Ubiquitous

It’s been a frustrating second half of the day.

It started well with wood-splitting, apple-slicing and a spot of weeding, followed by a call from the garage to say my car was ready to be picked up.

A friend picked me and Bean up at 3.30 to deliver us to the garage. I took my shopping bags and empty milk bottles, to fill them once I was under my own steam.

We reached the garage to find my car in the workshop with the bonnet up, looking very unready indeed. Long story short, the mechanic had ordered the wrong alternator (one digit incorrect). A new one is now on order. But when will it arrive? Nobody knows.

My friend also had shopping to do, and another friend to pick up en route, so we all ended up in town towards the end of the day racing from shop to shop, then waiting interminably at various meeting points.

Thus I stood outside the supermarket for 20 minutes, watching the stream of people going in and out. And gazing at the ubiquitous stash of trundlers/trolleys waiting to be wheeled inside.

The capitalist consumer economy, which is depleting the planet at an ever-increasing rate of knots, is ingrained in global life. What happens when things start to grind to a halt - as they are at the moment in some parts? How many people will have the resilience, the knowledge, the skills to survive without the supermarket to turn to? It’s a scary prospect.

Makes you think….