I do my weekly shopping by plane in Germany. Or France.

Since our village has no shops where we can buy bread or milk or other stuff to help us stay alive in an enjoyable way, I have to go shopping in nearby somewhat larger villages, which also is the highlight of the week. Shopping at Aldi. A while ago someone told me that Lidl, another supermarket, has a broader assortment than Aldi. The closest place that had a Lidl supermarket was about 20 kilometres (about 12 miles) away then (recently another Lidl has opened it’s doors in a village much closer to our home) but the adventure of exploring a new supermarket was such a challenging thought that I did climb into my car (I used to drive our ridiculously high Landrover Defender, called Bob. Great car, but it requires a technique and some agility to get into it. Getting out of Bob is a dangerous undertaking for the untrained. Bob is always higher than you expect. I have seen many people tumble out of him in many different ways. Always good for a laugh, our Bob.) and drove the 20 kilometres to the Lidl. Always fun, exploring a new supermarket. Where you can find everything that’s on your shopping list and more at your familiar food-supplier blindfolded, the search for curry spices in an unfamiliar supermarket often provides entirely new discoveries. Shopping at Lidl felt as being on holiday in Germany.

Isn’t it sad that my life is brightened up by shopping at a new supermarket and that something as simple as that gives me the feeling of being on vacation?

In the hope of receiving some sympathy for leading such a dull life, I shared my ‘holiday-experience at Lidl’ with a friend. She didn’t offer any sympathy unfortunately, but she did suggest another holiday option. Shé (and her life is knitted together by real vacations) got hér holiday-feeling from the very big Jumbo-supermarket in a nearby town. It made her feel like being in France.

France! I hadn’t been in France for a long time. So when the rear wall of the refrigerator came into sight and it was time for the highlight of the week again, the weekly shopping, I climbed into Bob and went on my way to France. I more or less knew where to find France, but it proved to be quite a challenge to actually get there. A couple of right and wrong turns later I finally arrived at the site where Jumbo had built their way into France. Excited I followed the Parking-signs.

But totally unexpectedly my journey was brought to a halt. I could only get into France if I’d park my car in the underground parking garage. But Bob was too high to get into the garage. I jumped out of him to check, but Bob’s roof-height and the height of the garage ceiling were incompatible. If I didn’t want to continue my journey with a convertible there was no other option than to return home. Without visiting France.

A couple of weeks later we got another car. A Range Rover, a second hand one with one previous careful owner. We also kept Bob, but hubs now mostly drives Bob, while I drive the Range Rover. Unless we both go to the same place at the same time. Then we take the Range Rover, which is more comfortable than Bob, and hubs drives (although I’m a better driver of course, being a woman, but he needs the practice. Just last week he backed the Range Rover up into one of our other cars, which is a very boring Opel, or Vauxhall which is a different name for the same car. I know it seems a bit excessive to own three cars, or actually four, but hubs has a company and the Vauxhalls are mostly used by his employees. It left the Range Rover unscarred, but the Vauxhall now has a big dent in it's bumper. Oops. Haha.).

Anyway, the Range Rover has a navigation system that works either in English or in German. There are no other languages we can choose. Dutch is no option. So we chose the English version. But it turned out that the British girl who told us where to go and where to turn and which exits to take expected us to drive on the left side of the road too. Which is a hazardous undertaking in the Netherlands, since all the other drivers use their right side of the road. So we switched to the German girl who now teaches us what roundabout and exit are in German (Kreisverkehr and Ausfahrt) and christened the Range Rover Gretl, which we thought was an appropriate German name.

And then we went to fill Gretl up with petrol. And discovered that a Range Rover is actually an aeroplane in disguise. Because it takes hours to fill her up. Well, not actually hours, but it sure feels that way. So we’ve changed her name into ‘the Plane’. The Plane takes me to my weekly holiday destinations. Mostly Germany (Aldi and Lidl), sometimes I stay in the Netherlands (Albert Heijn) and if hubs drives, because he’s the most courageous of us both, we go to France. Why we need courage to go to France? The Plane is actually the right height to comfortably fit under the ceiling of the parking garage, but it is a rather wide car. It leaves about 5 centimetres (2 inches) of space either side of the mirrors at the entrance of the garage. Far too thrilling for my liking. And as we have learned already, hubs isn’t afraid of a dent or two.