60 miles for tins of Sheba

A 60-mile round trip to buy a few tins of Sheba?

Well that is a slight exaggeration... but suffice to say I’m now going to certain lengths to support my favourite local shops.

This morning I had an appointment and a couple of errands to run in Chesterfield, so I took the opportunity to call into my favourite pet shop, Hasland Pet Supplies, and received a warm welcome as always from owner Judi.

She asked me how I was settling into Derby life, and as a loyal blog reader (thanks Judi) she was also laughing at my current stand-off situation with naughty Beans Bunny - who took the war to the next level this morning by peeing three times on my bed.

I’ve been running low on a couple of things, including cat litter, but had purposely been making what I had last as long as possible so that I could buy a new bag from Judi and continue to support her pet shop - instead of going elsewhere.

I also popped into my favourite greengrocers, Hasland Fruit and Flowers, for some salad and fruit.

At the beginning of My Year Without Supermarkets I wrote a lot about customer loyalty and building relationships with the people from whom you buy your groceries, never imagining that by the middle of the year I would be putting that loyalty to the test following a re-location.

Now I find that after months of shopping in places like Hasland Pet Supplies, where Judi has been so lovely that she saved boxes for me to help with the house move and even offered to shuttle my stuff in her van, I still want to give my hard-earned cash to her instead of finding somewhere closer to home.

And I guess that goes some way to proving the point of this whole exercise - a life without supermarkets connects you to the people who produce and sell your groceries in a way that trudging round Tesco never could.