Oblivious To The World Around Me.

A nice way to spend part of a Tuesday.

Where was I? Well, I motored through to Güssing at lunchtime in order to get our larders filled once more. Where does all the food go is what I tend to ask myself each and every time we come home from a weekly shop. Do we eat that much? Yikes, so it seems and one can't forget the trio of feline lodgers who eat us out of house and home.

My final stop was at the local Hofer branch and as it was humid and hot outside it was a sheer pleasure to enter the hallowed portals of commerce. Air conditioned, familiar to the last shelf and a bit like home. Recently, their rival- Lidl chose to upgrade and change their store around, which does put me a bit on edge.

Even though I know what I am going to put into my trolley, the mind still meanders around the various option of perhaps a special treat of Avocados, runner beans grown organically in Neusiedel or a ready made smoothie teasing me with its promise of goodness and more importantly something cold to drink.

Early afternoon is a fabulous time to wheel the trolley about a supermarket as it is full of happy people. Pensioners have all the time in the world, smile when their path is crossed and offer to do the check out tango;

" Look, I've only got a few items, you go ahead of me. "

which doesn't happen too often in the cut throat shopping arena called to life after five.

Eventually I managed to wheel the trolley outside in a familiar sideways slant and was most surprised to see a dark sky, wet tarmac and drops of rain falling around me. Where had the time gone and why hadn't I noticed these weather changes?

Could it be that shopping in familiar surroundings is therapeutic? As I let the lady with a few items go ahead of me, she thanked me in Hungarian and for a fleeting moment I thought I might be at a Hofer in Szombathely. Grocery shopping, one of the last places to unwind and relax...

Biggi