Gone Shopping

Restocking our small fridge is an almost daily chore. Produce and packaged goods seem to have very brief shelf lives here and besides, without a car to lug groceries home, we tend to buy only what we can comfortably carry a half-mile from the store to our flat. Although there’s a wee Tesco market on the ground floor of our building, we only use that as our “wine cellar” and a place to get fresh croissants in the morning. The main shopping is saved for Waitrose, which is kind of like the Whole Foods of Britain. The store and its shoppers are regarded by some as elitist and labels on the milk saying “produced by farmers who share our values” don’t help. But, we like the quality of the food and we’re suckers for the come-on of getting a free latte and/or a daily Guardian or Times, if we buy just £5’ worth of groceries. (With newspapers running 1.60 and lattes another £2, you’re practically getting your food for nothing!) One nice thing about Waitrose is their community spiritedness. You get a green token at checkout to deposit in the bin of one of three local charities that change every couple of weeks. The store tallies up the tokens and makes donations accordingly. Nice to know about all the good causes and also that we’re contributing at least in a small way.  A big difference from PDX is the preponderance of self-check out tills (which can be confusing) and the digital handsets that let you tally up your purchases as you go along, with only an occasional spot-check before paying.