provisioning...........
Arion's West Indian Adventure
Hermione & Douglas Pattison
Sat 23 Apr 2016 15:38
Now add to this, making sure the bottle or carton is one which will fit into the available storage. “That Vinegar bottle is too wide to fit in the slot”………….
Many of the items on the shopping list are not available, so one has to substitute on the spot, while Arthur is throwing a mouldy lettuce leaf at you from the trolley.
One aspect of provisioning that we have got right, is that we ‘divide and conquer). The list is ripped in two and we each take a trolley, child and 1/2 a list. This stops the children from getting too silly. The only downside is when you are not thinking for a split second and pick up something not on your half of the list, which you know we need, but cannot recall whether you wrote it on the list or not……… checkout disaster and unhappy Caribbean women tutting as you have to put things back.
Provisioning is our worst part of cruising. Definitely. There is no joy to it.
After you have endured the supermarket itself, paid the enormous bill (food is really expensive out here- 4$ for a jar of pesto anyone??) we then have to carry all of the stuff down to the dock, load it into Ladybird and then remember not to forget the children, who by this stage are so fed up they have done a runner to go and find another boat to live on. Its then a pretty dodgy dinghy ride back to the boat with the children perched ontop of the groceries. I get very nervous when Alice is left in charge of the eggs as nobody else has an available hand to do so!! Its then a hullabaloo getting all of this from the dinghy onto Arion, usually with waves crashing around getting the cereal all soggy…………..
Once safely onboard, the ordeal is far from over. We have the task of storing everything. All tins have to have the labels removed and marked with marker pen. All cardboard packaging is removed, plus any other packaging that we can live without. This keeps rubbish to a minimum at a later date. The cushions on the sofas are then removed and everything stuffed behind, in some sort of order so that things can be easily found at a later date. The fridge is loaded up like a game of tetris, and then we all collapse in a heap on the floor, glad it is all over for a couple of months!
Today I forgot loo roll, so this will be severely rationed on the next leg of our journey. On the plus side, I was able to buy a bunch of fresh parsley which sort of makes up for this.
So; when you are next pottering off to Waitrose in your car, do spare us a thought. You might even feel a little bit of sympathy for us……………. ? Yeah Right!!!!!!
Ps I am afraid there is no photographic evidence of these ordeals- you will have to take my word for it. If you have read and digested the process, you will see why there is never a camera or hand available to record the event……….. xxx