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I love wandering around in grocery stores in other countries, just to check out what they have that is different than what we have.  And also see what they don’t have, that we take for granted!

Things that made us chuckle here – they actually had a small section labelled American products.  And what did they have there?  Wieners canned in a big jar of liquid, like a science lab preserves things!  Eewww, that is not how hotdog wieners should be sold.  

They also had a number of small confectionary items, with most of them marked down to “clearance” prices. Prices to clear with a reduction of 25 pence.  So, an individual size chocolate bar was 1pound 25. That’s about $2.23 Canadian for a small bar.  Hmmm, not much of a bargain there!  But really, nobody in England should be buying American confectionary, since their own is so very good!

Eggs are commonly sold in a package of 6.  Yes, they are expensive, I think, priced at 1.95 for large ones ($3.49 Canadian) .  We did see some packages of 10, which were for “assorted sizes.”  Priced at 1.74 ($3.11 Canadian) that carton seemed to be a better deal.  To me the eggs all looked pretty uniform - maybe a bit smaller than a Large egg.  Milk comes in these cute little milk jugs, in pint size or quart size or bigger. Cream for Randy’s coffee was hard to find.  We had to ask one of the staff, and she was absolutely delighted to talk to us (with our strange Canadian accents) so we could explain to her what coffee cream actually was!  We said we can get cream in 10% fat, or 5% for light coffee cream, and there was also 18% cream. And 35% for heavy cream, which can be used for whipping.  But what do they have?  Single cream and double cream.  What on earth is that?  Apparently the double cream is for whipping.  And it comes in a little cup, kind of like a larger version of a yogurt cup, with a tin foil lid.  No spout, no re-sealable lid for it.   Weird!  Their sour cream (called soured cream) comes the same way!  But the fridge is very small in our cottage kitchen, so we do appreciate the small sizes of portions!  (My 4 pack of Coke is in 250ml glass bottles, and looks pretty adorable!)

We saw chips (oh excuse me, CRISPS) in flavours we had never heard of before!  Pringles are available here in Paprika, Prawn Cocktail, Flamin’ hot cheese, HOT smokin’ BBQ ribs, HOT Blazin’ Fried Chicken flavours.  Interesting.  We managed to not buy any of these ones - more because we didn't have any space in our luggage than that we suddenly developed will power.

We also spotted a huge assortment of regular chip flavours we haven’t seen before, like chili beef, t-bone steak, lea & perrins, roast chicken (which we did have a long, long time ago in Canada), pickled onion, cheese and onion, sour cream and cracked black pepper (on sun chips – which they call Sun Bites).  They also have crisps, oven baked crinklies, bubbled chips, French fries, and round flavoured corn snacks that look kind of like small calamari rings.  And yes, we had to try a lot of them!  The nice part is that most of the large bags here are packaged as a bunch of mini bags inside, so we don’t have to worry about the rest of the bag getting stale.  We were also able to try the Lobster flavoured crisps, courtesy of our pet parent.  To me they reminded me of salt and vinegar flavour more than anything.

Here was our tip – we were able to place an order from Poundland for delivery to our friends’ place ahead of our trip. (and there is the reference to the box the kitties are playing with!)  I signed up for their email list and got 10% off my order.  So that box was full of chocolates (including some Christmas sell-off ones which were incredibly cheap), emphasis on the ones our daughter was anticipating, and a bunch of stuff we hadn’t had before, including the many bags of crisps!  We also ordered some shampoo, conditioner and hair mask as they were too heavy to bring enough for 3 weeks in our luggage.  It was a very very large box, hahahaha!  (I did send a note to our friends saying I should NOT be allowed to do internet shopping online right before dinner – and now I had to go eat just salad!)

We wanted to buy ground beef to make chili con carne for our friends.  In the grocery store it is called Minced Beef, and they sell it according to the fat content.  I saw the one marked 5% fat, and thought it looked good.  Apparently that is like extra-extra-lean ground beef!  There was very little fat to cook out of it, so you actually retained a large amount of meat in the pan once the cooking was done.  However, it was 3 pounds 99 for the 500g package – so $7.11 Canadian!  I would normally buy my ground beef on sale, usually for $3.99 or less per pound for lean ground beef!  Ouch.  Sticker shock. I had to figure out how to shop the sales and clearance items. Sometimes an item in the refrigerated area is marked as clearance with a yellow sticker, and is half price.  Those are better deals, but you have to look for them closely.  (conversely I bought a package of chicken wings - about 22 pieces - for 1 pound 50!  There are bargains if you search for them!!!)

What we noticed was what they DIDN’T do.  In Sainsbury’s, they didn’t mark down the "less than fresh" produce for clearance or last day of sale.  Nope, it was just all the full prices.  So what happens if something isn’t that fresh?  Can you ask for a discount from the cashier?  Apparently not!  I didn’t see anything on display that looked over-ripe, or less than perfect.  Nope, all the old produce is donated to local charities, or if it can’t be donated, it is composted with anaerobic bacteria to create a renewable green gas which is supposed to be used to heat their stores.

Apparently the more expensive grocery stores (like Waitrose) will do an end of day clearance sale in the last 2 hours each day.  Interesting. 

 

In London I had to go into the store featuring all of the Harry Potter merchandise, of course!  It was just down the street from the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Theatre. There were so very many interesting things for sale - most of which wouldn't fit in my suitcase.  

   

 

One of the souveneirs available for sale at Hampton Court! 

 

I did manage to make it out Thrift Store shopping with my friends.  That is always one of my great adventures, wherever I go.  Thrift stores in Surrey were very small compared to the ones in Canada and the States.  They would have a whole selection, everything from toys and kids clothing, up to luggage, art, furniture, and kitchen wares, depending which store it was, but usually it would only be one or 2 small racks for each grouping.  I did buy one thing, Quizoo - a game for our family cottage!  It tucked into my suitcase quite nicely, right next to Willow.   

I was finding it quite entertaining to take photos of some of the truly remarkable things I found that I wasn't going to buy:  the mermaid shoes, the electric fleece sweater big enough to fit several people at the same time, and the most fascinating jigsaw puzzle!