I popped out to get something for lunch from a local Tesco Express as I had nothing in. Or so I thought.

The reality is that I had vegetables, frozen veg, cheese, pasta, potatoes, various tins, butter, milk, eggs and all the basics such as oil etc. I had plenty, yet wasted petrol and time to get more.

Obviously I had nothing in that I wanted or could be bothered to cook. I wonder how many trips, in households throughout the country/and other wealthy countries where this also applies. How spoilt we’ve all become, so fast.

A typical week’s ration for 1 person for a week in 1942 thus:-

Bacon and ham: 4oz (100g) Around one shilling and sixpence worth of meat:
Cheese: 2oz(50g) sometimes it went up to 4oz (100g.)
Margarine: 4oz (100g)
Butter: 2oz (50g)
Milk: 3 pints(1800ml) occasionally dropping to 2 pints (1200ml). 1 packet of dried ‘household’ milk per four weeks.
Sugar: 8oz (225g).
Jam: 1lb (450g) every two months.
Tea: 2oz (50g). (half a packet or the equivalent of 15 tea bags)
Eggs: 1 fresh egg a week if available but often only one every two weeks. 1 packet of dried eggs every four weeks.
Sweets: 12oz (350g) every four weeks.

No conclusion here, just the hope that I think twice before concluding that I have no food in the house,  and buying more.

24 hour drinking and the British booze culture. Alcohol is fattening!

We are becoming more like the USA and using cars for the shortest journey. As roads become more congested, more and more are being built rather than alternatives sought.

Schools have been asked to improve nutrition for children and parents are urged to change their habits but manufacturers are still allowed to churn out high fat, highly processed foods and target their advertising at families and children.

PC’s, TV’s, DVD’s, hand held games and a culture where television is so important that the results of talent or competitive shows are considered important enough to broadcast on the news.

Our long working hours. Everyones to shattered to exercise.

Sunday trading. We have access to shops and food 7 days a week and have forgotten how to do without, eat less and make do with what we have in the store cupboard.

Gyms. Exercise is seen as a task or leisure pursuit in itself rather than a natural part of daily activities…walking to school or work, gardening, a family game of rounders, dance class, a long country walk.

The availability cheap, mass produced food stuffs so that we no longer respect food as something which we should be grateful to have, but as something which is always there in abundance.

The snack culture which means that children are not as hungry as they should be when a meal is served. They can be picky about eating vegetables because they know that they can have a bag of crisps if they get peckish rather than waiting until the next meal.

Our inability to cook. The popularity of the umpteen cookery programmes does not indicate that people cook but rather that they sit and watch celebrity chefs cook.

Every village and town boasts little old teashops with waitresses in black uniforms and white aprons who carry little notepads and pencils and serve the tea from trays. Yet is possible to forget the tradition of afternoon tea for months or years.

However, once in a while, after a walk, or on holiday you can suddenly find yourself sipping hot tea and eating cucumber sandwiches, and while you do so you always vow that it is so nice that you will do it regularly.

A bone china tea service sits on a pure white tablecloth. The tea is piping hot and strong and there are cucumber sandwiches, scones with strawberry jam and cream and a selection of cakes and biscuits. The experience is artistic, gentle, relaxing and sociable.

Maybe the answer to our binge drinking culture is to close pubs early and encourage tea shops to stay open 24 hours.

The potato has just been declared the safest food in Britain by food intolerance experts, YorkTest.com, who compiled a list of foods which cause the fewest allergic reactions,

The good old spud, which has been with us since the mid 1500’s has most of the vitamins we need for sustenance and can provide this for about 10 people on just one acre. The Irish potato famine came about because they relied on it so much, but it proved vital during the Second World War when we were encouraged to eat potatoes in place of bread.

What would we do without the humble spud, boiled, mashed, chipped, roast and part of the main meal of the day for many years (in fact it still is for many?)

While writing this I have just discovered a potato fan club - did anyone else know there was such a thing?

Also, 2008 is the International Day of the Potato and we are holding our own British Potato Day on Februay 3rd. Incredible. I’ve got to research what we do on the day, apart from eating potatoes, which we do daily anyway!

I think I’ll post some ideas on the 3rd in case anyone wants to join the celebrations.

Actually when it continues the saga i’ve already had so far this month then yes there bloody is!

I try to avoid making New Year’s resolutions but Christmas consumerism condensed my hatred of shopping into thoughts of action and I’ve decided to do a monthly basics (loo rolls, dog food, tins and pasta etc) shop online so it gets delivered. If I run out I’ll try to do without unless they sell it at my little post office-cum-newsagents which sells a few grocery staples.

Then every week I’ll get an organic box delivered - i’ve discovered a very ethical farm who does this less than a mile from me - they also do organic free range eggs.

Finally i’m getting milk, in a glass bottle, delivered to my doorstep. Now this is a wonderful British tradition. Little milk floats chunkering down the streets and the sound of a cheerful whistle and the clink of bottles on the doorstep. I’m sure milk tastes better out of glass rather than plastic!

Mission will hopefully be accomplished as shops are avoided as much as possible, certainly the big stores.   I’m using local providers, which may be more expensive but I figure avoiding shops and trips to supermarkets to get things will save a fortune in getting sidetracked by special offers, hunger pangs etc.  I’ll also avoid the stress of coping with the huge choice of products, the heaving masses and  endless queues.

But today I’m not firing on all cylinders and still feel weak as a kitten with hopeless coordination. After phoning the milk company to find that they mistook my message and left my milk two doors down, I took Heek for a walk and picked up the 2 pints on my return, hoping that nobody thought I was stealing it.

