'The poppies are to remember all the people who fought in wars,' said a father to his daughter, doing his best to teach her the meaning of the annual appeal. She looked at him with wide eyes and said, 'Like the hobbits?'
Priceless overheard gems like that are as good a reason as any to wander into a coffee shop and take a leisurely half hour out of a busy life. People-watching is another, although it had better be a very good latte for me to linger for more than thirty minutes.
Supermarket cafes are especially entertaining. From the mind-bogglng vanity of girls who have clearly spent an hour glamming up just to buy potatoes and washing powder, to te the football shirted men who are obviously earning their right to an uninterrupted can of lager and Sky Sports 1 later, all of human life is there at the business end of a wonky trolley.
Nothing tests a relationship like a supermarket run. If you're at the stage of wondering whether to take things with that special someone to the next level, accompany each other on the next groceries stock-up; if you're both still feeling that aura of contented togetherness when it's done, it's safe to think about more.
Traditionally, women shop and men are reluctantly dragged along to fetch and carry. But we females do have some irrational annoying habits.
Trolley-guiding is the absolute worst. This is when the woman is efficiently prowling the aisles, with the man following and pushing the trolley. Perfectly helpful and a system which works smoothly and saves time. So why, ladies, do we suddenly insist on putting one hand on the front of the trolley and nudging it an inch to the side in the direction of the next item? Boyfriend/husband has eyes and is more than capable of not running the thing into our ankles, but we just have to do it, that fingertip steering that serves no purpose.
My husband pointed this out before we were even engaged, and I was able to cease the practice thanks to some short sharp shock therapy; I won't go into detail, but it involved a withdrawal of privileges, a clause that should be read with as much innuendo as you assume.
I do have a friend whose last relationship ended in a Kwik Save, when he and his then girlfriend realised that if they couldn't get from entrance to checkout without making each other tut and sigh then frankly they stood no chance, and agreed to pack it in over the packing. It makes a bag for life seem rather sad.
Of course, negotiating a supermarket with a child is a whole new challenge which we have yet to face. The solution may be online shopping, something that I've thus far resisted for the most part. That Asda is barely a five-minute walk from our apartment also shrouds the idea in guilt, not because of any carbon footprint concerns but because it would take the delivery driver longer to negotiate the security gates than to get here and back. Needs must when the devil drives, as the old saying goes; let's just hope that doesn't prove to have connotations too close for comfort...
Priceless overheard gems like that are as good a reason as any to wander into a coffee shop and take a leisurely half hour out of a busy life. People-watching is another, although it had better be a very good latte for me to linger for more than thirty minutes.
Supermarket cafes are especially entertaining. From the mind-bogglng vanity of girls who have clearly spent an hour glamming up just to buy potatoes and washing powder, to te the football shirted men who are obviously earning their right to an uninterrupted can of lager and Sky Sports 1 later, all of human life is there at the business end of a wonky trolley.
Nothing tests a relationship like a supermarket run. If you're at the stage of wondering whether to take things with that special someone to the next level, accompany each other on the next groceries stock-up; if you're both still feeling that aura of contented togetherness when it's done, it's safe to think about more.
Traditionally, women shop and men are reluctantly dragged along to fetch and carry. But we females do have some irrational annoying habits.
Trolley-guiding is the absolute worst. This is when the woman is efficiently prowling the aisles, with the man following and pushing the trolley. Perfectly helpful and a system which works smoothly and saves time. So why, ladies, do we suddenly insist on putting one hand on the front of the trolley and nudging it an inch to the side in the direction of the next item? Boyfriend/husband has eyes and is more than capable of not running the thing into our ankles, but we just have to do it, that fingertip steering that serves no purpose.
My husband pointed this out before we were even engaged, and I was able to cease the practice thanks to some short sharp shock therapy; I won't go into detail, but it involved a withdrawal of privileges, a clause that should be read with as much innuendo as you assume.
I do have a friend whose last relationship ended in a Kwik Save, when he and his then girlfriend realised that if they couldn't get from entrance to checkout without making each other tut and sigh then frankly they stood no chance, and agreed to pack it in over the packing. It makes a bag for life seem rather sad.
Of course, negotiating a supermarket with a child is a whole new challenge which we have yet to face. The solution may be online shopping, something that I've thus far resisted for the most part. That Asda is barely a five-minute walk from our apartment also shrouds the idea in guilt, not because of any carbon footprint concerns but because it would take the delivery driver longer to negotiate the security gates than to get here and back. Needs must when the devil drives, as the old saying goes; let's just hope that doesn't prove to have connotations too close for comfort...
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