Morning shopping

I was woken up this morning by Pellinor catapulting himself out of the bed, crying, "Oh no! My alarm didn't go off and I need to be in Woking by 9!" It's my day off today, since I'm working on Saturday, but I got up and took him to the ferry. Since I was out, I decided to go into town and do the weekly shop. I was back home by 9, with the day's jobs all done, and a whole free day ahead of me. I'm feeling very smug.

The supermarket was lovely and empty first thing in the morning. I was interested in peering at the trolleys of all the early shoppers, to see if there was a marked difference from the trolleys of the Saturday afternoon shoppers. I think there was. From their trolleys, people seemed to fall mostly into one of two groups: apparently-affluent people buying organic food, and people buying from the "basics" range. Ready meals were not in any demand at this time in the morning. The deli counter seemed fairly popular, but the frozen food section was empty. There was also a significantly higher percentage of shoppers using "bags of smugness" (as Wellinghall called them). Interesting. I know that the shops do massive analyses of our shopping patterns - that's one of the main reasons for loyalty cards, isn't it? - and I've love to be able to read their conclusions. (I think this post could be re-titled: Watching the English has ruined my life.)

Tomorrow it's my turn to go to The Mainland. I foolishly agreed to go to a meeting near Pompey, at a place not accessible by public transport. The organiser has agreed to pick me up from a station some miles away, but rather earlier than I would have liked. I have to leave at 7 to get to a meeting that starts at 10.30, which is probably about 20 miles away as the gull flies. The "foolishly" comes from the fact that 60,000 people will be flooding into the island tomorrow afternoon for the festival. Getting home will be well nigh impossible - especially since the festival site is on my route home, and all the roads are going to be closed, rerouted, packed, and generally disastrous.

EDIT (15.46): Okay. Feeling less smug now. I've just slept for four hours...

Men writing women; women writing men

I wrote this some weeks ago, but wasn't going to post it, since I didn't want to get accused of sexism. However, an email from my Dad has made me reconsider.

First, the email from my Dad:

"I'm hoping you would be willing to give me your honest opinions about something which has come up in Book Group, where I am the only man. The initial question was whether a male writer could create a convincing female character, but I'm more interested in what was said afterwards.

"Basically all the women contend that men and women are radically different, some of them even suggesting they are almost separate species. When one woman said no man can ever understand a woman, all the rest vociferously agreed. They distinguished it from the sense in which no one person can ever have total understanding of another. What do you think?"

Then the piece I'd coincidentally already written: ( Lengthy musings on men writing women, and women writing men )