Ashbourne Sainsbury's...

...is maybe a place to be avoided these days.

I went in there yesterday and it was so cold that, even wearing a light sweater and rain jacket, my fingers were getting numb by the time I finished. Ironically, most of the freezer cabinets were empty, so I asked one of the staff what the problem was.

‘It’s all this heat,’ she said. ‘It’s making everything break down.’

Heat?  The temperature yesterday was about 16°C, and even at the height of the ‘heatwave’ last week, it was only around 25°C/77°F. That’s heat?

So then I tried to get a large cooking apple to make a crumble. They only had packs of five. Who on earth buys five cooking apples? People buy cooking apples one or two at a time to make pies and suchlike. Everybody who sells fruit sells cooking apples singly. So I asked a member of staff about that, too.

‘We’ve stopped selling them singly,’ she said. ‘They were losing money.’

I waited for honesty to rear its unaccustomed head and utter the next line:

‘We’re not here to serve customer’s needs, you know. We’re here to make money.’

Honesty remained unaccustomed, but she did say she would report my concern to head office. And I’m sure she will… I thought of complaining again about the silly actory voice breaking in every five minutes with its promotional announcements, each one culminating with ‘Thank you for shopping at Sainsbury’s, where good food costs less.’ Hateful. I knew I’d be wasting my breath. There’s more to be gained from talking to stones and trees.

On my way out, I decided to visit the loo. Out of Order. Heat, no doubt.