The Tesco Car Park

Today's blog, as mentioned yesterday will, mainly, be about my dreaded food shop.

So ... I got up at half 8. Which, I will have you know, is an ungodly hour when you haven't slept at all the night before and you're just starting to think nice sleepy thoughts when your alarm clock decides that it is actually a mini Hitler and it wants you out of bed that very second.

So then the normal routine resumes. Shower, coffee (very important this morning) and then I planned my trip. I got my list, my purse, my bags, my Sat Nav. That's where things started to go wrong.

The Sat Nav was, for want of a better word, dead.

How exactly was I supposed to get to Tesco with a dead Sat Nav? Obviously I took this as a sign that I shouldn't go shopping and was just about to crawl back into bed when I realised that there is nothing in my house which could be classed as a viable food source.

So, I took my sat nav out to the car and plugged it in there. It was a bit like pretending I was Dr. Frankenstein. I had the dead body of something and I just added electricity and created life.

So, off I went. Well as soon as the ridiculous 473 point turn it takes to get out of my driveway was over.

Things were going fine until my Sat Nav, bless it, decided to throw another one of its little tantrums. So there I am on a 50mph road being told to bear right and turn left.

Does anyone know how you bear right and turn left? Answers on a postcard please.

Finally I get to Tesco.

For this next part it is necessary to remember that today is Monday and this all occurred at about 10:30am.

There is a queue at Tesco. Not for the checkouts as you might expect but for the car park. Yes I was sat in a queue to get into a car park that has the capacity of a small airport. There was a car park attendant running the same sort of system you get at over crowded night clubs. The well known one in one out system.

Now, the one in one out system works for places like pubs and clubs. I promise you it does not work for supermarket car parks. The reason for this is simple. In a pub there is always someone coming out. In a supermarket there isn't because practically everyone is wandering around deciding what they want, or queueing at the checkouts, or loading their car, or returning the trolley. As you may be gathering shopping can be a long, drawn out business.

The actual shop was fine though. Once I'd parked the car I was in and out in less than half an hour. That was mainly thanks to my list.

In my opinion lists should be compulsory for anyone planning on buying more than a loaf of bread and a pint of milk.

Then it was back in the car and to what you'd think would be a fairly simple drive home. No such luck. As it turned out there was also a queue to get out of the car park. This was for a slightly different reason. The same car park attendant who was allowing people in was stopping them on the way out to ask which zone and bay they'd parked in so that he could direct the people he was letting in.

I don't know about you but I don't tend to take the slightest bit of notice of which zone and bay I'm in. So I didn't know what to tell him and he seemed quite upset that I'd managed to ruin his system.

And then I got home, unloaded my car, unpacked my shopping, froze my meat and all was well.

I even made an appointment with the University to see a counsellor.