I want a Shopping Mall!

The title says everything. 

My shopping list, which I had actually remembered to take with me, was pretty long.  Mincemeat for Mince pies has a lot of ingredients. 

There are several supermarket choices in this town, all have their virtues, but none are ‘one stop shop’.  Not such a bad thing unless you are biking it, like I do.  This becomes complicated and visions of hands on shoulder as I slink through checkouts, start to plague my good, honest self.  I carry a back pack…  German supermarket operators are, on the whole, some of the most unhappy people on the planet.  The only thing that can lighten their mood is making me open my backpack and show them the items + receipt, yep, those bought from the rival supermarket.

After I had searched through 2 out of the 3 stores, I gave up.  It was all too hard.  Most of the items on my list remain unfilled.  Don’t get me started on Brown Sugar! In the end I was saved by the bottle of Ruby Port. I was so frustrated by the time I came home, I was tempted to knock the top off and give it a good guzzle. So no mince made yesterday.

But with December knocking on the door, it was time to get that wreath ready.  Can’t say that I was all that enthusiastic about it. Miss Eight helped by tying bows, and we tossed a few decorations on.  Biggest problem was how to hang it up on our new front door… she of glass and steel.  I picked up a stick-on-hook and had the idea that I could stick it on the inside of the door… of course I messed up the first attempt by ‘not putting the hook above the red line’.  Miss Eight saved the second attempt when I cleverly hung the hook upside down.  Thank goodness she can read.  At the point that I was turning red and blowing steam out of my ears, she started shouting at me, “Mummy! Don’t touch anything!! Don’t pull of the hook…you can change it!”  and she was right… so you could.

I wonder why Nigella Lawson never has days like this…