And it was all going so well and I thought everything was under control. Our supplies were sufficient but I decided that I needed some bacon to aconmpany the scrambled eggs I was planning for dinner - you can only eat so much gormet food before you need some simpler stuff. But alas no. Not a slice to be found. Not a sausage in sight as the shelves had been stripped bare of anything remotely meat based as if a swarm of particularly ravenous carnivorous locusts had descended. Actually I lie, there was a bag of pre-cooked sausages available but crisis or no crisis I just couldn’t. To be fair I didn’t even know that they existed until we finished a race once and we asked to man the BBQ. “They only need warming through “, came the sage advice. “Bollocks to that”, I thought because these things were a pale pink colour and totally unappetising. So burnt the arse off them - well it wouldn’t be a proper barbie without some burnt bits!
It’s probably just as well there wasn’t anything edible to buy as the queues to the checkouts were enormous. At first glance I thought someone had decided to break the somber mood by trying to break the world record for the longest indoor conga line. I weighed up the situation and decided that I’d use more energy queuing to buy what little produce there was than the benefit I’d get from the things I was about to buy, so stormed out in a huff. Well a half-huff because I didn’t have the energy.
Despite the lack of meat products, I still wasn’t worried. You see just before this all kicked off, the day before the first restrictions were announced, we did our Big Shop. Our timing was perfect. But why a Big Shop? Well not long after we arrived in New Zealand we realised that we really didn’t want to spend a good chunk of our free time shopping for groceries. No, we wanted to get out and see a bit of our new home. Why queue on a Saturday morning when instead you could be on the beach, running around the park or having brunch in a seaside café? Bulk shopping was the way to go and so the Big Shop was born.
So over the last four years or so, it’s not been unusual for us to place an order online and go and pick up $800 of groceries two or three months. And of course, being British, apologise profusely for any inconvenience we may have caused for spending so much money on groceries. As an aside, there’s nothing quite like the sight of three shop assistants wheeling three trolley’s full of groceries across the car park to make you feel just a little embarrassed. Except now we can’t. Not without looking like the most selfish bastards this side of the Bombays. Not that we would be allowed to buy 24 cans of chick peas anyway. All items are limited two per customer and that amount of legumes in one place is probably considered to be a public health risk.
We do have a largely vegetarian-based diet and consume more than our fair share of beans, lentils and other assorted pulses. It is healthy, but the downside to that kind of fibre-heavy diet is that a regular supply of toilet roll is required. Toilet roll, for some inexplicable reason, has suffenly become the main currency. Forget Bonds or Gold, paper rolls is the way to go. Well that and pasta.
Anyway, because of bacon-gate, on Saturday we popped to see our local butcher. I swear he almost looked embarrassed as we opened the door and entered the shop. “Sorry guys, we’ve not got a lot left”. Admittedly the range was not quite as wide as it used to be but it wasn’t bad. There were plenty of snags (sausages for those not from these parts), some mince and a few bits of pork. But the steaks, chops and other meat based produce had gone.
He explained that a new customer had been in earlier and bought $500 of produce and didn’t really care what it was. Just filled the boot of his car and was off. Probably never to be seen again. Our bill came to $100 which was what we normally would spend for two months worth of food. Admittedly with more sausage than we knew what to do with but hey, what you gonna do?
If that was the attitude of your average shopper last week, who knows what chaos is currently unfolding in the diary isles of supermarkets up and down the country. Last week the borders were all but been closed, except to residents and citizens, and today it was announced that we are going into enforced self-isolation on Wednesday for four weeks! It was explained that there will be plenty of food and we are to shop normally, whatever counts for normal these days. We have been reassured that food will still be coming in to the supermarkets but a month is a long time.
Thankfully because of our Big Shop we can sit out the worst of it and not descend into panic buying. Well almost. I do admit that my first thought after the lockdown was announced was not about whether we had enough food or toilet roll to last us a month, but whether we could get by with our somewhat diminished alcohol supplies. The four bottles of wine and half a case of beer just wasn’t going to get us through. It’s going to get tense and what’s the point of being house bound when there’s nothing to drink? The only thing for it was a quick dash to the bottle shop to stock up. And we weren’t the only ones. Others had clear had the same thoughts and decided to top up. I wouldn’t really call buying three cases of wine panic buying. It’s just a sensible precaution against the forthcoming incarceration.
So with our Big Shop in the cupboards and alcohol supplies replenished we’re okay for a while yet. Plenty of wine, chick peas, lentils, black beans and rice to go around. Oh, and sausages, we mustn’t forget the sausages!
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