Bags for Wife

Yesterday was my shopping day.

These days I visit the biggest Scot-Mid in Edinburgh (Leith) for all my necessary items (although I have been known to visit Lidl for deals on suspicious foods, such as an octopus in a jar)

It’s a BIG Scot-Mid, easy enough to lose yourself in, it took quite some time to gather my meats, vege and sauces, but was well worth it.

The Indian lady who served me was exited to see a wide array of curry ingredients coming towards her on the conveyor belt, she soon put her enquiring mind into action – are you making a curry? What kind of curry would it be? What meat would it contain? Who would it be for? Would it be for my wife?

WithWife?

Me?

Surely not!

We discussed the possibility of the checkout lady attending my meal and then another lady in the queue soon enquired about attending. I knew neither really wanted to come, just a kind attempt to provide some comfort to a lonely single young man. This three-way-role-play was quite fun, until they starting asking for my address, I’ll just make sure I double lock the door from now on.

After discussions about my relationship status, I was told I would have to pay for my bags.

This may be company policy in Lidl, we all know that’s how they make their money, luring you in with cheap beans and then forcing you to buy a bag or carry 26 cans in your pocket.

I had already bought too much for my pocket, so opted for two 10p bags for life instead.

I realise these have the added benefit of saving the environment because people are more likely to re-use the bags they pay for, but this would require me to carry them everywhere just-in-case.

The old free bags got so much more re-use in my house, in small bins, storing socks, carrying rubbish from living room to kitchen, making ad-hoc swimming trunks or doubling up as handy rain garments.

These bags for life will get no such use, so far I store them in a secret cupboard, ready for the day when I’ll need a robust bag. Surely this is so much worse, I’ll have thousands soon, not willing to use them, not willing to give them back.

What a dilemma.

I bet my wife would know what to do with them.

The Thrift Warehouse

Come on a journey into one of Leith’s finest bargain basements, The Thrift Warehouse.

Located on Sandport Place next door to Plumbline, The Thrift Warehouse is filled with so much treasure you’ll probably have to book the afternoon off work to have a proper look around.

I love these places, it reminds me of having a good mooch around someone else’s loft, only with greater consequences after a bit of pinching. I get extremely excited finding so many old childhood games and videos (although excitement should be kept to a minimum, remember this is for charity).

The Warehouse sells everything you could ever want, apart from food and drink, but if toys are your food and ornaments your drink you’ll be set for life.

The sheer volume of Thrift made available was stupendous, it was difficult to know where to start browsing – well not that hard, the toy section obviously came first, followed by books, films, music, electronical equipments and finally furniture. Sadly I came away with no treasures, all my monies had been used to buy lunch, next time I’ll come prepared.

I now know where I’ll be buying every single present in the future, all I can say is that I’m glad I didn’t have a date for Valentines, they may have been less than impressed:

What says I love you better than a documentary on the home of everybody’s favourite mustard (and why would someone give it away?!?!).

Same Direction, Different Angle

It’s been so long since I blogged one off – I’m not really sure where to start. I need to ease back into this gently.

As one of the most popular sources of information for travellers to Leith I felt that I had a responsibility to visit every nook and cranny to give you all an insight into Leith Life, the problem is a lunch break can only provide me with a certain amount of travel time and I may have exhausted all blog worthy attractions. This is why a new angle is required, hopefully an extremely acute angle.

So, as old Gordon Brown recently said when he moved home “It’s time for Change”.

After hearing Gordon’s speech, I also decided to move – a whole 5 minutes closer to Leith. This has given me the opportunity to walk to work, which means more time in Leith, which in turn will hopefully provide me with more stories to tell and photos to show.

Not today though, my phone had too much to drink at a party and stopped working, but don’t worry, the internet is full of photos – I’ll improvise.

