How things have changed

I had such a lovely morning out drinking coffee with friends that I almost forgot the new normal that is my life nowadays.  That feeling didn't last long of course.

In a previous life Ash used to do the grocery shopping.  He would go through the cupboards, draw up the list, go to the supermarket, fill the trolley and do everything else that came with keeping us fed and watered including cooking all the meals.  Then we started going to the supermarket together, then he put the weekly basics on the list and I added the rest, then I drew up the whole list and on and on until we got to where we are now.

S is coming tomorrow and, because I'm having a very lovely and very busy birthday week, she's doing the shopping with Ash.  Of course I knew I would have to write out a detailed list, remembering to put every last thing on it rather than relying on having me to fill in the gaps as I suddenly remember an essential that isn't on the all important slip of paper that Ash carries with him.  What I hadn't thought of though is how much planning goes into every trip to the supermarket nowadays.  

I've now sent S an email with instructions just so that everything goes as smoothly as possible and I thought you might like to see it so here you are:

You do Lidls first followed by Tesco.

Ash collects the trolley and pushes it around.

He has the list and the pen and crosses each item off as it goes in the trolley.

You need to go through the self checkout in each.

You’ll probably need to tell him where to stand at the checkout (rh side where the bag goes).

You put everything through the scanner then hand them to Ash to put the item in the bag.

You can’t rush putting things through the scanner because sometimes he struggles to work out where in the bag to put them (which is the reason for using the self checkout).

I’ll leave bags for you to use but it’s best to only take one bag into each shop otherwise he gets confused and doesn’t know where to put what.

It's not a long list I know but every single step is important and, when I think about the part he used to play in all of this, I realise how things have changed and it brings me up short.

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