I put it the milk on a window ledge while I tried to get the key in the door, grappling with the Heek who decided he wasnt’t ready to end his walk.

SMASH! A pinta falls over on the wall and smashes.  Milk pours onto the pavement.  Dog tries to start drinking it.  I grab dog away from glass and take him in and up to flat, find dusban, brush and newspaper go down to clear mess, realise finger is leaking blood, as milk starts turning pink.  I clear the glass, wrap and put it in the bin, go up, wrap my bleeding finger in tissue and get a bowl of water to slosh onto the milky mess.

SMASH! I don’t believe it. I rush down to find bottle two has fallen to ground. Go up get dustban brush repeat first series of actions.

Why didn’t I move second bottle to ground? I DON’T KNOW!

A great video which I hope might serve as a gentle reminder to feed the birds in your garden as the temperature plummets, (and maybe as a deterrent to feeding gulls and pigeons!)

We don’t have the best reputation for cooking but we certainly have an obsession with food.

Every time I turn the TV on there is somebody cooking, demonstrating cookery, teaching somebody else to cook, competing in cookery competitions or celebrity chefs promoting supermarkets.

We have wide chefs, country cooks, open air chefs, la-de-da cooks, bad mouthed chefs and sexy cooks. They all have unlimited funds and time with which to produce their amazingly original recipes which look so easy to accomplish in theory and are almost impossible to attain in practice.

Gordon Ramsay would get a following without food, just by doing his ranting and swearing routine. For Nigella, any accessory would work as well as food for her to ooze and drool over, while Jamie O is so enthusiastic people would be hanging on his every word if he was chucking black beetles into lightly fried cowpats.

Supermarkets now offer ‘ideas cookery cards,’ in case we’ve shoved random products in our trolleys with no idea as to how we might cook and serve them.

Meanwhile the country is heaving with sub standard food served in the pubs, restaurants and fast food joints that need the advice from these chefs and never take it. Still everybody is obviously buying food from them and going home to eat it while watching a superchef programme, so maybe watching good food compensates a bit for eating crap food. Who knows?

I went to the supermarket this morning and was shocked to find that there is a national food shortage.
Appearances are deceptive because the shelves, freezers and refrigerators seem to be heaving with delights especially created for the Christmas period, such as the ‘Extra Special’ ranges, birds within birds or liver pate with cranberry and orange.

Obviously they have been laden with the last of the food because hoards of people are squashed into every aisle, piling their trolleys up so that they survive the forthcoming famine.

People who currently roll in to the stores well insulated with extra flesh, against the winter frosts are stocking up to ensure that they will be one of the survivors.

Exactly when the stocks will run out, is slightly unclear but from the heaving rush of people it cannot be far away.

Not only are people stocking up with foods but they are elbowing others out of the way to grasp bargains that have ten pence knocked off.

Manic Christmas music is played continuously on an endless loop which is designed to calm people down but which in actual fact adds to the general panic.

Drivers who have filled their cars with provisions try to escape as fast as possible before they get waylaid and mugged by the starving. This is leading to frequent cases of car park rage.

Still it will soon be Christmas and the season of goodwill!

After the Funeral, Tea.
Strong tea in served in cups with saucers (matching) alongside understated, embarrassed looking food served in small pieces. This is to ensure that even the hungriest eat absent-mindedly, the morsels finding their way into their mouths accidentally.

Builder’s or Workmen’s Tea.
Type a. Made by the householder, willingly at first and offered with biscuits. As the work progresses into weeks and the breaks seem to match the length of the work achieved daily it is offered more and more grudgingly until it is stopped altogether. What they don’t know is that the workmen place bets on who can get the householder to make another cuppa.
Type b. The flask of strong dark syrupy tea fortified with 25 sugars which workmen bring with them, in case they meet a householder that does not offer any and for the days when their goodwill tea making will expires.

Friends’ Tea
Informal tea served in mugs, over such a good chat you don’t notice that you have polished off a plate of biscuits between you.

Meet the Boyfriend/Girlfriend’s parent’s tea.
Weak tea, served in the best china to ensure that the nervousness is accentuated by fear of smashing something. Large biscuits or cake are offered but you have a tiny side plate so you cannot avoid apologising about crumbs. Questions are always asked when you have just taken a bite.

Committee Meeting Tea.
Whether it is served in mugs or cups and whether there are biscuits (even the type of) is the result of an ealier meeting. Somebody always chokes on biscuit crumbs at a crucial moment, usually to make everyone feel bad if the vote has gone against them. Whoever makes tea always makes a racket with the china so that someone else feels obliged to make an offer of help which is refused with great martyrdom.

Community Tea
Served in churches, community halls, or school buildings at jumble sales, fetes and fairs. This is always served through a hatch on pale yellow or bule china. It is never hot but the price includes a biscuit.

Working Tea
The worst cases are those with drinks dispensing machines slopping out tepid grey liquid. The snack crisps or chocolate is usually spat out of another machine. Tea ladies with trolleys are the best; bringing round a great urn with hot, strong tea and a choice of sandwiches and cakes subsidized by the firm so everyone at work is podgy. Others have a kitchen area with a kettle, teabags that everyone chips in for and everybody’s individual mug, bought from home. One is always being used inadvertently by a visitor or new arrival who doesn’t understand the dark looks they are getting from the owner.

Morning Tea
Whereby one partner always makes the other a cuppa in bed and the one crappy thing about being single is having to make your own.

Solitary Tea
Bleary eyed, on your own at the breakfast table, talking yourself into the day with a large mug of tea and lashings of hot buttered toast.

Comfort Tea
At any time of misery or hunger, with an enormous mug, and further lashings of hot buttered toast or biscuits straight from the packet.