Just over a year ago, I read this Citizen column by Kelly Egan, in which he discussed Canada's Food Price Report for 2022, an analysis led by Dalhousie University predicting a 5 to 7% over the course of the year:

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/egan-we-see-it-everywhere-the-covid-creep-on-inflation-food-on-the-table

It occurred to me that as we have been limiting our grocery shopping to once a fortnight since the pandemic began, it should be relatively easy to keep track of how much we, a couple in our late 60s, plus a cat, spent on groceries during 2022.

So I assembled all 26 of our Loblaws grocery receipts and added up all 26 total grocery spends. And the answer was (drum roll) ... $9566.24

This was actually $940 less than we would have spent if we hadn't redeemed any PC-Plus points

Now for a few of the footnotes, endnotes, ifs, ands and buts.

First off, what it does and doesn't include. As well as food, it includes most items relating to personal hygiene such as soap, shampoo, toothpaste, Kleenex and toilet paper. It includes things like waxed paper, plastic wrap and aluminum foil. Cleaning products too, like laundry and dishwasher detergent, and pet food. Sometimes the odd miscellaneous purchase like batteries, lightbulbs or stationery items.

What it doesn't include: paper towels (they never have the full-sheet type, so we buy those at the drug store). Kitty litter (they don't sell our preferred type). Most alcoholic beverages (although we did buy some cheap beer for making shandies and beer bread). Maple syrup (and other maple products)

During the summer and early fall, we bought fresh seasonal produce at Parkdale Market and the Shouldice fruit stand on Prince of Wales Drive. We also had our own garden. During strawberry season we were buying a large basket of strawberries (which I think was $25) once or twice a week, so that would certainly up the grocery bill quite a bit.

The handful of restaurant meals, whether take-out or dine-in (or outside on a restaurant patio) are not included here either.

Going back to the Food Price Report, the forecast was that in 2022 a family of four (two adults, a boy between the ages of 14 and 18, and a girl between the ages of 9 and 13) could be expected to spend about $14,767 on food, an increase of almost $1000 over 2021 prices. Frankly I think they'd be doing vey well to manage even that - our bill of $9566 for the two of us is 64.8% or just under two-thirds of that amount.

I should perhaps mention that we weren't really going out of our way to minimize grocery expenses. If we wanted something and it was available, we generally bought it. We have a few rather expensive tastes: our Kicking Horse coffee, Amy's Soups, fancy cheeses, fresh tomatoes all year round. On the other hand, we always shop with a list, we don't buy meat, we look at the weekly fliers and we use our PC Plus points. If there's a deal on something we buy regularly (or what looks like a reasonably palatable substitute), we stock up. We usually manage to use up food before it goes bad.

Unfortunately I didn't keep a complete set of 2021 receipts, so I can't say how much more we spent in 2022 compared to 2021. Maybe I'll be able to comment further at the end of 2023.
blogcutter: (Nanook)
Ever since the first lockdown in March 2020, we've been trying to limit our grocery expeditions to once every two weeks, an early-morning trip on alternate Mondays.

Two years ago, our cat was content with almost any flavour of minced Hills Science Diet canned food, with a particular fondness for the seafood varieties. As the Science Diet food was unavailable from the grocery store, that meant doing curbside pickup at our local PetSmart, buying two or three cases at a time. We got into the new routine and everything was tickety-boo... for a while.

But then a few months into the pandemic, just after one of our stocking-up excursions, she suddenly decided that the food she'd been perfectly OK with thus far would just.not.do at all.

I was worried, particularly remembering our previous resident feline who had been rather overweight until she suddenly stopped eating and subsequently, despite our and our vet's care and attention, succumbed to end-state liver disease.

The pandemic complicated things, of course. We didn't want to order a whole caseload of some other food, only to discover that she would find the new food equally unappealing. And if she became ill enough to need veterinary attention, that too was much more complicated with pandemic protocols in place. We would be unable to enter the veterinary clinic with her; instead, we would have to wait in the parking lot with an increasingly antsy cat in her carrier until a clinic staff member was available to take her inside.

Our solution, if you can call it that, was to buy a selection of the types of food that the grocery store does stock, and see which ones she would eat. She's now on a diet of Fancy Feast Petites, salmon or ocean whitefish in broth. It may not be the highest-quality catfood going, but at least she'll eat it!

