Shopping hours for the

supermarkets are being hotly discussed yet again. It seems to happen every time other shops are allowed to open but a supermarket of more than 400sqm has to stay closed.

Yes, I live in a place with some very strange rules about shop opening hours. 

The big shopping centres were open for the post Christmas sales on Boxing Day but the supermarkets were closed. There have been the usual complaints about "not being able to buy bread or milk or dog food".  The reality of course being that you could go off to a much smaller supermarket and buy these things. You could also buy them from a service station mini-supermarket....or you could simply be organised and plan ahead.

I did go to the post office yesterday but I did not go into the supermarket although it was open again after being closed on Boxing Day. I did not need to go. As I went past however I noted that it was no busier than usual. 

When I was a mere kitten shops were closed on Saturday afternoons and they most certainly were not open on Sundays. There were no "supermarkets". You went to the grocer, the greengrocer, the butcher and the baker. There was nothing like the variety there is now. I was an adult before I tasted an avocado and a mango and a kiwi fruit. Those things simply were not on the shelves of any shop I entered. There were very few "ready made" clothes. Footwear was bought from a "shoe shop". 

Trying to explain all this to young kittens today is difficult but it really is not that long ago. What is more we survived it. You ran out of milk on Sunday? Then you waited until the milkman delivered more on Monday morning. It came in glass bottles - and they could be recycled.  Your mother made biscuits, scones and cake as well as all the meals. Eating out was almost unheard of and the only "take away" was fish and chips wrapped in a layer of "butcher paper" and then yesterday's newspaper.

We managed somehow.  I suspect that most people have managed now. They would have much larger "fridges" in which to keep milk. There would be a spare loaf of bread in the freezer along with the ready made pizza, the frozen vegetables and the four pack of pies with the fancy ice cream for dessert. 

Supermarkets don't need to be open on Boxing Day. They don't need to be open for the long hours they are now open either. It just adds to the cost. We can still accommodate the people who work unusual hours. 

Perhaps it is time to rethink shopping hours altogether?