that will make our lives easier, happier and more manageable ... we should just do it.

Sue xx