shopping – General Whiskers' semi-historical wanderings

Sunday 7th May

Uncompleted plans

My intention was to be active in the garden today, specifically hedge-trimming. However the hedges were too wet in the morning so I caught up on my pile of ironing instead.

The sun came out in the afternoon, but Chrissy needed a new ragwort fork so we spent a couple of hours touring the agricultural and equestrian suppliers in the area searching for said item. Needless to say, something else “needed” was bought in every shop en route.

Returning home we had a cup of tea while watching an interesting TV programme about the tailoring of all the armed forces’ ceremonial uniforms, including the new CR III cypher. So interesting that we both fell asleep!

Our kitchen electricity circuit cut out again. I have traced the fault to the activation of the timer device for the boiler. For the time being it is permanently switched on. Two electricians have failed to find a fault.

Then to the stable yard to feed and rug up the three horses before a little weeding in the garden and then dinner. Later I met up on line with my fellow alcoholics from the rehab. centre.

But I never got round to trimming the hedges.

Sunday 30th April

We started the day by taking Tristan the horse across the road for another day’s “babysitting” of the foal Rio. They bonded immediately. I tried to get some photographs but failed – they were too busy moving about.

Next off to Basingstoke to traipse the shops looking for birthday presents for me. We managed to find some good hiking socks for my walks with Sparky and the last pack in the shop of Posca fine point acrylic paint pens.

These gifts were taken home and wrapped as a surprise for me…!

While shopping I gathered a few ideas for Chrissy’s birthday in a fortnight’s time.

We made a plan for my day: to drive down to the Dorset coast and visit a couple of places from my childhood, walking from Worth Matravers to Winspit on the Jurassic Coast.

I have made a start on my 3 mm/1:600 Celtic Warband. The figures are =supplied in close-order strips of 8, but I want a more irregular arrangement so I snipped most of the bases into twos, threes, fours, fives and sixes. They will need to be trimmed at the cutting points.

Tristan was fetched back from babysitting duty. He looks tired.

In the evening I joined my alumni from Primrose Lodge in a Zoom meeting. Good to hear how my friends are making progress.

1943 Rations for Lent 2023. Day 3

24th February 2023

Another successful day yesterday, still eating up leftovers. I started as usual with a mug of tea, but skipped breakfast. For “brunch” I enjoyed my weekly egg, fried in lard, saving the excess lard from the pan for future use. This I had with two rounds of whole meal toast and 3/4 oz. of sliced ham and another mug of tea.

The evening meal was a jacket potato with the last of our jar of Christmas chutney and the final tomato. Dessert was a sliced apple with the penultimate yogurt.

25th February 2023

We went grocery shopping this morning. An interesting experience, compared with the usual: “I fancy that” mode. Knowing I have sufficient cheese and ham I eschewed those counters. The Memsahib had no such compunctions. I kept looking at products and saying: “It’s German/Italian/Spanish”.

We ended up with the following haul to add to the stock at home for sharing: a cauliflower, a savoy cabbage, three leeks, four large potatoes and eight apples (the apples are mine). The Memsahib also found some sprouts and sliced chicken reduced to clear.

The intention was that we would use the vegetables with a joint from the freezer for Sunday, so that the leftovers could be used through the week, but when returning home the plan inexplicably changed. With a choice of beef, lamb or pork, the Memsahib decided to do a steak instead. Depending on the size of said steak I may need to refuse some or make economies elsewhere. I shall also have to sort out something else for next week’s meals.

This project is clearly going to be easier to stick to during the week when I am mainly catering for myself than at weekends! I must stay strong.

“Lock down” shopping

We have just returned from our (un)usual Friday evening weekly shop.

Arriving at Sainsbury’s we joined a queue of potential shoppers at 2 metre intervals. Notices on the car park bollards explained why we were queueing and an estimated waiting time at 5 minute intervals. It was an over-estimate. Folks in the queue were well-behaved and chatty.

At the shop entrance were two jovial security chaps, monitoring the “one out, one in” system.

For a change it was a pleasure to shop, even though we were shopping both for ourselves and for a couple in isolation. No crowds, no congestion, no screaming brats running up and down the aisles.

And it was easy to find what we needed. Because the shelves were half empty the items were more visible. It’s a shame that we don’t need toilet paper because it was available!!! Only one box of “blue” eggs though.

The only negative was that we shopped using two smart “zappers”, but because they were linked to the same loyalty card the bill was amalgamated into one single shop. The system has probably logged us as hoarders too!

Ho-hum. Can we please continue to shop like this after the current crisis?

"Home thoughts from semi-isolation"

Although I am spending most of my time at home, apart from walking the dog, I popped into my local Tesco store today for a loaf of bread. They had three. Many of the other shelves were empty.

In front of the tills were tape-marked standing areas, around three feet from the front of the serving area. The staff were wearing gloves and continually asked customers wishing to pay with cash to use the self-service checkouts (with a subtext of “at your own risk”).

Contactless payment was welcomed, and the suppliers thereof are some of the few beneficiaries of the current global pandemic situation.

Tesco have clearly thought through the problem and worked out sensible ways to keep the local stores open, if inadequately supplied.

I still keep thinking that I am working my way through episode one of the 1970s BBC Drama series “Survivors” in slow motion.

Whatever else comes from this pandemic, I believe that the end result will be that many people will be forced to re-evaluate the worldwide interdependency that has evolved in the last half-century.

Already carbon emissions have been dramatically reduced (Just like after the Icelandic volcano problem in NW Europe) as travel is restricted, or is simply no longer fashionable. Maybe this will do more for the environmentalists than any number of protest marches.

