Supermarkets, and other chores.

As Joni Mitchell sang 'you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone', and that's how I feel about Tesco.  I used to moan about having to wait for them to deliver on a Tuesday morning but how I long for those bygone days...

Big supermarkets don't deliver here, perhaps due to the fact we don't have addresses.  Small shops do a great job.  Customers pull up outside, honk the horn of their car and the shop employee comes out to ask them what they want.  He then goes in to get it and brings it out to their air-conditioned environment so as not to inconvenience them.  And they wonder why so many of the population are overweight.

So we now have to do the Friday morning big shop in Carrefour, which thankfully is virtually empty at that time of day as the Emiratis do their shopping late at night.

Go on, admit it, when you go on holiday you like to visit supermarkets and take note of what they do or don't have?  To note how universal chocolate digestives are and how hard it is to get hold of Marmite.  It's the same here, there are some brands that travel more than others, and some local tastes that are the same but so different.

Due to the large number of people that live here but are originally from the Indian sub-continent, there is a huge choice of rice and root vegetables found in that region.  No alcohol at all in the supermarkets, but there are two off-licences in the area, well hidden so as not to offend non-drinkers.  A tiny section for sun-cream ('no-one goes out in the sun unless they are a tourist' is what we were told!), a huge section for energy drinks (often given to school children to keep them awake during the day..), and more sweets than you can shake a diabetic at.  To say they have a sweet tooth is understatement, locals also have a taste for extremely sugary squash made from powder and water, so dentists have a field day here.

No pork products can be found in the main two hypermarkets but there is one local store that does sell them.  At the back of the shop there is a door with a bell push style button to open it.  On the door it says' non Muslims only' and inside is the food of choice for the ex-pat.  Pork sausages, bacon, ham, saucisson, if it once had a curly tail it's in here.  Likewise there is a section in Carrefour marked 'muslims only', where they can buy holy  books, touché!

Most of the checkouts at the bigger shops have people who pack your shopping for you, then take it to your car if you wish.  They often then get to take the trolley back and keep the AED1 for a tip.  However if there is no packer then customers often won't pack their own bags at all, they just stand and watch while the till assistant does it, or maybe they're hoping for a Mary Poppins-esque miracle of the bags packing themselves?  Still, no-one in the 12 person long queue minds I'm sure...  Imagine their surprise when I rock up with my 'bags for life' and then pack them myself, as if I didn't stand out enough already!

Our packing cases from England should arrive in the next week, they are going through customs in Dubai at the moment.  We've heard numerous tales of cartons being opened by customs and then not re-packed, so the whole consignment arrives as a big bundle! We shall see..