Saturday, It’s Market Day!

Well I tend to think of it as that.
Today, while buying my tasty veggies,
And delicious fruit I uttered,
It’s quiet here today?

And so I was told ...

Ah, the folk are still hibernating.
We will not see them until March.
Even then there is an age divide.
We mainly see the senior folks here.
What will we do when they are gone?

Hopefully the young will be senior
Doing the same then,
... or will they?

I go to market out of habit,

Not as a trend. Not as part of the
Almond milk latte culture,
Or as a Vegan t-shirt activist.

Today, reminded of childhood icy roads, icy paths.
Being dragged to market, dragged from stall to stall.
Tingling toes inside my boots from frost numbness.
Back then, I didn’t care about the taste of every cheese,
An explanation of what an avocado was,
Or that cabbages were only a penny a head.

I remember the coughing man shouting out his
Special Offer on Victory Vs,
Perfect to get rid of the cold and coughs
And trying to shout louder than the penny a head man.

Through this, I was painfully 
Looking forward to our cafe time after.

The time of eggs and chips, and more chips
Then the bread pudding or treacle duff
With lots and lots of custard.
Can I have the skin please?

Sometimes I was shaken into horror,
Upon hearing the suggestion that we try
The new Chinese or Indian restaurant
As they now offer very affordable lunch specials.
Please, please, I just want the English,

Well, actually it was also Scottish at the time
... but I don’t recall haggis and chips.
Sometimes tatties and herring with a bit of cabbage in it.
Or kedgeree with kippers and eggs.
Could the Chinese and Indian culiners
Ever do this like the ‘real’ cafe?

I regret now, being a bit racist about food back then

Until I had Jamaican banana curry!

As an adult, as a family man, there were still
Saturday morning markets to go to in town.
And as we expertly tried the cheeses
And talked intellectually about
The new species of organic fruits and veggies
Arriving at the stalls,
Such as big olives, fresh figs, melons.

Our children were kicking around a fallen orange,
Complaining about their numb feet,
And asking when we were going for some beans on toast,
And hot chocolate.

For many young now, I think the supermarket wins.

There’s car parking for one.
As there are no local buses to catch any more,
And round up the week’s social blether.

Check the smart phone for coupons!

There may be no smart phone app to explain
How the food was grown or reared,
What the ingredients are, as food is packaged now.
If there was an app, would we know or use it.

No conversations at cheese counter ceilidhs any more.

No imaginary adventures into the lands of exotic veg.
No numb icy feet, just numb ears from
Listening to “baby, baby, baby, lets get it on”,
From invisible covert store speakers.

The elevator music has gone from Supermarkets now,
Along with hypnotic voices
Telling us how dreamy using their washing powder is.
Instead its “half price, so nice, get your’s”
Called out between the boom titty boom beats.

No reading ingredients labels,
No thoughts about the farms the food came from.
We only read the price labels ...
Especially the bright yellow ones!

No cafe conversations after,
To converse on how we will cook the foods,
And swap delicious recipes for the leftovers.

Instead we buy 3 for price of 2
So one can be thrown in the bin,
And may make it to the compost heap.

Buying local, at local markets is not numb,

Its not dumb, Its not expensive,
If you can take time to share with each other
Wonderful ways to create dreamy tasting food from scratch.

No apping, no texting, no red faced basket unloading
Because the plastic card has maxed
Or our Apple Pay Wallet is empty.

Its cash or barter
... and how is your garden doing this week?

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