Not to be sneezed at

It must be well over thirty years since I had a 'lock-in' at a pub and frankly, I don't ever expect to do it again.  However, this morning I had a completely new experience; a lock-in at the greengrocers!

We had just selected our red peppers and tomatoes for tonight's meal (Delia's 'Piedmont Peppers', an old favourite) when the two ladies in the shop suddenly went into a bit of a panic and started closing the sliding doors across the front of the shop.  It turned out they had spotted the bin lorry parking just outside to collect the bins from the B&B and restaurant opposite.  Apparently, the restaurant isn't very good at making sure their bins are closed so rats get into them.  When the bins are emptied any rats still in the bins jump out (one, we were told, using the bin man's head as a staging post) and scurry around.  A week or so beforehand the rats had not only scurried along the road and pavement, they had also scurried into the shop and through to the store room behind!  We were locked inside until all the bins had been emptied but I am here to tell you that today there were no rats in the bins; they would very likely have been my blip photo if they had!

So, in the absence of a rat either on or off a bin man's head, we have the Piedmont Peppers about to go in the oven.