Friday, May 19, 2006

Oo, gotta get up, gotta get out

Sainsbury's have changed their opening hours without telling me, so that they now close an hour earlier at 7pm. This forces me to go to Spar if I notice I've run out of bread after that time, which generally forces me to buy that horrible "seven days fresh" stuff, because they generally sell out of the edible kinds of bread by that time of night.

Now, I'm not like Delia Smith, who won't eat any bread that she hasn't made from flour she's ground herself and yeast she's cultivated between her own toes, but that seven-days-fresh bread is horrifically nasty. I'm not sure by what definition of 'fresh' they're working, but it looks, feels and tastes past its sell-by date even when it's brand new. And a loaf of normal bread usually lasts me seven days without going off. Who buys this product, and in the name of sanity, why?

In other news, there's a solid gold pack of cards as the prize at the Speed Cards Challenge next month! I'm definitely going to win it. This is the kind of prize that all memory championships should have, rather than stupid trophies that don't fit in your rucksack for the journey home (always catches me out, that does. And I can't bring an empty bag to the competition with me because that would jinx the whole thing). This whole event is going to be fantastic, I can tell. Better by far than my Cambridge thing. Hattingen's limited supply of hotels seem to all be fully booked, but rather than trawl around for B&Bs and phone Germany to ask if they've got a room, I think I'll get a hotel in Essen - it's twenty minutes away on the train and that way I get to look around the big city on the Friday before the competition.

No comments: