Friday Off From Now On

After years of working full-time, my partner had now reached the point where he would be free on Fridays. For the first time in years, he decided to work four days instead of five. Financially, things aren’t getting any better, no, that’s true. But health is also worth a lot. And to be honest, it almost feels like a holiday. We had already made plans for this first week. And that plan consisted of driving to Belgium for a large supply of petroleum. Not very exciting, but a nice trip, and necessary. Living in an old house has its challenges.

We were all set until my partner suddenly had the great idea to check the supply. And that was a more than excellent idea! If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that thinking ahead never hurts. So when we went to see what we still had, we were surprised. I don’t know who secretly dropped by to replenish our supply, but we had a lot more petroleum than we thought. So today was not going to be a trip to Belgium after all. A change of plans!

Going To The Market

Instead of driving across the border, we decided to stay a lot closer to home and go to the market in our village. And I had been looking forward to that for a long time, the coziness that I remember from years ago came back to me. We also thought that markets were the place where you could get everything cheaply. Or at least, cheaper than in the supermarket. In the past, you always heard: "Op de markt is je gulden een daalder waard." That meant that at the market you could buy about two and a half times as much with a guilder as anywhere else. Well, that was then! What a disappointment awaited us. Nowadays it seems that with a euro at the market, you can get less than half of what you can get in the supermarket. I may be exaggerating, but seriously, the prices were shocking!

Did We Accidentally End Up At A Designer Market?

We walked into the market and immediately saw that there were only a few stalls. That is not a good sign. And what they did sell was not exactly impressive. Let me say that there were maybe 10 stalls. The clothes I saw hanging in a stall looked like they had been taken from my grandmother's wardrobe. The bedding stall had items that my partner said were so boring that your eyes would close. But when we saw the prices, we were silent for a moment. The days when markets were known for their bargains are long gone. It was almost comical, we felt like we had accidentally ended up at a designer market. And when we got to the vegetables, our jaws almost dropped. What a joke! A super small cauliflower for almost double what you pay in the supermarket? The only thing we saw that tempted us was the Savoy cabbage, which we can't even buy in the supermarket these days. But hey, seeing the price tag was enough to say, "Thanks, but no thanks."

So, after a very short walk of no more than fifteen minutes and an incredible amount of head shaking, we quickly went to the supermarket. Why pay more for less when you can just save your wallet a bit? As for the market: too bad, but we won't be going there again anytime soon. The conviviality that I remembered so well from years ago was also completely absent. There were only a few people, and the few people who were there... they all looked quite grumpy. Admittedly, those prices would have made me look grumpy too, if I hadn't found some humor in the whole thing.

Coffee With Skipper

So we quickly went to the supermarket to get the necessary groceries, and then quickly drove home to have a nice cup of coffee outside in the sun with Skipper happily by our side. Fortunately, we can at least enjoy the sun for free. Even with inflation in full swing, that hasn't come with a price tag yet. The coffee tasted great too and with the thought that we had at least saved a trip to Belgium today and had saved on groceries by going to the supermarket, that still felt a bit like a victory! We'll quickly forget the disappointment of the market!