With the worldwide continuing closure of national borders I foresee a greater level of parochialism, isolationism, nationalism and a reversion to “homegrown” production. This may turn out to be a positive or a negative. Time will tell.

On the positive side: I have only heard the word “Brexit” once on TV in the past fortnight. And people you meet on the street (particularly fellow dog-walkers) are more happy to chat – at a sensible distance.

Panic buying

Since the first appearance of the K-19 virus in the UK I have not seen a single toilet roll on supermarket shelves. Pasta products, baked beans and eggs have also virtually disappeared. Yesterday I was able to buy the penultimate six-pack of eggs from my local store, following a customer who took three boxes.

In today’s news it was announced that supermarkets are writing to customers urging them to moderate their buying to ensure that there are sufficient stocks for all.

As customers we cannot control the sufficiency of stocks, but the supermarkets could go a long way to help.

For example, if in our weekly shopping we have two packs of indigestion pills and one pack of pain-killers, the third item is rejected because it exceeds the store policy on medicines.

Likewise, if I try to buy a bottle of “alcohol-free” cider, it must be verified that I am 18 or over.

It should not be too difficult to add the bar-codes for shortage items to the “restricted numbers per customer” list, maybe requiring supervisor-authorisation for exceptional circumstances.

Furthermore, modern logistics reordering software can quickly identify on a store-by store level where demand exceeds supply. These items could be automatically transferred to the restricted purchase list if immediate resupply is not available.

I write from experience, having worked for nearly forty years in the development of such systems from manual to IT-based versions.

I suggest that, rather than waste time and effort asking customers to be nice, that effort could be devoted to adapting a “quick and dirty” solution within the existing computer systems.

Of course, it can go wrong. I well remember the massive overstock in the UK of chainsaws exactly one year after the 1987 storm and supermarkets bursting at the seams with barbecue charcoal the year after an unseasonably hot Easter, based purely on seasonal demand! Fortunately, modern replenishment logistics systems have been vastly improved in the last thirty years.

As a final thought, if anyone buying more than eight tins of beans in a mainstream supermarket had to have the purchase approved by a supervisor, the silent glares of their fellow customers ought to have some effect – or is that just a British thing?

Where does stuff go?

I have several, many, too many wargaming projects on the go at any one time. I run a system whereby the next project to surface in my in-tray gets one hour of my time until it is ready for a game, when it is entitled to a full day.

The problem with this system is that I order stuff on the internet, recycle the project to the bottom of the in-tray, and carry on. When the required items are delivered I place them aside and wait for the project to re-emerge.

In the meantime, the physical manifestation of the ordered goods vanishes, never to be found again. I forget that I have got it and order it again. That’s why my loft is full of stuff in boxes, obscuring the stuff I need now!

Am I alone?

Warfare 2015 – a shopping expedition

Back from the wargame show “Warfare” at Reading.

I bought exactly what I set out to buy, and then several other things caught my eye.

So the final haul was:

3 x Morris 15cwt Radio trucks and 2 x 75mm German Mountain Howitzers from Heroics & Ros for my Sealion campaign. (pre-ordered)

Army painter Satin spray varnish and two new brushes (pre-planned)

Four packs of green plastic bases made by Renedra Limited. I have never seen these before but they appeared to be on every second trader’s stand throughout the show. They are perfect for my 6mm wargaming and will save endless cutting of thin MDF. (Impulse purchase)

A whole lot of World war Two Infantry from Adler Miniatures to accompany my new GHQ tanks and equipment. It’s looking like my entire WW2 stock will gradually be replaced with slightly larger, better sculpted figures. (Impulse purchase)

Three MDF 10mm Adobe Fort sets from LaserCraftArt. These look like the solution for building city walls for my 6mm Peninsular war campaign. About the right height with wide walkways for my 2cm bases. (Impulse purchase)

6mm Armoured train from Heroics & Ros bought second hand from Colonel Bill’s. Planned for later purchase, but grabbed when available.

I ogled lots of other pretty things but thankfully the scale was too large.

There were some interesting demo games. Unusual topics were Hyboria in the style of Tony Bath using similar flat figures (as seen in Donald Featherstone’s “War Games” book) and what appeared to be a snowball fight for Santa’s Grotto as a participation game for younger gamers. The RAF Wargamers were playing an assault on a farmhouse (La Haye Sainte?) with on the sidelines a model film crew and first aid station. I’ve played that before in 1830mm scale.

At 11:00 the entire show stood silent for one minute in tribute to the victims of yesterday’s atrocities in Paris. A very good indication that most of us deplore actual violence while striving for it’s perfect representation in miniature.

“Colours” Wargame show at Newbury

This year the “Colours” show was a single day format rather than the previous weekend. The three floors of the Dubai stand at Newbury Racecourse (my local racing haunt) were full of traders, demonstration and competition games.

It is noticeable that the vague scent of resin at trading shows has now been replaced by the smell of laser cut MDF. MDF was everywhere on sale, which will become appealing when someone begins producing models at smaller than 1:120 scale. The exception is Connoisseur Figurines who are turning out MDF armies in 6mm/1:300. The samples I bought look excellent for my “in period” demonstration battles.

Games that caught my eye at Newbury were the 54mm English Civil War Battle of Newbury ( the historical battlefield being within sight of the show location), Aruare 1813 – a different scenario for Napoleonics, the Society of Gentlemen Wargamers’ Bir El Abd and the stunning reduced scale scenery of Lisagne 1871(?) in 6mm by Grand Tactical Games

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