Red Mist

Instead of walking in a high, beautiful place, today I mostly been having a crappy day. This year we have not been walking much at all, I suppose because R has been spending most weekends working on his PhD. Once he has it submitted, hopefully there will be some good autumn weather for walking in.

Could not wake up this morning - went back to bed after breakfast "just for a lie down while I listen to The Archers omnibus" and woke up after 1. Then had to face shopping hell in Asda. Asda is usually bad on a Sunday afternoon but this afternoon was like Christmas eve and New Year's eve rolled into one. For the Students Have Returned.

I know it is hypocritical of me to get angry about students. I used to be one myself, and R still is one. But Manchester is a much pleasanter place during the university holidays. And we have been over-run by new student accommodation, all of it built as cheaply as possible and hence an architectural eyesore (apparently, the traditional halls of residence don't cut it in the modern student accommodation market place, as they can't provide the en-suite rooms and on-site gyms demanded by today's discerning student). Plus it is an important part of the professional Mancunian persona to 'feckin hate feckin students' (adopts Liam-Gallagher-esque accent).

They completely invaded Asda this afternoon. I'm not sure which was worse - the ones who were in a gaggle of 4 or 5 and had one trolley each (ffs could they not see that there were, as a result, no trolleys to be had anywhere?), and wandered round looking as if they'd never been in a supermarket before in their lives, or the ones who were shopping with mummy, setting them up for the new term 'look Timothy, this is an egg, you like eggs don't you? you remember I showed you how to boil them?' Look missus, the day Little Timmy starts uni is not the best time to start trying to teach him cookery. Particularly not when you're blocking the aisle so I can't get passed and I'm trying to do my weekly shop for my family aargh. Least bad were the ones who had no need of a trolley as they were only buying a new pillow and a six-pack of lager.

The place was stripped bare of the necessities of life (tinned tomatoes, pasta, baked beans, lager) and queues at the checkouts snaked into next week. If it hadn't been for the fact I'm off to Bristol for 3 days tomorrow, and can't leave O and R without food [1], I'd've turned round and walked out. Things got so bad I put 2 packets of pringles in my trolley (2 packets cos there was 2 for £2 deal on). By the time I'd got to the end of the store, I put them back and swapped them for 2 small bags of crisps, which I shared with O later. Still not good, but better than it could've been. We won't mention the cake we had at tea-time. O had a friend round for tea, and he brought chocolate cake he and his mum had made earlier. Yes I ate some. O and his friend made their own starters, Tiger Sushi a la Big Cook, Little Cook. He's not gonna be like Little Timmy oh no.

Tiger Sushi 



[1] yes of course R is perfectly capable of shopping, but he is busy trying to finish the PhD and going shopping is something he could do without right now