There've been other behavioural changes in her over the course of the pandemic too. She's more clingy, more affectionate, in need of human reassurance. As we start going out more, there's going to be an adjustment period - for all of us.
Today was another grocery shopping day. So what's new in Groceryland, you might ask?

First of all, grocery stores in Ontario are now required to limit in-person shopping to 25% of the store's capacity, down from 50% previously.

Secondly, Loblaws (and presumably other supermarkets too) has now roped off (or plasticked off) the "nonessential" sections of the store while posting additional signs about taking safety precautions with the utmost seriousness. So what's considered nonessential?

Sections with tea-towels, baking pans and kitchen gadgets. Apparently food is still essential but the materials you use to prepare them are not.

A lot of stationery items were in closed-off sections too. After all, we're supposed to do "paperwork" online these days, right? Apparently Ford Nation isn't aware of the power of writing by hand or the science behind it. Here's a recent article on the topic:

https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/benefits-writing-by-hand/?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Mind you, the irony of the fact that I found and read this article online has not escaped me!

We're still allowed to read paper publications, as the newsstand area was still open. The greeting card section, however, was off limits. So if someone you know dies of COVID-19, you won't be permitted to buy a card to send to the family. Nor can you buy the requisite stationery to make your own, though I guess you could pulp your reading matter (cringe) to make your own paper. You could write your message with lemon juice and the recipient could steam it to reveal the invisible lettering...

Luckily you can still drown your sorrows in beer and chocolate.
Catherine Gardner, a low-income woman living in Ottawa, is lobbying to have thrift stores declared essential:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/open-letter-thrift-stores-essential-ontario-1.5904854

Sounds like a great idea to me. You may be familiar with the anti-Walmart slogan "The high cost of low price" but even Walmart's supposedly low prices may be out of reach for many. Thrift store prices are typically even lower and the merchandise, while pre-owned, is often more durable and of better overall quality than that sold in big-box stores. I really believe there's something in that old adage that they don't make things the way they used to. Moreover, being much more environmentally sustainable, thrift store shopping, at least for some products, is really a win/win solution: low cost, low environmental footprint.

Is it easier or harder to be thrifty during a pandemic? I suppose it depends on a number of things. Staying at home, you probably spend far less even on local travel, whether by private car, public transit, bicycle, sled or even just on foot. And that's before you consider inter-city or international travel of any kind.

Day-to-day shopping like groceries? Well, we're more organized about it these days, generally shopping only on alternate Mondays. We don't eat out any more and haven't been getting take-out meals but when it comes to the food we buy at the grocery store, I'd say we've definitely been spending more. Part of it is an overall increase in food prices; another tendency I have, with certain shelves at the supermarket being quite depleted, is to shift spending towards a pricier alternative - for example, fruits and vegetables that are marked organic or heritage, or the Amy's soups which are tasty and fairly healthy, but more expensive than Campbell's or President's Choice. Although we don't buy meat, the plant-based alternatives tend to cost just as much, if not more. Then there's the mode of payment: pre-pandemic, we always used cash so if we didn't have enough with us for certain extras, we did without or went back later; or we waited till we found the item on special. But since Covid struck, cash purchases are not widely accepted, and certainly are discouraged. So except for the summer farmers' markets, I've been using a credit card for everything, whether on line or off. That does tend to encourage more spending at any one time, as well as feeling a little less "real" and conscious than cash.

With more time on my hands, I find I've been sorting through stuff a lot more, which I guess is good. I'm finding stuff I'd like to donate, like clothing, books and unneeded household goods. But then, with thrift stores closed, there's no place to take the surplus stuff. Pickups have been cancelled as have city-wide giveaway weekends where you can put unwanted items out by the curb and let people help themselves if they're interested.

Speaking of books, I'm buying a lot more of them online now that libraries are closed; I'm more likely to take a chance on buying something I'm slightly interested in and will probably read only once, whereas before I would have just gotten it from the library (or one of those fabulous second-hand book sales at a much lower price). On a more positive note, I AM getting around to reading some of those books in my collection that I could never get around to before!

