Car-less talk
And so ends the week-long experiment where Jane got to be the car user, and I joined the massed ranks of the pedestrians.
(An as aside: isn’t pedestrian a strange word? It means simultaneously “a walking person” and “a bit slow and boring”. Which is a bit of an insult to pedestrians, if you ask me.
I have a great joke that makes use of this dual meaning. I’m waiting for someone to ask me “how do you like the new zebra crossing?”
So I can reply “quite frankly, I found it rather pedestrian.”
…
I have a feeling I might have to wait a long while.)
Anyhoo… back to my fascinating musings on being sans-automobile. I should start by saying that I’m not a car fanatic. I basically see motor vehicles as a means from getting from A to B without having to look at, listen to, or smell, C.
I can’t get excited about cars because I don’t have enough money to buy a car that’s exciting, and if I did have that much money I’d find a lot more exciting things to spend it on.
But it’s been an eye-opener this week just how much my quality of life relies on my four-wheeled friend. Take shopping, for example. I live in a nice-ish new housing estate on the edge of a much larger estate of mostly council houses. The old estate, built mainly for London Overspill (quite how they managed to get spilt this far isn’t really clear), was planned with an central convenience store, because it’s quite a way from the town centre. When they bolted on my housing development, even further out of town, the planners obviously thought we’d get in our cars and drive to proper supermarkets, supposedly because we’re wage earners and can afford cars, unlike those workshy council house types.
That means that the only shop within walking distance of me is the estate convenience store. That would be fair enough if it was anything like convenient. I went there on Wednesday, to do the kind of mid-week shop I’d normally hop in the car and do at the local Tescos that Steg practically lives in (go on, deny it!) ;-).
I’m trying not to sound snobbish about this, so I’ll avoid mentioning the 3 separate gangs of hoodies in the shop, or the man filling his basket to the brim with cans of lager. They’ve got just as much right to go shopping as I have.
What I do have a problem with is a shop marketing itself as a “grocery store” and not stocking the most basic forms of grocery.
I found myself in what appeared to be the “cook-in sauces” aisle. A fine selection of ready made cooking sauces greeted my eye. Great, I thought, I’ll have something in sauce!
I then spent a fruitless (and more importantly veg-less and meat-less) ten minutes trying to find the something. There was no fresh meat, no fresh fish, and the fresh vegetables consisted of a few sad potatoes. There was some frozen meat and fish, but it was the kind of stuff that comes in bags and has already been processed in some way. I have a fairly broad palate, but I draw the line at Chicken Nugget Tikka Masala.
So basically, the cook-in sauces were there to fill shelf space with things that don’t go off too quick. Everyone has the odd jar of Dolmio or something tucked away in their kitchen cupboards for emergencies; if the shop owners were truly trying to run a convenience store they’d have stocked the stuff to go with it. But no. Shit shop.
Anyway, all this has gone to show me just how much I realise I need a car in this neck of the sticks, unless I fancy catching a bus to do even a basic shop, and practically cutting myself off from my friends and relatives. Which I don’t, so sue me.