The above picture is not part of our shopping trip; it is just meant to illustrate how youthful my daughter is. She finds it frustrating being asked for age ID, but I tell her she needs to enjoy it whilst she can and take it as a compliment!
We have fallen into a regular routine of shopping every Thursday at Waitrose, leaving home at about 11:00am and sometimes not getting home until 2:30pm. The other week our trip took even longer; I’ll explain why! The routine starts earlier in the week, when I e-mail two of our friends to check what provisions they need. One friend e-mails her list and the other leaves her list and shopping bags for us to collect from her doorstep. My mother does a hand-written list that we collect from her; she also takes a phone call from another friend so writes down her list too.
The queue to get into Waitrose is variable in length; it has taken us up to 45 minutes to get to the shop, although on occasions it can take just 15 minutes. When we get towards the front of the queue, we split up, take two large trollies and then proceed. It takes a very long time to shop for 5 households, with each list covering roughly the same areas of the shop. Sometimes we have to go and hunt for items that we are not familiar with; staff are always most helpful. I usually have to give Jess a helping hand and advise her on vegetable varieties if complex, and cuts of meat. She deals with 3 shorter lists and I do our own shopping plus one other list.
We buy most of our own wine and beer in the cash and carry, so don’t have bottles to get in Waitrose, although I sometimes buy a bottle of whiskey. On this particular occasion my list for our friend included gin. I am not that familiar with gin, so took some advice from one of the Partners on what to get. I also helped Jess to select two bottles of wine for her grandmother; it was coming up to the Easter weekend, so we wanted to make sure that she had something good quality. Because Jess is 22, I never think to ask her if she has age ID with her. Unfortunately she behaves a bit like the Queen and prefers to travel without the incumbrance of a purse! Paul does this too; they are lucky that I never go anywhere without my handbag and purse! So of course, the bell rang at the Quick Check till for Jess to be age checked. The Waitrose Partner naturally thought that she looked under-age and refused to authorise the wine purchase. I realised that I had been a bit silly in not just putting it in my trolley to put through with my purchases. “Oh never mind,” I said naively, “pass it over and I’ll pay for it!” He was not happy with that at all! “I cannot let you buy alcohol for your daughter!” Jess protested that she does not like wine and that if she were going to buy alcohol she would not choose “fancy, expensive wine!” What really annoyed me in addition was that my purchase of gin was approved with no questions! However, the damage was done. By this time we had been shopping for about an hour and a half and were tired and hungry. My last ditch attempt to buy the wine was to suggest that I went round the shop again. The Partner said, yes you can do that if you want to. However, when I put the wine through the till a second time, he came over and refused to sell me the wine! I have to say that I have not had this experience in my favourite supermarket before, and I think that the stress of the current situation is getting to everyone. I was a bit upset by this time, explaining that we just trying to make sure that my mother had a jolly, happy Easter Sunday dinner on her own! But all to no avail. So we had to give up and go to Tesco to buy wine afterwards. Luckily there is a small branch on our route, and the queue was not too long….
On our return home, Jess put her driving licence in her phone pouch ready for the next week (when of course wine was not on the list – what a shame!)
