With Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Easter in hot pursuit of each other this year, the shops seem to be struggling to accommodate all the seasonal merchandise.  In fact, in Sainsbury’s today (bearing in mind it’s Valentine’s Day in just two days time) had an aisle dedicated to all three events.  You’d think this would mean that the stock was bursting off the shelves, but quite the opposite  - it was almost as though they were slightly flummoxed with how best to market everything and had just give up.  The aisle had lots of gaps on the shelves and I’m not talking ‘selling like hot cakes’ gaps.  These were gaps that simply hadn’t been filled.  Usually, the supermarkets try to shove the merchandise for any event down our throats, but quite the opposite was happening here.  It even confused me as Mother’s Day teddies merged into Valentine’s teddies and chocolates into Easter Eggs.  It’s a wonder I didn’t end up coming home with a Rolo Easter Egg for my husband for Valentine’s Day!  I’m just surprised they didn’t make more effort – normally they go to any lengths to get us to part with our cash.  So, there wasn’t much love in the air for Valentine’s in my local Sainsburys.  Let’s just hope the other stores are managing to rise to the occasion!

When you’ve been walking up and down the aisles doing your weekly shop, sometimes a nice cup of tea is called for (funny how a cuppa can work wonders – a brew seems to solve every problem in Eastenders!)  So, it’s fortunate then, that many Supermarkets have their own café, although it does help if they’re well stocked and it’s even better if they’re, well, just open really!  The Café at my local Sainsbury’s is always in complete chaos.  It’s great for the fact that it’s cheap – you can buy the kids lunch without getting out a bank loan – but they never seem to be able to cope.  The first time I went in I made a simple request for a hot chocolate, no cream, which the lady took approximately 10 minutes to make and asked me twice if I needed any cream!  On another occasion they had an offer on for half price mince pies when you bought a hot drink.  We just fancy that, thought my Mum and I, so I queued up, asked for it and the man behind the till just stared at me blankly.  “We haven’t got any Mince Pies” he said.  “You’ve got an offer on I said”.  Another blank expression.  So, having tempted us with something they couldn’t deliver, we had to settle for a piece of shortbread each.  I suggested he move the huge promotional sandwich board at the café entrance to avoid repeated requests for mince pies, but my advice seemed to fall on deaf ears.  Then today, when I went in I was told they were only serving hot drinks, which was fine by me.  Just 2 seconds after serving me they decided the café was closed, with no explanation, so all the pensioners who then came in search of a must needed cuppa were turned away.  Oh, and don’t get me started on the time I had a cooked breakfast at the Asda café and was told they’d run out of mushrooms – err, you’re selling them just a couple of metres away, it’s not hard to stock up!  So come on supermarkets, put some effort into your cafes!