An expedition to Sainsbury's...

I can’t function without at least two or three cups a day and a lunchtime coffee is essential, so you can imagine my horror when I went to the coffee cupboard this lunchtime to find that my ‘Taste the difference, Fairtrade, Columbian, one cup coffee bag’ box was empty!

What was I going to do without my cup of ‘rich coffee with a sweet nutty flavour? Foil wrapped for freshness’? There was only one thing for it…

"I am just going outside and may be some time." I announced soberly to Gaynor as I strapped the crampons onto my boots and picked up my ice axe ready for the mile long trek to Sainsbury’s in ever deepening snow. Of course she insisted on coming with me just in case I fell down a crevasse and needed hauling up, so we roped ourselves together, picked up our backpacks, pulled down our snow goggles, and set out valiantly into the winter weather. Sainsbury’s can be a long way in the snow.

We left the house not knowing when, or even if, we would ever see it again.





There were a few cars about as we crossed the bottom of our road, my belief that the main thoroughfares would be clear proving totally erroneous. ‘The bins will remain unemptied today’ I thought as I walked down Oxford Road. Quite why it should be called Oxford Road is beyond me, we are score on score of miles from Oxford.









Abandoned cars, deep in snow were everywhere and there was hardly a pedestrian in sight.









‘No post today.’ I thought as I passed the posting-box and looked up at the snow-laden sky. The time on the village clock declaring twelve-twenty two, despite it being just after one – maybe the snow had slowed the mechanism or perhaps time was slowing down under the weight of the ceaseless, endless snow.









The lights were out, the trains weren’t running, even the snowman seemed to be telling us to turn back, but we soldiered on, braving the icy weather… I must have coffee, that sweet nutty flavour - foil wrapped for freshness!

Sainsbury’s at last. The car park almost empty, shopping trolleys holding cold snow babies standing idle, but we’d made it! It was worth the trek for the frosted Sainsbury saplings, like Christmas ornaments, glittering along the walkway. At last! Journey’s end, so in to buy my coffee.

Back home, five-fifteen and on my third cup of coffee, it’s still snowing, the snow getting deeper as I watch and we’ve just run out of sugar. Oh well, only one thing for it...

"I am just going outside (again) and may be some time."