After a few weeks hiatus from Mrs J’s shopping, I was back once more - this time on a sweaty Saturday. I remember back when I first went to drop off her weekly shop in January, when it was cold and wet. How things change!

This Asda be about the tenth time I’ve shopped for Mrs J, and I knew my way around the big green Clapham superstore far too well. I knew exactly what aisles to go down to make sure I got all the bits I needed (which don’t tend to change very much each week - the message this week from her daughter V was ‘Many thanks for volunteering to get mum's Saturday shopping. Please can you get her exactly the same as 30 April but no toilet rolls’)!

We did have to go for the light style prawn cocktail today, as the normal version was out of stock. Thankfully there were plenty of galaxy bars this week, and choc ices (a choc ice is for life, not just for the hot weather). There was also an extra on the list today, of a long lighter, which I had to work out what it was before I could purchase one!

After a long old wait in the queue to be ID’d for Mrs J’s new firestarter, I whipped round the corner to drop off the goods. Now, Mrs J is slightly hard of hearing, but in all the weeks of completing her shopping, she had always answered the door quite efficiently. I buzzed her doorbell, to no reply. A little bit more buzzing. Still nothing. A cheeky knock? A peek through the letterbox?

By now I’d been outside for over five minutes and I was starting to worry a wee bit. Another long buzz of the bell, and silence once more. I rang V in a bit of a pickle, and explained my concerns. V was quite pragmatic about the situation, but all I could think of was that she had fallen or had an accident! V gave me details of the neighbour to leave the shopping with, and said she would try the house phone. Whilst she did that, I did try once final buzz... and FINALLY, Mrs J opened the front door!

Mrs J said she didn’t hear the door go off! V, who was still on the phone was chuckling away ‘You couldn’t hear it? I could hear it all the way on Leicester!’. Safe in the knowledge her Mum was okay, she hung up, and Mrs J checked her buzzer. It was even more deafeningly loud with the door open! At least we knew she was okay, and she took her delivery inside.

Before I could escape back into the sunshine, Mrs J threatened me once more with a parting gift. I tried my hardest to decline (I’m sure I have my own stash of galaxy now, courtesy of Mrs J, having been unable to refuse previously) but you can’t say no to a lady in her nineties who is brandishing a bar of mint aero and one of milk chocolate in your face and saying ‘you’d better take it or else!!’. So me and my two bars of chocolate headed off back to Hammersmith, and despite the tropical temperatures, both managed to survive the journey back without melting and making a mess. A success all around. Until next week, Mrs J!