An unexpected sight greeted me this afternoon at Mr T's local Lidl - the queue to pay wrapping itself around all four walls of the store. I mentally prepared myself for a long wait once I'd got everything on Mr T's now familiar list.

As I joined what I hoped was the back of the queue, I was pleasantly surprised at how fast we all seemed to shuffle along, and it wasn't long before I was at the freezer section staring at the vast selection of chicken nuggets.

In one of those strange situations that you can't quite explain (road traffic hold ups offer a similar experience), when I actually got to the tills, it all seemed to be working quite well, and whilst I did encounter the most temperamental self scan machine ever, in the end my escape proved pretty painless and I was soon back to chat with Mr T about the world this week.