Take Two!!

Well it is official, it now takes two chaperones to accompany Mrs Beeton on her weekly shopping trips. For those of you who have no idea what or who I am talking about then you might like to read this post, oh and perhaps this one if you have the time.  His Lordship has been flying solo on this mission for a while now due to my having 'other committments', you know the sort of thing, naval gazing... oh sorry we did that three posts ago, ok, what about catching up with my heavy workload of reading, blogs. Alright I admit it I achieved senior shopping burn out some time last year and in all honesty I have not been able to pluck up the courage to take her recently.

As the weather has been terrible of late she has been housebound so as soon as the snow and ice began to clear she pounced. Feeling sorry for his Lordship I foolishly agreed to accompany him I also thought that it would provide an opportunity for me to get a few bits of shopping too. When we arrived at Mrs Beeton's home she was standing in the doorway and looked as though she were layered in every garment she owned including two hats and a scarf... it would seem you can never wear too many hats in cold weather.

After being dropped at the door to the hallowed chapel to shopping I busied myself with getting the trolleys. Yes I know, Mrs Beeton and trolleys do not go together, but unfortunately due to a rather bad back and a dicky knee a trolley is now a necessity for her to lean on. She is however not allowed to navigate that is a job for the chaperone. So when his Lordship arrived we set off into the inner sanctum.

By the end of the fruit and veg aisle his Lordship seemed to have things well under control so at the agreed signal I pressed on with my own shopping. A short while later as I was nearing the end of my quest my phone rang.

"I, I don't know what happened, I must have had my guard down," his Lordship moaned.

"Take a deep breath sweetheart," I uttered soothingly, although my insides were doing their own version of the Samba.

"She wanted scones, you know the special one's with lots of fruit and sugar, I was only a few feet away, I promise,"

"It's ok, don't worry," I inhaled deeply, I needed oxygen, "we just need to follow the carnage"

"Listen! I mean take a moment and listen," he replied.

I took the phone from my ear, moments passed and then it hit me, no clean up crews, no shrieks of pain, no hopping shoppers. The awful realisation hit me... OMGA! We really had lost Mrs Beeton.

"Aliens?" I enquired hopefully. There was silence. "Stay where you are, I'm on my way"

I raced through the other shoppers to the bakery counter, his Lordship stood rooted to the spot, as I got to him an announcement came over the tannoy, "would the owner of an elderly lady with hats please make their way to the rear of the store and make themself known to a member of staff." I looked at his Lordship with steely resolution. He nodded, together we could do this and he took my hand firmly in his. Slowly and with heads bowed we took the walk of shame to the rear of the store.

Two security guards were positioned either side of two rather large doors, I have to be honest I had not noticed these doors until this point. His Lordship stepped forward and with voice lowered, "we've come for the lady the elderly lady, ah hem, in hats."

"We've got her contained in the dry goods section sir," he replied with a genuine look of sympathy.

As the two security guards pushed open the doors I heard the one to my right whisper into his radio, "we're coming in, is the perimiter still secure?"

We rounded the cereals to find a line of warehouse staff blocking the dry goods section at both ends. Mrs Beeton was blithely ignorant to their presence. A path of destruction followed her as we picked our way through the lentils, flour and pasta now scattered over the floor, the line of warehouse staff closed in operating a pincer movement and we were forced to promise that we would never darken their doors again. We managed to negotiate safe passage via the rear door. 

And so my dear friends we are now scouting a new supermarket that has not heard of or been forewarned about Mrs Beeton. From now on there will always be two chaperones present and she will never be left unattended.


I promise.