I was musing today about Girl Guides and thrift badges, wondering whether they were still a Thing. While there have been numerous changes to Guiding over the years, it seems Guides do still work towards earning their stripes when it comes to money management. Here are a couple of links I found interesting, from U.K. and Canadian Guiding sites:

http://guidebadgesuk.com/Thrift.htm

https://www.girlguides.ca/WEB/Documents/GGC/programs/Deep_Dive_BuildSkills.pdf
Today we went for groceries, for the first time since going back into a provincial lockdown. It went OK and I think I'm getting the hang of working the store. I got in and out with our 2 weeks' worth of supplies in slightly under an hour, then walked across to the Shoppers Drug Mart to get my prescription while Dianora loaded up the car and met me over there. I did wonder if I would get my full 3 months' supply of meds (which I did) or be restricted to only a month's worth, as was the case back in March.

Most things we wanted were in stock, although on some shelves the supply was a little sparse. The only thing I couldn't find in either the grocery store or the drugstore was full-sheet paper towels. I even got more cauli-crumble, which we use in tacos.

I think things may not be quite so good for the store employees. The cashier in Loblaws told me that she recently fell down trying to navigate a slick parking lot on her way to work while it was still dark out, though luckily she escaped with only a couple of scrapes and bruises. And of course, most grocery chains have already discontinued the pandemic pay premium that was put in place during the first lockdown. Here's something I found today on the CBC site:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/frontline-pandemic-grocery-gas-pov-2020-1.5851775

We've been hearing a lot about food price increases too. These days the total bill is rarely under $300 for a 2-week supply, although I've been buying some things at the grocery store that in pre-pandemic days, I might have bought at PetSmart or Bulk Barn or elsewhere. The PC points are building up quite nicely. And of course, we're not eating out or even going out for coffee any more. We're doing fine but I know many are not so fortunate.
Think of all the getting-around challenges you've faced since the pandemic began. Maybe you've been diligent about following those arrows in the grocery store, ensuring you're not going up the down aisle or vice versa, even if it means going down an aisle you didn't really want to go down at all. Maybe you've squinted helplessly at all those tiny little ingredients lists on the tins of soup, doubly stressed because there are people waiting to get to that aisle and only a certain number of people are allowed per aisle. Maybe you've walked in vain along an aisle looking for a bag of flour or a package of toilet paper, only to be confronted with empty shelves and "Sorry, all sold out" signs.

Now imagine having to forage for essentials if you have low or no vision.

I have yet to encounter a store that provides auditory signals for blind or partially sighted people, though I'm grateful to whoever initiated the idea of special shopping hours for seniors and folks with disabilities. And fortunately, guide dogs are not required to observe the same physical distancing restrictions as humans, although I understand there's a big problem with importing and training new guide dogs these days.

Then there are all the logistics of negotiating crosswalks and public transit, all of which are much more problematic during a pandemic.

So for the above reasons and any others I haven't thought about yet, I've decided to direct this week's donation to the Canadian National Institute for the Blind, better known as the CNIB:

https://cnib.ca/en/sight-loss-info/virtual-program-offerings-covid-19-resources?region=on_east
With many of us in varying degrees of self-isolation since March, we have all had to change the way we go about obtaining the goods and services we need or want. For the most part, I find things have gone fairly smoothly. But as you might expect, there have been a few glitches along the way too.

First up, book shopping. With libraries closed entirely for the first few months of the pandemic, that made one avenue that was completely closed off to me. That meant that instead of relying on libraries for that book that was out of print or that I was vaguely interested in but not sure if I would really like it or want to own it, I had to take a chance and just buy it - or do without. Opportunities for buying second-hand were eliminated too - no wonderful sprawling book sales at schools, libraries or the Experimental Farm to browse either. On the plus side, it did mean that some of the local independent shops started offering low-cost home delivery options and I supported them when I could. And then of course, there are the big online dealers and conglomerates like Indigo, Amazon and Abebooks. Service from Indigo and Abebooks (which I believe is partially owned by Amazon although it has a very different vibe) has been great. Service from Amazon has been less than Amazing, so I only use them if I can't locate another supplier for the item I want.

