I admit, I got angry. Very, very angry.

I was really looking forward to today. We had planned a trip out to a nearby town for a bit of shopping. There is a second-hand place there (where I scored a major win which I’ll come to at a later date), there is also a Lidl and a Tesco – both of which we don’t have where we live.

So we did the second-hand place first as it shuts early and as we were leaving, I got a call. I couldn’t take it so the person left a message for me to phone them back which I did when I got to the Lidl car park. This was the start of my anger.

A service I had contacted about getting the fence sorted, had sent a guy out last week and he’d had a look, taken photos etc and said they’d get back to me. I didn’t have anyone get back to me so I phoned them and when I spoke to the woman on Friday she asked me what the guy had said was needed and I told her. She said she’d speak to him on the following Monday (today) and get back to me but to bear in mind they were booked solid for the next two weeks. No problem thought I.

Only today, when I phoned her back, she told me it was ‘out-with their remit’ and now they couldn’t do it. She tried to say she hadn’t told me at the beginning as she thought it was just a fix-up job. I do wonder why she couldn’t have told me last Friday however, when I explained the middle panel had come down completely since I last spoke to her and I explained what the guy had said needed to be done. Although I wanted to shout words and phrases like ‘incompetent arsehole’ and ‘arse from elbow’, I didn’t.

We went into Lidl, thinking we’d get a few little bits from their Christmas range which would cheer me up. It didn’t. As soon as I walked in, I knew it felt different. We hadn’t been there for a long time, so the blaring adverts were immediately apparent to our unaccustomed ears. Worse was to come however.

It used to be cheap. It used to be the place you’d find bargains. Not now.

Then, the real horrors came – self checkouts. What in the name of all holy hell-scapes of shopping doom were they thinking? It used to be 2 or maybe even 3 tills would be open – you hardly queued for long and when you were served, the person would have a wee chat with you. Today? The one person on the till was dealing with a full trolley and was taking her merry sweet time – all but forcing us to go to the self service checkout – card only of course. When several queues had formed, they announced another till was going to open. Soon. It would open soon.

At this point I was trying to balance my trolley items onto the foot square packing area they give you to weigh your stuff after you scan it. Finally got that done (with my back screaming in pain I might add) and went to leave. That was when I saw it – there was a barrier and I didn’t quite ‘get it’ at first. Then the guy in front of me scanned his receipt barcode to get the barrier to open. I kid you not! My brain scrambled – do I do this crap or do I protest or do I…….sod it, I’m following him. So that’s what I did. No scanning of my receipt. Then I thought – what are they going to do? Have one of the 2 staff come chase me for that?

What used to be a pleasant, fun activity was a bloody nightmare. 1984 has well and truly arrived and they can keep it. I won’t be going back. From what I saw today, I certainly won’t be missing anything. Is this happening everywhere? I suspect it is and unless people say ‘NO’ it’s only going to get worse from here. Oh I forgot – it is. In some Tesco stores, they now have you put your trolley on scales before you shop then again after you shop like a weigh-bridge for lorries. Will it take all the staff to lose their jobs before people realise what’s happening? Oh hell, I’m getting angry again.