When the cat's away....

You know what they say.... when the cat’s away the mice will play.... and in this case I think they’ll be playing poker and sneaking into Tesco.

I’m heading to London this weekend to visit some friends, meaning my other half Neil is home alone. Clearly I’m leaving him with strict instructions NOT to forget to feed the animals, NOT to break anything and NOT to mess the house up.

He’s having the boys round for a poker night so points two and three might get overlooked a bit, but as long as it’s all cleared by the time I get home I can live with that.

Head Chef Neil wishes I'd just hurry up and go to London!

However, it seems a bit much to tell him to NOT go near a supermarket. After all, he’s been fairly cheerfully trailing me around farm shops and going without his favourite Robinsons squash (which I can’t seem to find anywhere) for the past four weeks.

Now there’s a glint in his eye that tells me he’s going to be making a dash for Tesco, the Co-op or Sainsbury’s, or maybe even all three, as soon as I walk out of the door.

So I asked him last night if there's anything he's missed about the supermarkets so far....

And do you know what, he actually swore blind that he's not missed anything. In fact, he was keen to wax lyrical about all the lovely meat I've been tracking down for him... huge chicken breasts and steaks from Bill the butcher at Dunston Farm Shop (and what man doesn't like huge breasts?!) and sausages from Highfield House Farm Shop.

He said all the meat had tasted better than supermarket meat - the cuts have been bigger and the sausages in particular have been juicier and meatier. And bear in mind that we never bought cheap supermarket meat - we always went for the more expensive, organic or free-range British stuff.

His lows have been a portion of roast ham that went off too quickly and my inability to track down cured meat anywhere. 

He didn't have much else to say, but when pressed admitted that the less glamorous bog roll and scourers have also been to his liking. God bless Wilkos.

I'm heartened by these replies. I had thought he might be harder to convince. However, when I asked him if he planned to go in any supermarkets this weekend he couldn't look me in the eye and his response was non-committal.

Oh well, a reasonable verdict to say we've only been at it four weeks - I've got another 11 months to make a complete convert of him...!