Yesterday was wet and cold. We made a valiant effort to go out, taking our cup tray with the intention of buying takeaway coffee (the only sort available during Lockdown v 2).
However, once we were outside, what with the wind and rain driving into our faces, we decided that a quick dash to Saint Espresso in Pentonville Road was about as much as we were prepared to do.
In “normal times” (remember those?), we would have found a museum or art gallery to visit or some other such indoor pursuit but none of these are available at the moment. So we grabbed our coffee and scuttled home. Not brave, perhaps, but sensible.
Today, Sunday, is nominally shopping day. Overnight it rained and there was flooding in some parts. By 10:30am, the stop had stopped and there was even a hint of sunshine. No excuse to put off the shopping, then 🙂
The trick is to arrive at Sainsbury’s just after 10:45, when they open for 15 minutes’ “browsing time”. The checkouts open only at 11:00 so the store is relatively uncrowded at that time. We make a quick dash round the shelves and reach the checkouts just as they open. A few people have caught on to this idea too, but the queues are still short.
Barriers at Sainsbury’s
The street barriers are still in place, of course, designed to make incoming customers form a line that can easily be controlled if the store becomes over-full.
This is just one example of something we could never even have dreamed of a year or so ago. Nor could we have imagined the scene where shoppers, all wearing face masks, would be invited to use the hand sanitisers at the entrance, and where the checkout desks are all separated from one another by transparent barriers and checkout personnel also wear masks.
We arrived at a checkout while another customer was already passing through. We loaded our collection of goods onto the moving strip snd waited patiently.
This customer was slow. First, she fumbled in her bag to find her loyalty card, and then engaged in even more protracted fumbling to produce a set of banknotes for payment. I began to feel impatient with her. Then it struck me: what she was doing would have seemed quite usual even a year ago. In the meantime, electronic payments, encouraged by people’s fear of infection, have risen to become the norm so that it is paying with cash that now seems unusual and archaic. Another indication of how our lives have changed.
Chapel Market
As usual, we passed through Chapel Market on our way home. Once again, the lower end was deserted which would “normally” have been lined with stalls busy with customers.
Some stalls in operation
(Sorry for the wonky photo. I somehow fumbled it.)
At the top end, a few food stalls were in action but nowhere as many as we are used to.
Keys, not food
Usually present on market Sundays is this stall that makes copies of keys and sells related items. Are such stalls allowed to operate under the current rules? I still don’t know.
Open for takeaway coffee
Once again, we stopped here for coffee to take home. Inside, the floor is marked with arrows to show which way you should circulate in order to maintain “social distancing” – something else we could not have imagined not so long ago. I did notice, though, that the staff were not wearing masks.
Escaping sign
Photo by Tigger
In Sundays, in addition to the usual market, there is a “Farmers’ Market” and signs are posted in neighbouring streets. This sign has somehow escaped and fetched up here.
Notice the leaves all along the pavement. They have been accumulating for several weeks. It seems that the streets are not being swept are they previously were. Another sign of the times or has our particular sweeper been withdrawn for some reason? We shall probably never know.
Back home again, Tigger put away the shopping, we drank our coffee and settled down to await lunchtime. I somehow think that we shall stay home for the rest of the day.
SilverTiger at home and abroad 