And this is how the English do it.

So Monday is the day for food shopping and I'm in charge.

This is one of the few times I've arrived to the store to find that it's open, as the past times I've struggled half a mile down the road in the family van to discover they're close for lunch. Or break. Or afternoon tea. After parking the car (quite the master at that now!) I put my euro into the slot for a trolley and head into the store, wondering what excitement (or trauma) I'll get into this time...

After leaving my shopping list in the courgette crate and battling the aisles with wonky wheels and slippy floors, I finally turn into the final aisle for toilet paper, washing liquid and cheese (no the most organised store in France!)  with the trolley overflowing. (Seriously, these are the smallest trolley's I've seen since ASDA did those mini kid's trolleys). As I load some cleaning detergent onto one side of the cart, the pasta falls off, and as I squeeze that back into the front of the trolley, the ketchup slips out. I finally maneuver my mini avalanche-on-wheels to the till, and an old man looks at me in amazement as if I've dressed up in a clown outfit and stocked up the entire trolley with frozen peas. It appears that these stores aren't used to the conception  of family food shopping. The man starts rattling on at me in French, and I smile with embarrassment, as I know, just know, that his comments are about my cataclysm-waiting-to-happen. I pick up a few words of his chatter and manage to keep up the 'I'm not a tourist' act by mumbling in reply my reasons for buying half the store (quite literally). In actual fact, I surprise myself by saying more than 'oui' accompanied by a gush of nervous laughs! 'C'est pour la semaine, pour ma famille de sept personnes.' Yes. I really am shopping for seven people! Although the girls probably make up an additional seven people for the amount they get through! The man is satisfied by my response and continues jabbering on. What am I supposed to so - come here everyday for 1 or 2 items? (Though everyone else I've seen has only a handful of items. Do people just not have families to feed, or have plenty of time to go shopping everyday for single items?? Maybe no one's introduced them to the idea of shopping for the week!) I've loaded up on biscuits and brioche to keep the girls at bay from fridge-raids, dog food for Speedy (rat poison seems a far better idea...) and extra supplies of tuna, as Thelma seemed to think it was a good idea to feed tins of it to the dog at the weekend. Not in my kitchen!!!  

Hot chocolate powder is a highly BANNED item on my list, as the girls drink hot chocolate by the GALLON, insisting on making it minutes before we have to leave for school, and then sitting there slurping it off a tiny teaspoon. The chocolate powder which doesn't make it to the cup is thoughtfully strewn all over the work-top and the floor for me to clear up. These girls are absolute cannibals for chocolate - the first (and LAST) time I bought Nutella, they got through the entire 1kg jar in only a few days, by heating it up in the microwave, or spreading it on everything and anything, eating it straight out the jar and attempting to make MORE hot chocolate with it. Lesson learned. 

So I'm at the tills, frantically throwing everything out of the trolley and onto the miniscule conveyor belt (Are they trying to encourage me to only buy a basket full?). Out of pure embarassment, I allow not one but FOUR people go in front of me, carrying only a few items (not even a basket needed) so I'm expecting Good Karma to fly my way any moment soon. I'm halfway thought loading the shopping, and catching food-bandits attempting an escape from the cart and conveyor, when the cashier starts scanning items at a competing speed to Sainsbury's 'strict regulation standards of 17 items per minute). A second mountain is rapidly forming the other side of the till, whilst I'm still half buried under the mountain of high altitude my side. 

I race round with the trolley once the frantic stacking has ended and start throwing it back into the trolley. Gone are the days where I put fruit and veg together in bags, meat in a separate bag and heavier items ALWAYS at the bottom of the bags. I worry about the whereabouts of the squishable tomatoes and fragile grapes, and thank my stars I didn't buy eggs. Eggs! Well I guess that's one thing I forgot... After paying by cheque (from William) I pilot this percolating volcano of shopping out of the store, eyes widening in alarm as the trolley swings viciously back around me to face down the slope of the parking lot I pull it over the guttering and finally make it to the car where I discover someone's helpfully parked right next to me, leaving only a small gap to get to the boot. Between using my foot as a bollard against the wheels and my arms as a canape across the shopping to reduce landslides, I make it to the boot and load it into the car. The amount of bags don't seem sufficient enough to equal the amount of trauma I've had to endure today!  

I think the one think that could have made this any worse, would be three screaming kids - whether it's a toddler (or two) in the trolley, or any other amount or age rampaging round the store demanding 'MINE!' and throwing godknowswhat into the trolley.