Food

Today's haul.

In April, I explained how difficult it was to shop when all you have is sporadic Dublin Bus service and a bicycle. Afrodri suggested to try out the delivery service offered by several of the grocery stores around here. There are four, soon to be five, grocery stores within walk/bike distance from my apartment. The last one tried out was Superquinn. There is one in Blanchardstown and is therefore farther away than the Spar, Lidl, and Dunnes, that I already know. Tesco,  is building an Express store here in Mulhuddart; basically a beefed-up 7/11.
I heard of Superquinn when I first arrived, and that they are a little bit more expensive, but really good (and of Irish origin, unlike Spar and Lidl). So I tried it. They have a very nice selection, a large clean store, and lots of fresh fruit, bread, etc. It didn't seem that much more expensive than the others. And they had signs proclaiming that they had hundreds of items at the same price as the other guys. (Wonder how many items are in the store ;-) I usually just grab stuff that looks good and never remember how much it costs at other stores.
Last week I tried their delivery service. You pick stuff on a web site, enter your address and a credit card, and then pick a two-hour time window for delivery sometime in the next week. Some time slots cost 8 Euros for delivery, but it is easy to use those that charge only 4 Euros. And that's per delivery, independent on how much stuff you get.
Last Saturday two grumpy guys showed up promptly at seven, the start of my time window, and handed me my groceries in plastic bags sorted into frozen, cold, and ambient. They have compartments for each in their truck. You can return the bags for reuse the next time a delivery arrives.

I don't depend on these guys for my food supply anymore.

On the web site there is a box that allows them to substitute items when they don't have something you ordered. It's on by default and I forgot to uncheck it. At delivery they give you an itemized list of what they actually delivered and a list of substitutions, if any. There was only one: A Cabernet Sauvignon I ordered had turned into a Sauvignon Blanc. That was a little strange, since there where no other whites on my order, but I'll drink it anyway.
Ordering for this weekend was much faster. You can import a previous order and use it as a template to start shopping. This morning as I was planing my day, I thought, "What would happen if they called, and wanted to delivery early?". Guess what? They called in the afternoon to see if I was home and could accept the delivery! Maybe I should buy a lotto ticket today.
Unfortunately I was on a bike ride when he called, so that didn't work out. I was right in the middle of Worried Sheep Hill when the phone rang. This was the steepest part for today's ride. Lowest gear, out of your saddle steep. It was also narrow, so starting again was a little bit tricky.
After I got home, a different guy showed up with my groceries. He seemed a little bit more enthusiastic about the whole process than the two guys last week. He exclaimed "Fair play!" when I handed him his tip. I added that to my growing list of words and phrases for an upcoming blog on the Irish usage of English.
When I was picking out things on the web site, one caught my attention. Man-size Kleenex tissues; but these were extra soft! Of course, I had to get some of those, if only for the picture:

A regular-size Kleenex under the glasses. The ones in the box are folded.