Saturday

I'm over the dentist thing. I'm just glad I got the fillings over and done with instead of not going to my appointment. Which seemed a very tempting option yesterday.

So, another Saturday, another food shopping expedition (I do buy a few provisions through the week too, but not many). We started off at a local emporium run by someone known as 'the Egg Man'. But he sells lots of things in addition to eggs including honey from his own bees, a few plants and firewood.

He sells from the garage next to the house. Basically, if the door's open then so is the shop. We go there quite often for our fruit and veg - he's very reasonably priced and a lot of the stuff is locally grown.

After that we headed to Kenyon Hall. It's probably best known for strawberries. In the summer you can go and pick your own, and on a warm day the smell of strawberries is lovely. They taste incredible too, not like the plastic punnets from Holland which are sometimes disappointingly hard and flavourless.

They've gone pretty upmarket these days. The shop has been transformed from a makeshift tented area to a big, purpose-built barn complete with cafe and artisan ingredients. We occasionally make the odd purchase - it's particularly good for foodie Christmas presents - but usually just buy meat. It's free range, local and no more expensive than that from a supermarket.

When spring comes we'll go back and buy pots of herbs to grow. Last year, we bought an angelica plant and it grew to tree-like proportions. 

Oh, and they happen to stock a range of greeting cards that Jay and I make using our own photos...

I like that they sell Fitzpatrick's cordials. They're from the last remaining temperance bar in the country, a few miles down the road from where I grew up. The rhubarb and rosehip must be tasty.

After that we went to the supermarket for the other stuff - nappies, cereal etc. We've discovered a little one that's just opened in the middle of a new 'village' (an executive housing estate built on what used to be an airfield). It always seems to be quiet in there. It makes supermarket shopping a bit more pleasant. And I'd have to be pretty hardcore (and wealthy) to boycott them altogether.

It was so bitterly cold and grey that we vowed to stay indoors when we got home. And we did.