This Trip I have Mostly…

… been cycling down to the shops. Cycling everywhere, actually, but we’re enjoying the novelty of having shops in popping out distance. Of course I’m no stranger to cycling to the shops, but an 11-mile round trip to Papershop Village isn’t exactly poppable and the main weekly shop definitely gets done by car. Here, even the out-of-town supermarket is only about 10 minutes away by bike which means that in the three days we’ve been here we’ve actually visited it twice. The local butcher, greengrocer and baker have also been graced with our custom twice in as many days – there must be some sort of law of conservation of shopping momentum which proves that the time spent travelling to the shops is constant. Oh, and we’ve also done the statutory wander round Lidl to see what mad things they’re selling this week. It was only through the sheer good fortune of them being sold out that we’re not currently the proud owners of an electric chainsaw. How anyone lives within regular reach of a Lidl and doesn’t have a house full of random *stuff* I don’t know. Perhaps they don’t.

Anyway if you read this in time (depending on your time zone) you might want to take part in this. You could even combine it with a trip to the shops, if you’re pressed. In fact, if you hurry, there might still be electric chainsaws on sale in Lidl…

Virtue, its own Reward

With a rare fine day in the offing – after all the weather-related fun of the last two days – I had a choice this afternoon. I could attempt to go up and get on with the backlog of digging and winter clearing in the garden, or I could go into Bigtown and make a start on the Christmas shopping as well as continuing my neverending quest for a pair of trousers that fit any normally shaped human being (the bike having done for my last non-jeans pair). It might surprise regular readers of this blog to learn that I actually, of my own free will, chose the latter.

This wasn’t just to support Bigtown’s flood-hit town centre, although I do try and use local shops when I can (even the pound shop appears to be holding a closing down sale, it’s that bad). And it wasn’t entirely because I didn’t fancy gardening up to my knees in mud either. No, the shameful truth is that I decided on the shopping because I hadn’t been on my bike since Friday (battering down to choir and back in a storm last night not really counting) and to be honest, I needed an excuse to go for a ride. It’s true – people who get to the shops by bike really do spend more. Especially as there’d be no way I’d waste a glorious afternoon like that getting into the car.

And my reward for all this conspicuous virtue? Well, no more than I deserved, really, as it pissed down on me on the way back. And I still haven’t found any trousers…