Reflections on online shopping and exercise.

My daughter and I went to the supermarket this morning. It was not particularly late on the day but the car park was quite full; no, it was very full. There were employees in hi- visibility jackets waving hi-vis batons around, directing people to spaces. Inside the supermarket itself it was not as crowded as we had feared, although some people did have very laden trolleys. I felt quite restrained in comparison. 

 As we had sat in the queue, fortunately not for too long as we didn't mind going to the far end and walking back, my daughter commented on the option of shopping online. Apparently if you wanted to have your Christmas food shopping delivered you needed to book a "slot" way back in early November. I suppose some people are that organised. Not me! 

Then just now I read that Sainsbury's and Waitrose have both had computer problems in the last day or so which has played some havoc with their online orders. Some orders were cancelled. Some were rescheduled for delivery on December 27th or even in the New Year. This last one provoked the comment, "This is as much use to me as a chocolate teapot!" In my family that remark always involved chocolate fire guards but the message is the same. 

Imagine the panic, though, if you thought you had your Christmas organisation all sewn up and suddenly you find out that there will be no food delivered after all. Nightmare! 

I still have quite considerable reservations about online food shopping in general. I get quite old fashioned about choosing my own fruit and veg. Other people's standards might not be quite the same as mind when it comes to selecting apples. And then there are the randomly replaced items if they have run out of what you actually ordered. I can even quote the horror story of my daughter's order once being delivered to a house down the road from hers. The chap accepted the stuff and only saw sense and took it all round to my daughter's house when the supermarket contacted him and said they had made a mistake and were coming to collect it. One or two items still mysteriously got lost in transit. How often do orders go astray like this? 

When we got back to my house with our shopping, the house was quiet. No sign of Phil at all. Then we heard the soft whirrr, whirrr, of a wheel. He was exercising. The reason I have been sent off to buy cycle oil and things over the last few weeks is because Phil has been setting up an exercise bike in the back of the kitchen. It's a handy gadget we purchased years ago. You slot the back wheel of the bike into a gadget which lifts the wheel off the ground so that you can cycle away without going anywhere. It seems to work quite well. 

Both granddaughters have have become very excited and had a go on it, involving lowering the saddle considerably. This means that I too will now have no excuse for not clambering up into the thing. Previously I had been saying that it was clearly too high for the likes of me. Now I have no such excuse! 

What I really need to do is investigate booking the device up to something so that we can generate electricity as we pedal.