Like most other people I do some of my shopping at the supermarket, but try whenever possible to use the home delivery service -less temptation to deviate from my shopping list, and more eco friendly as one vehicle is delivering to many homes in the area rather than individual car journeys, they also if I'm honest frustrate me...why do I need to look through 25 different types of baked beans when I want something to go on our toast? I was discussing shopping habits with a friend recently, yes I know I have such riveting conversations, and realised how lucky I am with the shops that I have locally, not to mention brilliant farmers markets in my 4 nearest towns!
My local post office/village store, sells home made cakes, quiches, jams and marmalades, the 3 fruit above is one of no 2 son's favourites and just as nice as any expensive brand you can buy. Coming up to Christmas, they also make Christmas cakes and puddings, and I always buy their home made pickles to top up those I've made myself.
I treated us to one of their homemade apple cakes when I was last in, I normally make them myself but just couldn't face baking that night.
A swarm of locusts , AKA my teenage sons, seem to have taken over the kitchen as by bedtime this was all that was left!
It looks like I'm going to have to get baking to keep up, we have plenty of apples on the trees in the garden, and my hens are still laying at the moment. They usually have a rest for a couple of months, and I don't think that will be far away.
I use my local village shops every week. I have milk from the dairy at one, veg from another, and meat from the butchers and bread from the bakers in another. I know that I am very luck that in my village and the 2 neighbouring ones I have such a choice. I work in the town and it would be easy for me to pop into the supermarket to buy what I need, but I firmly believe in supporting the local shops and suppliers whenever I can.
In the lastest round of Post Office closures we were incredibly lucky that none of our PO's shut, if they had I think that the village shops would struggle to keep going. During the floods last summer the roads out of the villages were blocked, necessitating a 40 mile trip each way along the motorway if you wanted to get into town, rather than the usual 6, and the number of people using the village stores increased no-end. These people were happy for the shop owners to do this trip for them to save them the hassle, yet as soon as the road opened they deserted the local shops again, seemingly forgetting that without daily customers they may not be around if we are unluckly enough to get marooned again. The little shops can never totally replace a trip to the supermarket, but you can get much of what you want, and more importantly the owners will get things in especially for you. When I was icing my Christmas cake last year, they didn't have any glycerine so let me use some of theirs. It is also a more friendly environment, not rushed, which allows small children to learn how to pay for shopping, you regularly see small children counting out their pocket money to buy fruit or sweets, or paying for their mummy's shopping without being pressured to hurry up.....can you imagine that in Tesco!
So lets back the local shops, and encourage others to do the same...as the saying goes "use them or lose them".
A lovely distraction whilst I'm doing the washing up.
Thank you all for your comments on my last posting about buying local. It seems there are like minded people across both hemispheres who are passionate about supporting local suppliers where they can. Listening to the doom and gloom on the news this morning, about how we are all running low on oil stocks and will need to look at alternatives, we are already ahead of the game, buying straight from producers that are as near as possible to where we live and the more we buy the more producers there will be and the prices may become affordable to more people - a positive perpetuating circle for once.
