Food Foraging in the Time of Covid

is fraught with issues, I scope out shops with small queues. A bakery/coffee shop near my house sells sublime olivey-cheesy twists. Windows too fogged up to see inside,  I have to open the door to check the territory; two masked women clearly waiting their turn, to the side a man,  his queuing status unclear. My specs as fogged as the windows I ask him if he's queuing - no response,  the man is not wearing a mask but does have headphones, he stands,  swaying, mute and I realise that he must have teleported his mind to another planet.

Shopping these days

Grocery shopping in the  Melt Lock Down era  has gone a bit 'underworld'. Neighbours tip each other off about ways to get supplies without standing in long queues outside shops.

an email from a friend says she lives next door to a fishmonger, he could make local deliveries, should she pass my details - I said YES!! 

Thursday afternoon
Pete-the-Fish calls
I can deliver tomorrow what do you want?  

I place an order

Saturday evening
I'm in pajamas, supper eaten, a glass or two drunk, think it might be time for bed.
Phone rings -  Pete-the-Fish

I'm coming down the road with your haddock, meet me outside your house and bring a tenner

Scrambled, I can't find shoes so walk outside barefoot. A man walking towards me is holding a net in front of himself, he throws a bag on the road and tells me to drop my tenner in the net.

I do all this as though it is a completely normal sort of transaction

in a bookshop today

I was browsing and selecting a few greetings cards while the guy behind the till gave the girl stacking shelves an account of what kind of a wild party animal he is, it wasn't convincing and I zoned out until I got to the till and tried to pay for my cards, it took a while because they continued their conversation, he rang up the total and took my money without looking in my direction:

... so does she identify as gay or bi?

She says queer but she also says she doesn't actually like having sex with anyone

I haven't had sex in a million years so I think I must be asexual

me too 

he handed over change, then looked at me as if to say - are you still here?

do you want a bag with that?

I bought some adult lady shoes

to go with the smart trousers that I can zip up but not sit down in

I made myself late for a meeting yesterday because I was looking for the perfect sock to go with the adult shoe and the smart trouser to attend a serious meeting today

I got home and rehearsed the outfit but decided that the look needed more practise in a less risky arena so I went to the meeting wearing 'normal me' clothes

and it went really well  

wondering if I can fit the whippet in my luggage

not sure if I'm going to be able to say goodbye - hoping that he's fold-able and I can take him with me next week.

The weather's been moody as an adolescent - the whippet made me go out and has hauled me through woods bulging with fungi but I'm far too much of a coward to pick any of it.

In the market today fierce people bullied me into buying at least ten times more vegetation than I can possibly eat - I show  them how much I want and they throw their arms up and shout something like

There's no bloody point selling that poxy amount - it's a kilo or nothing

Other market trophies include an uncooked blood sausage that I think needs boiling and some smoked cod that I think is eaten raw and some tins of smoked cod liver which is my favourite thing in the world but I'd forgotten it existed.

Here are some things I wanted to buy at the market

but they were too big for my bag


I did buy a ham bone, it's still very hammy with what's left after they've made slices of Serrano ham.

I boiled it up and the whippet looked at me and said

I like ham ... she gives me ham

Shopping Channel

i am in brighton where you can buy  blow-up  daleks,  a selection of jesuses

and a some strange angels

should you so wish

Not Knitting

I want to knit a thing but wool’s really expensive so I haunt charity shops lookingout for actual wool woolies that I can unknit and reknit.  I find them and get them home and like them as they are so I’ve ended up with a pile of ready knitted things and a lot of washing to do.

On my way back from the print studio there was a lone open shop in the Sunday morning quiet - a charity shop. I went in and the assistant followed me excitedly round the shop keeping up a running commentary.

It’s been so dead, you’re only the third in since I opened and that was hours ago, I haven’t taken a penny yet do you think it’ll rain all day? I've got the insurance coming tomorrow to look at my roof which is leaking but if it’s going to be torrential today then I’m really stuck aren’t I? Nice shoes.

He was really really close and put me off my jumper-touching, I backed towards the ‘entertainment’ section and picked up a Motown Chartbuster, gave the guy his first sale then came home and got my record player out - it’s been  a happy afternoon singing along with the Temptations.

reasons to be cheerful that my house is bloody freezing

1. I have a lot of jumpers that need wearing

2. The irises that I put in a vase 10 days ago are still looking fresh (frozen?)

3.   ... ???

Being in London

This week I’m back in my friend’s creamy-carpetted London apartment and wondering whether I should get one those hooded, paper boiler suits like they have in cop shows to protect this perfect place from me.

The London neighbourhood is not at all like my Bristol one; take the local sex shop, in Bristol it's all blacked-out windows and bad typography, here in London the window is swathed in pink satinette and doubles as a joke shop, so you can pick up some bloodshot-eyeball fairy lights and a severed hand with your gimp mask and spanking paddle – it just makes sense.

I'm struggling with the concept of this one, it's a bit like shops we have in Bristol called Pound Shops, where the deal is simple - everything costs a pound. In London they have shops that look identical, stock the same brightly-coloured tat, but the crucial difference is that they promise everything will cost more than a pound, but 99p or PLUS - I ask you!

Shopping With Vera

24th october
Vera and I have decided to try and become friends. We're a similar age, childless, both foreigners in France. Never mind the slightly bumpy start, we're bound to get on - aren't we? As a bonding exercise we arranged to go shopping together yesterday afternoon. My chic neighbour Mme Bontette has invited me to join a group outing to a dinner spectacle tonight, I have never been to such a thing. Mme B has said that I should ‘dress up’. I only have one ‘good dress’ and need some sort of jacket to wear with it.

Vera’s style icon is Doris Day and she loves malls. I agree to start our expedition in one of the shopping centres on the edge of town. I say that I’m looking for something fluffy. After she's held up some preppie cardies I suggest we go into town. I head us to les fripes (vintage clothes shops) and find a fake fur jacket. The jacket illustrated above is a bit tame. Imagine that I’d waylaid a yeti and decapitated it, then snipped the body off below the armpits to make myself a yeti bolero with sleeves - it’s more like that, very ‘rock chick’- great! I can see from Vera’s face that she's neither keen on it nor the fact I've dragged her into this kind of place. Undaunted I bagged it and we went for a drink where she told me some stories and I discovered that she is astonishingly promiscuous - the day then became a whole lot more entertaining.