I had a bad experience with Amazon over the summer. I ordered an item which they kept saying would be delivered by August 29 - except it wasn't. Some time after that date, I checked on its status and got a note about how they were SOoo sorry my item was late but to hang in there. A few days later there was another note saying "Your package may be lost. It may still arrive but you can get a refund by clicking HERE." And when I clicked there, I got a whole roundabout set of instructions about "Returns" - except I had nothing to return!! They also helpfully suggested I "order it again". No thanks. A few days after that, I heard a news item about what happens to all those Amazon packages that go astray - most of them end up in the landfill or occasionally a parking lot. Yet they have the nerve to boast how generous they're being by offering a FREE 15-day Amazon Prime membership!!

Anyway, my preference when possible is to shop the little local independents. That applies to books but also other products. So I was thrilled in the early days of the pandemic when the Burrowshop was set up, offering a variety of food- and home-related products (their selection is ever-expanding) for local delivery or curb side pickup. I placed one order in May and it went quite smoothly. Then a couple of weeks later, I placed another order. This time, I chose my delivery date and late in the afternoon that day, I got a phone call from someone saying he had just left the parcel on our doorstep. Foolishly, I didn't check the doorstep before ringing off - and when I did go to the door, the package wasn't there!

At least I had a record of the order and knew where to call. It turned out that the item was delivered to an address several doors along from us, and I was able to go to that house and retrieve the item. The homeowner was very good about it even though It wasn't someone I knew. And one of the people from Burrowshop phoned later that evening to apologize for the mixup.

Generally speaking, I'm still a fan of Burrowshop and the whole concept behind them. They phone you if certain items you've ordered are no longer available and suggest possible substitutions or offer a refund. You can also make donations through them to local charities like the Food Bank or the Distress Centre.

For pet supplies, I sometimes shop the grocery store but I've also used PetSmart, both with delivery and curb side pickup. The latter has worked well. Delivery? Let's say mixed. One order I had delivered went fine but a second one gave me an estimated delivery date and kept me hanging for about a week before saying sorry but we can no longer supply these items (Feline Greenies).

The other interesting incident with PetSmart was one Saturday morning when I got an automated e-mail that read: "Thank you for shopping in person at our store at Merivale & Hunt Club at 9:15 AM today." Except that I hadn't! Within that e-mail, there was a link to a survey to rate my experience there today - so I decided to do that, just to say I hadn't shopped there today at all. To their credit, they did phone me back a few days later - just after we got back from shopping at their competitor to stock up on Greenies!

I still shop in person for groceries (a 2-week supply at a time) and for liquor (in Ontario it seems you can order it in to your local LCBO but you can't get it delivered to your door). But our favourite craft beer place, Beyond the Pale, offers free local delivery now. The only thing I miss is being able to try before we buy if they're introducing a new brew.

It will be interesting to see how people's shop-from-home habits change (or not) once this pandemic is a distant memory.
Today was another grocery shopping day. We bravely got up for seniors' shopping hour, despite having only slept in fits and starts, what with two or three waves of thunderstorms last night.

Remarkably, there was no apparent property damage when we got up and our garbage and recycling bins that we put out yesterday were still sitting calmly by the curb, waiting to be emptied. We didn't lose power overnight either. On the political front, the news was not so good - I'm crossing my fingers that maybe when the next election rolls around, folks who would normally vote Conservative but do not hold particularly conservative social values will consider moving towards the Liberals. Unfortunately I don't feel the NDP have a particularly good leader at the moment. Perhaps the best we can hope for is that the parties will work together on some of the critical issues that transcend party affiliation.

Grocery stores don't seem to be as busy these days and the shelves are a little better stocked. Flour was no problem today. But I still couldn't get tapioca (which we use mainly as a thickening agent in pies), the cauli-crumble we like or full-sheet paper towels. The lettuce still didn't look great, but I got some that looked OK; on the plus side, a number of the things we needed were on special. I stocked up on canned beans, soups, crackers, coffee and orange juice. I also found some Ontario nectarines, which were excellent.

They've started charging for plastic bags again, but they still aren't allowed to help you load your own re-usable bags and they still ask that there be only one shopper to a household. Add to that the fact that we're now trying to do two weeks' worth of shopping at a time and it generally means that since I'm on my own at the cash, the cashier is usually ringing things in faster than I can load everything on to the conveyor belt, let alone pack it (and they often have two employees on a checkout lane: one to ring things in and the other to pack them). It's great that they're so efficient and I did manage to pack a few things myself.

