Shopping.

Today is shopping day. I guess most of you hop in the car & drive down the road to the nearest supermarket. It's not quite that simple for us. First I have to check which kid/s are available as I can't do the shop for all of us on my own. Then I have to check the boat timetable & which buses connect. The same thing has to be done in reverse of course. A lot of waiting is involved. We practise patience on shopping days.

I always travel with a mag, my An Encouraging Word or Homeschool Digest but my hyperactive tribe cannot settle peacably to read no matter who I take. At least these days I don't have to worry about one of them swimming before we even start. Even Cass is old enough now to sit quietly & watch what's going on bug~eyed. If she comments she keeps it sotto~voice.

Either of my girls are brilliant & have been known to do the shop completely on their own, no mean feat given I never do lists & keep all relevant data strictly in my head! Never put anything in the trolley unless you tell me the price! I keep a running tab in my head too. When Liddy comes she does the same. Her math is better than mine & she is usually fairly close to the total. Cass just asks how much money I have left, hopeful of getting a Chinese takeaway before we head home.

I am strictly shepharded past the newsagents & book store until after the shop; my girls find my propensity for prefering books over edible matter rather horrifying. I'm rather hopeful we won't have to eat once we get to Heaven while the kids cross their fingers & hope that I don't stand & watch dinner burn (yes; it's been known to happen!) & that I have managed to avoid getting, turps, thinners or oil paints anywhere near the food. They think writing is safer except then I completely forget about the food.

Yet I rather enjoy our shopping days. Cass & I usually have a good time together & get ourselves a small treat along the way. Cass is good company & we aren't off~island very much. Not that we want to be. The noise, the bustle, the pollution & crowds are all too, too much in very short time but we enjoy looking in the shop windows, people watching & seeing how the other half live. By the time we are sitting on the jetty with a nippy little wind sliding icily down our collars we are thanking God the bridge, which has been coming for over 80 years, is still a long way off. As the boat pulls out with us aboard & slids through the slick green water & tangled mangroves we instantly relax. Someone else is doing the driving & we are free to watch the terns diving, the shags airing their wet plummage atop the beacons as we pass, the hunting hawks, turtles &, if we are very lucky, a pod of dolphins dipping & ducking through the waves down the passage. It is so nice to come home like that with the salt tang of the air crisp & clean & home getting closer all the time.

The cat always knows when it's shopping day too. He comes hurtling the moment he hears the car pull up & starts nosing all the bags, scenting the interesting ones that might hold a titbit for him & generally behaving just like the kids who promptly arrive like wasps round a honey pot to pull the bags apart hopefully, though the same things turn up week after week, while my mind is strictly on getting some caffine into my system as quickly as possible before facing the mammoth task of packing it all away. In a fortnight it's all to do over again. I can't think where they put it all. A book at least I'd have for longer.