Supermarket Shopping, it's a reach

Hi there

Two weeks ago, I was looking for a certain something in Countdown Supermarket, Kilbirnie.  Everyone, of course, knows that when you're on a diet, oven wedges are essential to a healthy way of living!

The bag of wedges were in one of those long low-down lean-across fridges. The wedges were at the very back.  There were only two bags left which would necessitate me not only reaching across the fridge, but I would have to reach down as well.

"Uhhhh-!"  Nope, I was too short to do the deed.

I tried again.  My fingers were tantalisingly close to the prize.   I tried one last time, but still couldn't reach the wedges.  There was no-one around to help me.

So, I gave up and walked away.  I got as far as the processed cheeses and turned back.  I wasn't going to be beaten.  This challenge  was there to be won.

With a huge effort - my feet actually lifted off the ground for a second or two - I pushed myself across that fridge and with a gigantic Olympic-type-gold-medal reach, I grabbed at the bag of  wedges.

There was a sudden explosion in my left side.  It was as if all my innards were being rammed in different directions.

I fell back in pain, clawing at my side, and silently screaming a very naughty word.  I can only hope that Countdown staff don't accumulate all their unusual customer videos in a compilation and show them at their staff Christmas party to the accompaniment of  jaunty circus music??

The outcome?  I had to go to the doctor, was given a truckload of pills, and told not to do the twist for a few weeks.  Cold sea swimming was good, providing I did breast-stroke.

A note of warning to height-challenged shoppers:  beware of tantalising wedges in supermarket fridges ....

car parking ... mid winter swim 2014 Wellington

Hi there

Okay, here's one of my favourite hates, and my five readers know all about it, from an earlier blog.  

It really drives me mad when a car vroooooms in beside my car in a supermarket carpark - and it's usually a male driver , sorry guys.  The driver leaps out in a skidding hurry, as if he's on the way to conduct a life-saving heart transplant instead of after a bottle of blue-top milk at Countdown.

Doesn't this guy realise that it doesn't make him look cool.  Quite the opposite.  He looks like some sort of dork driver, a beginner who doesn't know how to park.

Here's the car beside me at the Countdown carpark, Kilbirnie, this afternoon (Wednesday 18thJune  NZ time).  I could hardly open the door to get into my car.  It doesn't look it in the picture, but the offending car is parked very skew-whiff.  The front is more or less where it should be but the back is way over the white line and close to my car.

Swims:

J and I have now completed three swims for this month at Hataitai Beach,  chasing our minimum of 4 per month.  It was quite nice yesterday.  I had a couple of weeks break this month because when I got home from one swim I shivered all afternoon, all night , and came down the next day with a terrible cold.  I wonder if the cold was coming anyway, or can a person catch a cold from being cold?

Oh, there is a mid-winter swim at Breaker Bay at 3 pm on Saturday 21 June.  Followed by a chance to change out of wet togs and, I think there's hot goodies, at the Breaker Bay Hall which is across the road from the beach.  I won't be going because I have something else going on this Saturday.