Anyway, after getting the grocery shopping done, we thought we'd detour up to the Shouldice stand on Prince of Wales for strawberries and corn on the cob... except it was too early for them to be open. We did go back a little later, though and managed to get what we wanted. Then I baked cake, then it was time to watch physically distanced Coronation Street...

So life goes on. We're not really hurting from the "new normal", it's just that everything is so much more convoluted and time-consuming than before. And some of the things we'd like to be doing are still not possible, even at this stage of re-opening. But it could be worse...
Well, that's not quite true. We've been pretty much doing alternate Mondays, though, and this was our week for it. Most of the weekend was brutally hot and sticky. We have air-conditioning which helps, but I still didn't sleep well and then we were up early for seniors' hour at Loblaws...

Anyway, things seem less busy at the grocery store these days. Not so many shortages of things either, although I couldn't get lemonade or full-sheet paper towels. It helps that Parkdale Market is open for the season (though only from Thursdays onwards) and the drug store has a few grocery items too.

We've settled into a mundane sort of routine. Things are gradually re-opening but everything seems to take so much more planning and effort than it used to. Sometimes I can't believe we've been at this since mid-March. Lockdown fatigue is real!
So after working OK again for maybe a day and a half, the display options here seem once again to have gone kittywampus on me. No capability of showing my Reading page, Recent entries or Archive, although I still seem able to do the posting and editing functions. It's all quite bizarre.

As far as the mid-pandemic re-opening and loosening restrictions schedules go, I'm finding it all somewhat confusing. To be sure, there is some progress in the right direction. Checkpoints on bridges between Ottawa and Gatineau were finally removed yesterday, though not without some dire warnings that they might at any time be reinstated if we don't behave ourselves. On our walks lately, we've actually seen people playing in parks and in one case sitting on a bench (which I think technically is still a no-no). Apparently the City of Ottawa is now using "park ambassadors" (with green T-shirts or red jackets) to educate the park-using public about what is or isn't allowed instead of bylaw officers with the power to issue outrageous fines for any violation of the rules. I haven't seen any of them so far. But all the one-household and physical distancing restrictions and limits on gatherings of more than five people are still in place as far as I know. Standalone stores with street entrances are allowed to open again although I'm not sure many are ready to do so with existing limitations. And even online shopping is confusing when it's not clear which items may be obtained in-store, which via curbside pickup and which can be delivered.

We went for groceries today during seniors' hour and I actually was told I mustn't use our reusable grocery bags. I had to leave them on some shelving between the two sets of doors and collect them on the way out. The sign outside the store also specified "One shopper per household if possible". As with previous trips, I was the Designated Shopper (since I can't be the Designated Driver); I did think the "if possible" was at least a good sign that they had taken note of the challenges that a rigid lone-shopper policy would pose for some families.

I managed to get most of the items on our grocery list. Their stock was rather depleted in some areas though, perhaps in part because it was just after a long weekend. There weren't any of the larger varieties of tomatoes, for example. Not much in the way of ready-to-serve soups, though I did get some Amy's soups from the organics section. No tins of pineapple; no charcoal briquettes. I had to buy microfiltred milk rather than the regular 2% though I did find half-and-half and our preferred type of yogurt and all of the types of cheese we wanted. They were out of our black bean burgers and our food-waste bags. On the plus side, I was pleased to find a 5kg bag of all-purpose flour as well as shortening and pecans. And in the beer section I found some local brews, Broadhead (stout and blueberry) and some Flying Canoe hard cider.

So we're good to go for another couple of weeks. Meanwhile, we're keeping an eye on the local markets site and Burrow Shop.
How have people's eating and drinking habits changed since the Coronavirus swept through our daily routines?

Some say that the "quarantine fifteen" is a real thing. Lots of mindless munching of junk food, brought on by boredom, stress, worry or whatever. Then again, it's not just junk food that comes into play. Cut off from a lot of their fast food sources, people are turning to slow food instead. Stuck at home, they're doing more cooking and baking - assuming they can find the necessary ingredients! I suspect that in many households, there's actually far less food waste these days too - people are making do with what they have, finding still-good foods at the back of their pantries and pressing them into service. Of course, the less food waste may not apply quite so much in rural areas, where farmers are hard-pressed to bring in the labour they need to harvest their crops!

