Nina's Blog - Thursday 7th August 2025

Thursday 7th August 2025, 17:18

Got back to my room and after a little while realized that I hade forgotten to get toothpaste. Shouldn't be a problem as the room is just across the road from the grandly named Grad Junction Retail Park. So I strolled over. i ignored Superdrug because I'm utterly fed up with them trying to sell me extras at the till and adding extra steps to payment to try to et me to donate to some charity. At the far end I could see a shop called The Food Warehouse.

This made me think of dinner which will be a repeat of yesterday which was a pork burger with two baked apples and it occurred to me that stuffing the apples with raisins or sultanas would be nice. So I headed for the Food Warehouse. I found some toothpaste and then searched the entire shop for dried fruit without finding any. Not only that but there were no basic ingredients such as flour. So I took my tube of toothpaste and headed to the till only to find that there was only one operating and four groups of people with trolleys, one of which was still piling stuff in. Can't be bothered to wait in the queue for a tube pf tooth paste so I put it back on the shelf and left. About a hundred metres away is a Home Bargains shop so I went there found the same toothpaste 20% cheaper and added a box of Dove soaps because I dislike shower gel. Had a quick look around to see if they had any dried fruit but didn't see any; but that's quite reasonable as it's not primarily a food shop.

It's no wonder so many people in the UK are so huge, it's difficult to find ingredients to use in one's own cooking even if you try.

In even the smallest Norwegian supermarket (even big ones are usually smaller than The Food Warehouse) I can find at least half a dozen different kinds of flour: wheat, rye, barley, wholemeal (usually both fine and coarse ground), usually some gluten free, as well as Italian tipo 00 for pizza, And of course dried raisins, prunes, apricots; it's rare to find sultanas though and currents are regarded as seasonal for Christmas baking.

Thursday 7th August 2025, 13:27

In Harley's Café having a decent mocha and an oatcake with cheese.

I wanted an oatcake with egg and bacon but the place is cash only and I couldn't find enough cash. The UK is very annoying in this respect; half the country seems to be card only and a good fraction of the rest is cash only because of the high card processing fees. I tried to buy a packet of Ritz crackers in a corner shop on Friday in Headingley but was told that I had to spend at least 2 GBP if I paid by card. So much for competition reducing prices. Back home there is a payment processor (Bank Axxep) that charges a flat rate of a small fraction of a percent with no minimum so even if you buy something costing only pennies the shop doesn't lose out. Why isn't there something like that here?



I nearly missed this place as It's a bit TARDIS like with very little presence as seen from the street. I have more pictures of the inside but the WiFi is too slow to upload them all at once.

Thursday 8th August 2025, 08:38

I was very remiss about posting pictures yesterday. Here's the outfit I started with

But it was quite windy and this dress blows up very easily

So I decided against it and went with a top and a heavier flared skirt instead. I didn't remember to take any good pictures of that. This is the best I took, in the loo at Harley's

Thursday 8th August 2025, 08:36

Any eagle eyed readers from the Stoke-on-Trent area will probably have spotted already that I didn't actually go to Stoke, all of yesterday's pictures were taken in Hanley.

Hanley has a some very colourful rubbish bins as well as some painted telephone/network boxes, etc.

Friday 8th August 2025, 08:47

More pictures from inside Harley's. Even the loo is decorated with memorabilia








Here's the rather unassuming outside.

So it really went well!

Friday 8th August 2025, 09:05

The Potteries shopping centre was full of dinosaurs!