I sometimes feel I have a bit too much in common with Baldrick, of Blackadder fame. Not the personal hygiene problem (or at least no one has mentioned it ….) but the propensity for coming up with cunning plans. Which don’t always pan out.
Take, for instance, the issue of cat food for the lovely Mme Bovary. As you know, I am devoted to that little catlet, and even put up with her prancing around my computer screen and sticking her furry bot in my face while I am trying to write. I am the first to admit, though, that she is a fussy soul. She will only eat Purina One Chicken and Rice. She has eaten this, with tremendous relish, since the exciting day when I couldn’t be bothered to get the special Science Plan food she’s supposed to be eating from the vets, and picked up the Purina from the big supermarket instead.
I am almost as loath to go to the big supermarket as the vets, though. The trouble with the vets is I have to walk there and back, and though it’s only minutes away, I am much too lazy busy. The supermarket, by contrast, is easy to get to (you have to drive) but is full of stuff which is way too tempting. I always, always impulse-buy at big supermarkets and tend to come home with no meal ingredients, but a lot of eyeshadows which make me look like a deranged barmaid and usually odd items of homeware like bathmats or picture frames which looked ok in the shop but do NOT look ok at Divorce Towers.
Hence this week’s cunning plan. As I’ve mentioned before, if you use Ocado, or any of the online supermarket services, once and then do not go back, they start offering you discounts. This came to a crescendo in my inbox when I found Ocado offering me 20 per cent off. Yummy! As they stock Purina, I concocted one of my wiliest strategies yet, by combining a bumper order of 6 kilos of Purina Chicken and Rice with a load of other cupboard staple type stuff, which I didn’t actually need but which would entitle me to my bargain offer.
I was a bit confused when I saw the van sailing away from the house yesterday morning. It was supposed to arrive between 9 and 10, and it was then only 8.45. But when I got in, I discovered why. TL had taken charge of the delivery. There was a small clutch of bags at his feet. ‘That doesn’t look like much stuff,’ I said, surprised. ‘Ah well, I had to ask him to take the catfood away. It was the wrong sort.’ It would be an exaggeration to say I turned pale and clutched at the wall for support. But I was bitterly disappointed. Blimmin Ocado had run out of Chicken and Rice and tried to palm us off with Salmon instead. Mme Bovary would certainly have turned her whiskers up at that.
So I found myself at the big Sainsbury’s today instead, at the gorgeously named Dog Kennel Hill. I bought the Chicken and Rice Purina. I also came home with a L’Oreal eyeshadow, apparently as worn by Cheryl Cole, two deodorants that we don’t need on special offer and Braun replacement toothbrush heads, the whole lot somehow totting up to nearly £50. So much for my 20 per cent off. On the plus side, I did stop myself from buying a bathmat. Sigh.