Whatever Next?

 Thursday. 6.15 a.m. I was in Sainsbury's yesterday and, having been round the store with my trolley and had finished my shopping. I was at the point where I wanted to pay, but couldn't find a till open. It's obvious that Sainsbury's are determined to get their customers to use self-service tills, because many of the traditional, manned, tills have been removed and there are two areas with self-service tills, one for customers with baskets, another for those who have shopped with a trolley, which included me, and another for the hand held scanners. I pushed my trolley into the area with the self-service tills, which are meant for those customers who used a trolley and therefore had a larger amount of items to scan. But there were very few working tills, so I had to leave the area and go to a till which was manned. (sorry, but most of them have women working on them, so is the term 'manned' acceptable these days? Is it politically correct to say 'manned'? Should it be 'personed'? Just me being a bit sarcastic.)

I thought the idea was that you used the self-service tills, and they had one or two manned tills for those who don't want to use them. So it seemed strange that so many of the self-service tills were either closed or were out of order. It is obvious that they have laid off many of their staff, those who operated the manned tills, so they could cut their prices. They keep advertising that their prices are checked against those at Aldi, but in the process, their customer service has deteriorated, which is a pity.

6.05 p.m. Alfie was due to go to The Groom Room at Pets At Home at 5 o'clock. I was going to leave at around 4.40, but then I got a call from the groomer to say that they were able to take him immediately, so I drove over to Bletchley and took him straight in to Pets At Home. I was told that Alfie would be finished at around 5.45, so I went into Costa to have a latte and I got more points on my Costa card, which now means that next time I go in any Costa I get a free drink. You collect 'Beans' and when you have 10 of these 'beans' then you get your free drink.

Having had my latte in Costa, and went into T.K. Maax, which is further along the parade of stores. I think, if you read my blog posts regularly, you will have discovered that I love T.K. Maax. I had a good browse and bought a couple of items, one was a door-stop in the shape of a man, which rather appealed to me as it looks so humorous. The other item was an LED torch which can be charged and has a cable to plug into a USB port, meaning it doesn't need batteries. I was looking for a new torch. so it was fortunate I found it.

From T.K. Maax, I walked to Home Bargains and had yet another browse. They have a good selection of well priced items, including dog food and I may go back next time I need dog food. It was whilst I was browsing that I got a phone call from the Groom Room, to inform me that Alfie was ready for collection, which pleased me as it meant we could get home and I could then have my evening meal.So, Alfie collected, payment made and Alfie put in the cage in the rear of the car and then driven home to Dexter House.