Joy in Routine

 

Who said there is no joy in routine?

One of the things I look forward to during the weekend is our Saturday weekly shopping: a short walk from our street to the rows of independent stores along Middlewood Road that sells everything from meat to electrical equipment.

Just a bit further down Hillsborough Park, the road is always abuzz with life, at any day and any season. Dragging our zebra-lined shopping trolley, we rub shoulders with the rest of the local community: families with children, pensioners and groups of teenagers. Sometimes we also share the pavements with the dogs.

Food shopping, which used to be a chore has become an experience in itself. It’s a chance of getting to know other people living nearby: exchanging pleasantries with the butchers, talking about the weather with the owner of the vegetable stall and asking the fishmonger how to cook the fish. It was how I imagined England from Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple.

The great thing is we don’t even live in a far-off village like St. Mary Mead. Our neighbourhood is composed of rows of Victorian terraces which used to be homes of industrial workers during Sheffield’s heyday as the ‘City of Steel’ which has now turned into dwellings of the city’s working class, IT and medical professionals. If you hop in the yellow and blue route tram, you will be in the city centre in 10 minutes.

But the sense of local community is as alive today as it was a century ago. Residents are supporting their local traders rather than the homogenous big name retail stores that are slowly killing the small and medium enterprises elsewhere.

So every Saturday morning, we take our shopping trolley down the road, walk along the park and meet our neighbours in the local shops. Shopping has never been more satisfying and personal. This particular routine has never been joyless.