A new house always requires a new toilet brush, this is a fairly embarrassing piece of kit to buy, nobody wants to admit that their house needs a toilet brush, or even fewer want to carry one home. To avoid embarrassment I decided to go to the one place that nobody is judged, Woolworths. £1.29 seemed like a fairly good deal, until the boy on the till took my £2 and offered me no change, no receipt and no bag. I decided to visit bathroom shelf again to check the price before making my complaint, I needed to be sure that something was wrong – it was. I stormed back to the boy, but it was peak time at the till, so many people in the queue, what do I do? Queue? Or push in to the front? I decided to go find the m the manager to discuss this disaster on the shop floor. He took me across and pushed in for me, I had to gain my 71p, in the end I did, but it took almost 20 minutes. If time is money, time is cheap.

My discussion regarding change caused an even bigger queue, more and more people were listening in, my embarrising product was fast becoming local Leith knowledge. This was the one thing I didn’t want to happen. The queue looked at me in disgust, how could this man in a suit care so much about 71p? Well, I’ll tell you people of the queue, there was no way I was paying £2 for the cheapest toilet brush when there were some even better ones actually priced at £2, that just wouldn’t do.

I was successful, but the whole ordeal was made very difficult by the fact I had no receipt or bag. The 71p came in very handy on the way to work, Greggs sell exceedingly good sausage and bean bakes.

So what’s the moral? Time for change, always make time for change, even if it is a very small amount.

Luckily, my phone works again, so expect some real photos of Leith, more political discussions and a special feature on the Fringe.

Thornton’s Dog Toffee

My lunch today was made more energetic than it had to be.

The vast amount of dog toffee meant I had to hop, skip and jump my way to the sandwich shop.

“Leith has a higher DTpm² than anywhere else in Edinburgh”

Ewan Mcgregor

Ewan was right, it is quite a problem. I plan to do something about it, would you like to help?

My worries soon washed away as it started to rain and the toffee began to melt.

A paper and a sandwich was my lunchtime plan, not too difficult one may think. I thought I would tackle the issue of the paper to begin with.

The first newsagents I went to only sold tabloids and looked at me very strangely when I asked for the Guardian, I already had a free metro I decided against buying what was on offer. I was sure that the second NEWS store would to be able to help me.

But on closer inspection I soon realised that the NEWS shop could not help.
Instead of selling ‘the news’ the shop had something much more exciting.

Bags and Dolls. I gave up on the NEWS and made a move towards my sandwich shop. I selected Popeye’s Sandwich Bar directly opposite Greggs (sorry will).

I was shocked to find no Spinach Sandwiches and upset to hear Popeye was away for the weekend.

“I’m strong to the finish cos I eat my Chicken Tikka with Salad Sandwich“doesn’t really have the same effect – but it was very tasty.

I saved money by not buying the paper, so decided to get a Twix instead. Much tastier than a paper and the packaging was quite interesting to read.

On my way back the road impressed me yet again, I found out that as well as a meat heaven there is also

I noticed that as well as being a Fruiterer, Fruit Heaven was also a newsagents. I bet they had the Guardian.

My Twix’xtra wasn’t as appealing once I realised how much it looked like the dog toffees from earlier.

Still ate it though.

Up The Junction…

Instead of having my lunch at The Ocean Terminal, I have recently been eating in Leith’s central business district. And what a CBD it is!

Today I explored Great Junction Street (previously known as Junction Street).

(Junction Street 1971)

This street has so much to offer I can see why it was renamed. The shops were clearly established when RonSeal was at its peak when people demanded no-nonsense labels and signs.

Don’t forget to visit Krazy Kardz Korner if you ever want to buy cards for birthdays, christmas days or standinaqueue days.

I’m not sure it was necessary to name it ‘krazy kardz korner’ instead of ‘crazy cards corner’? Both have the power of alliteration on their side, but I prefer not to buy my cards from the KKK (way too pricey). One day I will take you all in to see just how Krazy the Kard Korner is.

Like to eat meat? Of course you do, then look no further than Meat Heavan:

By the time I got to MeatHeaven all the bits of animal were sold, with nothing but eggs on offer.

Leith also has a plethora of clothing stores, instyle and lookin’ trendy are two of my personal favourtites.

Or why not make your own clothes, stop in at Barnes Discount Textiles and the Scissors Shop.

It really is a Great Junction, so much variety… so why then do I always seem to end up in Greggs for lunch? I’ll tell you why – free christmas pie.