Big shopper

well I made three trips today:-
first to Chelmsley Wood Sommerfield supermarket for next weeks Radio Times and three kinds of bread and "cash back" to use at the markets

I made a bad buy of some tomatoes which where squishy and only fit for stewing

when I got off the 97 bus on Bosworth Drive I saw my (visual) neighbour is putting up his illuminations - I never got a good photo last year and I look forward to trying again with the new phonecam.

For lunch I made myself a glass of coffee and ate some of the squishiest tomatoes sandwiched in a piece of "bread stick" (flute in danish)

at the third bus stop I snapped the hole in the roof.

Second shop - I like repeating this scene as snapshots showing the changing seasons - here in LIDL I stocked up with 12 litres of milk, 14 cans of fish, 3 kinds of cheese, two sorts of tea, 2 kinds of ground coffee, minced beef, a frozen chicken, frozen pollack, frozen cod, and some german rye bread.
There were some left over art materials: a water colour set and a some pastels which I duly purchased.

THIRD after the fifth trip on the 97 bus I ended up at the open air markets in Birmingham


I purchased oranges, apples, pears, peppers, chinese leaf , carrots, onions, two kinds of green grapes and more tomatoes

Click to make bigger if you can not read the prices
I paid less on different less tidy stalls


I hardly ever need go out if it is raining, but the weather is worsening this week, and my fridge and cupboards were nearly bare.


and autumn is advancing faster and faster towards winter
(I am sentimental about the harsh hammered concrete from the late 1950ies in the background - an endangered architectural heritage.)

FOURTHLY
I went into Wing Yip - Welcome to WING YIP - ALL THE CHINESE YOU NEED TO KNOW
looking for chinese brushes and ink, but they use ball point pens these days like the rest of the world, and came out with some sweet sticky soya sauce from the junk pile and some RAJAH hot madras curry powder.

When I got home after the sixth trip on a 97 bus (all free to me as an OAP with a pass) I ate some more of the bread stick with chinese leaf, cottage cheese and the new soya sauce - tasty - more coffee two big glasses.

When I had rested in front of the TV, I made a curry using the remains of the cabbage soup in the pressure cooker, adding half a kilo of minced beef (4 days ration of protein), older curry powder, chinese leaf (the outer leaves which soon go off), the rest of the Sommerfield poor quality tomatoes, 7 small onions (peeling them in front of the tv brought tears to myeyes)
I heated it all up to pressure and left it to stew in its own heat.

I went to bed to sleep for an hour and I was too tired to even watch the local news on TV - sadly also of forensic archeology in Solihull looking for the corpses of two boys (missing from Chelmsley Wood for ten years and the subject of a flyer the police put through my letter box last week).

solihull murder - Google News: "Police use digger in hunt for boys missing 10 years
Reuters.uk, UK - 8 hours ago
... the Chelmsley Wood area of Solihull. Last week police interviewed paedophile Brian Field, who is currently serving life for child rape and murder, about their .."