Personally I've always found I tend to pig out more when I go out and eat in a restaurant, which of course hasn't been happening lately. Buffets can be insidious that way, although so can restaurants where they bring the food to your table - the portions are nearly always larger than what I would eat at home. Sometimes we get a "doggie bag" to take home, but that's not always practical.

So on the food side of things, I think we're probably eating about the same amount as before on most days, although without the dining out. But with grocery trips now being less frequent and more complicated, we do tend to consume less fresh and perishable food than before.

What about drink? Apparently in some demographics, people are drinking more . In our case, we still have beer, mostly on weekends - it's definitely a way to differentiate the days of the week at a time when regular schedules are broken and one day tends to look much like the next! Beyond The Pale does local delivery, although quite often they are sold out of our preferred varieties. And of course, there's no longer the option of sampling before buying.

We've only gone to the LCBO once since lockdown began, and that was to buy a bottle of Grand Marnier. Their hours of business (I think 11AM to 5 PM) are on a rather different schedule than grocery stores, where we tend to show up early for seniors' hour. If lockdown extends into Christmas baking season, I'll be wanting to replenish our supplies of rum and brandy. We don't go in much for mixed drinks, although I've seen all kinds of online recipes for "quarantinis"

So cheers, everyone! Anyone for an itsy-bitsy, teenie-weenie, stirred or shaken quarantini?
Today we made our second pandemic-era grocery trip. I'm pleased to say we are now well-stocked with most things, although the trip was a little more harrowing than last time.

As before, we got there early to take advantage of seniors' hour. This time it took pretty nearly the whole hour to do the shopping.

A number of things had changed. For starters, I did have to line up outside the store, although the wait was a short one. A lot more people were wearing masks, myself included - just a home-made one so not medical quality, but I guess it stopped me from breathing moistly on people and produce!

Then there's the one-shopper-to-a-household rule. For us, that's doable though not ideal (more on that later) - I navigated the grocery aisles while my driver waited in the car reading The Testaments. But what about the single parent with kids who are too young to be left home alone? Under normal circumstances, they might be at school or day care or you could at least phone a babysitter to come to your place and watch them. None of that is allowed these days!

There's also the shop-no-more-than-once-a-week rule. Again, that's feasible for us and in fact, we've been aiming for roughly once a fortnight instead. If we upped it to once a month, we might be inching perilously close to hoardery! But I have many friends who do not have a car or driver at their disposal so they only buy as much per visit as they can carry. I'm sure my resident driver would be willing to take them shopping - but that's now a no-no too!

So anyway, I went bravely into the fray. As mentioned before, I'm not a driver but those humongous shopping carts, if rather unwieldy, do help with physical distancing!

The aisles now have arrows along them, indicating which way you're supposed to go along any particular aisle. In theory, you'd think that might make traffic flow a little easier, but that's not necessarily how it works in practice. If you get to an aisle flowing in the right direction but where you don't need anything, should you go down it anyway (adding needlessly to congestion) to get to the aisle you DO want? Or should you bypass the next two aisles and go down the third one, and just hope you remember to loop back to the aisle you missed?

Now a few words about shortages. The one item on my list I couldn't find AT ALL was flour. Just a sea of empty shelf space where flour should have been. Flour strikes me as a pretty basic pantry staple, unless maybe you've gone gluten-free, but luckily we do still have SOME. Maybe it's down to all those households busily baking bread, ourselves included. Although we do still have plenty of bread around, I'm finding myself doing a Marie Antoinette, saying, "Let us eat cake!" Or at least muffins or cookies?

As for other products, I sometimes couldn't find our preferred type or brand of something, but I at least managed a reasonable facsimile. And I'm pleased to report that they no longer had signs posted in the milk aisle asking us to limit what we bought. So I got a 4-litre bag of milk and a full-sized carton of half-and-half.

When it came time to check out, I noticed a long line-up at the cash, so I asked if any self-checkout stations were available. And there was one, with no waiting. What I hadn't realized at that point was that the one long line-up was actually for three open check-out lanes - the queuing system had changed since last time, when it was still one line per checkout (or actually maybe it wasn't - on that occasion there was no waiting, and we were simply told to go through a particular checkout lane).

