Familes shop fiasco

Well today nerves are fraying.  The weekly planes that bring in fruit and vegetables into MPA were delayed for nearly a day due to thick fog in The Falklands.  This means that the usual delivery in the familes shop was not there this morning.  It was not there this afternoon, the shop was not open. There will be an uproar in some households this evening.

This means that on Monday the shop will be open and it will be a fiasco.  I think I might have to give it a miss and go on Tuesday. By then there will not be much left but I will have my sanity and will not have fallen out with anyone and given or received any menacing looks.

Up to 20 minutes before the shop opens, up to 15 people (mostly women) queue.  The conversation is always tense.  There is pushing and use of elbows to get to the precious cucumbers, bananas, grapes, kiwi fruit, potatoes, carrots, pears, peppers, mushrooms and spring onions. There is sometimes only one poor stressed out person on the till catching all the negative vibes so you can queue for up to an 40 minutes - just to get a bunch on bananas.  I am sighing and drinking wine just thinking about it.

Before you feel very sorry for me, I can drive 50 minutes on the pot-holed road to Stanley.  I can get 4 bananas for £4 there and you can get good potatoes.  We did have 3 cucumbers from the school polytunnel last week and the tomatoes are nearly ready. I can also eat in the mess and we are allowed to take two pieces of fruit out per person.  My husband's mess bill is going to be quite large this month. There are a few gin and tonics on his bill from happy hour on Friday evenings but they do not count, they are only 50p each.

I am looking out of my window just now, beautiful sunny evening, not too much wind, no traffic, no hustle-bustle, no annoying people (well apart from the ones I will see in the families shop) and if I close my eyes I can still imagine what bananas, cherries and strawberries are like.

Must go and defrost some frozen berries.