So anyway, I went to the self-checkout station with my big full shopping cart and only a few of my own cloth bags. This was when it certainly would have been easier if we'd been shopping as a couple! One person to scan the items, the other to pack. My partner had suggested just wheeling all the groceries out to the car and bagging them there. But I quickly realized that if I did that, I'd be unable to keep track of what I'd scanned and what I hadn't! So I supplemented my cloth bags with a generous supply of the (now free) plastic bags at my checkout station. They're pretty flimsy things and one of them broke before I even got out of the store. I finally got everything scanned, although the silly computer insisted that my bananas were white-flesh peaches! I think maybe I mistook some obscure number on them for a barcode. Once everything was bagged, I wheeled the unwieldy grocery cart outside and through the parking lot (which mercifully was not busy). En route, one of the bags escaped the bottom rack of the cart. I was flustered enough that I probably wouldn't have even noticed. Luckily some kind soul drew my attention to it and I retrieved the bag. Luckily too, it didn't contain eggs or anything breakable or seriously fragile.

We made it home in one piece. Well, two pieces not counting the car or all the bags of groceries we had to schlepp inside.

I'm already thinking ahead to how we should approach things next time. Should we continue with our biweekly schedule? Should we still go up there together but split our list in half and shop with two separate carts in different parts of the store? Some would say that's cheating the system but I see it as more hands make lighter work, enabling us to get out of there in half the time it took me today.

I may just drop Galen a line and tell him what I think.
So far, we are behaving ourselves and not being "Covidiots". Until today, we had not set foot in a grocery store since March 13 - although we did pick up a few groceries at a Shoppers Drug Mart on March 23, when we had to go to the post office in there to sign for a parcel. We were really missing our fresh fruits and veggies - we had NO tomatoes, apples, oranges or bananas and we were getting perilously short of orange juice!

So today we decided to make an expedition to our local Loblaws for seniors' hour, which is 7 to 8 AM. We were raring to go by 6:45. Our car, however, was not. Well, you know how they say you should not go out for groceries more than once a week - something which, by the way, is rather impractical for many of my friends who either don't drive at all or don't have a vehicle so they only buy as much each time as they can realistically carry - anyway, cars, like people, tend to lose their muscle when they don't exercise enough! But all was not lost. After ten minutes or so, the car had drunk its Boost and decided to co-operate, so off we went.

Luck was mostly with us after that. The store was not at all crowded. There was a portable wash-and-sanitize station between the two sets of doors and plenty of carts available. We bought lots of stuff in the produce section - lettuce, tomatoes, mushrooms, potatoes, cucumber, green peppers, apples, oranges, grapes, avocados and even Ontario strawberries! In that part of the store, things were plentiful. In the dairy and canned goods sections, not so much - in several places, signs were posted apologizing for the shortages and asking customers to limit themselves to a certain number of the item. Still, we managed to find what we needed: a carton of whipping cream, a small container of half-and-half, a 4-litre bag of milk, a package of 12 yogurts, a dozen eggs. We got tins of kidney beans and tomatoes for when we next make a chili. We got some ready-to-serve soups too. And yes, we got our orange juice and a jug of cider besides. Life is good once more.

We even had cashier service, which was a pleasant surprise. Greg-the-cashier was walled off behind a plexiglass panel, wearing rubber gloves and wielding his spray-bottle of disinfectant to swab off the conveyor belt. We paid by credit card (which needed a second go-round before it was approved, even though the machine reported both times that the PIN was OK). Then it was out to the car and by 7:45, we were on our way home again.

The one thing that we didn't find at the grocery store was angel-cake to go with the strawberries and cream. So, since we now have all-day off-peak hydro rates, I decided to dig out Betty Crocker's one-egg cake recipe and give that a go. Which meant digging out some rarely-used pans and scouring them clean, with steel wool. Unfortunately, I also scoured my finger too, which made for a bit of a delay. I take anti-inflammatories for my arthritis so when I bleed, I bleed a little longer than the average person. But to make a long story short, the cake is now ready, the strawberries are prepared and the cream and beaters are ripe for the whipping.

Shortcake will be served shortly.

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