to wonder if cucumbers are an essential purchase?

[MadameMeursault]

Woman walked out of Tesco in front of me carrying 2 cucumbers only! Wtf?

Tealwater cucumber grows from seed above ground therefore is a fruit not a vegetable

Yeah you hide flyme

(Thats a joke before anyone accuses me of being violent

I'll be going to the shops to ONLY buy cheese this week!

Seeing as Ocado had cheese as a missing item from my order, and I planned to make a quiche and pizzas this week with it then it is an essential item to me!

Ffs, food is essential and what people chose to buy is up to them. Would I want two cucumbers, probably not, but then I'll happily buy three broccoli heads because I love it and will make good use of it over a period of a week.

When I went out on Wednesday I bought biscuits and ice-cream because I could and I wanted some. As far as I'm concerned if food is in the shop, whatever sort it is, and I am in the shop then I can buy what I bloody want - obviously not in a hoarding way, just the amount of say bread I need, one loaf, and three of anything that I quite want but that isn't "essential" - and it's nobody's business but my own.

Should we all ignore food in the shops and supermarkets that isn't the simplest of the simple? We're not in a Victorian prison expected to live on bread and water and gruel!

She’d probably come from another shop that had no cucumbers, bought the things they did have and then checked in a different supermarket.

🤦‍♀️ oh good grief I’m sorry but fruit and veg are important.

And it's my birthday next week and I will go shopping and if there is cake and ice-cream, which there almost certainly will be, I will buy cake and ice-cream because there's fuck all else I can do to "celebrate".

Suremy if it's in the shop it is essential? Otherwise how much waste will we have?
It's essential to my Greek salad anyway

Mind your own effing business.

I'm wondering what some of the angry essentials police on here would do if they saw someone out buying two cucumbers?

I'm guessing just come straight home and spit it out on MN.....like the other 1000 threads....

Unless you see the same person off to the shops everyday just assume she was doing the right thing, maybe it was the one thing off the list she couldn't get then back indoors for another 2 weeks....

Until they remove the shit from the shelves it's there to be bought, until they stipulate '10 items or more' , until they start tracking our shopping trip- concentrate on you and your own people.

Honestly they'll be gangs of you in black uniforms and arm patches outside tesco next...

Calm your tits love.

Maybe she incorporated it into her daily walk. MUFOB OP

Well done OP and friendsreunion gold 🌟 to you both for doing better and judging better than everyone else. If only we could all be like you!

Maybe she has guinea pigs who need feeding? 🤷‍♀️

Well I bought a 67p fresh small pineapple in Tesco today during my shop, definitely wasn't essential but it placated DS5 and stopped him nagging 🤷🏻‍♀️

Stop being the food police!

Who put you you in charge of our shopping?

She’s a woman isolating alone and Asda had ran out of batteries! What’s Aguilar to do!

She might have put her pile cream in her handbag, and bought the cucumbers at the same time?

I posted a cucumber through my parents' letterbox this week as they couldn't get one. I was driving back from work so assuming that's ok?

@Flymetothetoon Right you are, I stand corrected.

Even if she shoves them up her arse it's got to be better than the Mumsnet 'food essentials police' who permanently seem to have a Stick up their arse.

She might have had any number of medications in her handbag. I will have to pick up some antibiotics from the pharmacy in Tesco tomorrow that were prescribed over the phone on Friday. If I pick up an item of shopping while I’m there, it will look like that’s all I went in there for.
Maybe she bought condoms that were in her bag? Unwanted pregnancies would be a pretty shitty outcome of people not wanting to go into supermarkets.

If her household is anything like mine, she'd probably done her weekly shop, packed it into the car, had a panicked call from her DH along the lines of "Are you still at the shop????? Did you get cucumbers????" and had to go back in. There are multiple scenarios that fall within the "rulez" that you may be unaware of as other posters have pointed out. Full marks though for irritating me enough to actually commenting on one of "these" threads, I've been able to resist up to now.

And it's also not unreasonable to mention as a PP did that this mentality and desire to be on the perceived "right side" above all else to protect oneself has lead to some terrible historical outcomes in history. Pitting the proles against each other to strengthen a dubious regime is an age old tactic. And yes I do fully, painfully understand the necessity for the rules. If the government wanted the rules to be as strict and precise as some are demanding it could and would be implemented. As it stands, the signs are that the vast majority are complying and as yet it is unnecessary.

The Scottish Health Minister was an idiot, but it didn't stop me from feeling a bit sorry for her during the press conference. I admire Nicola Sturgeon for recognising her value above and beyond her idiocy, and using it as an example to show a measured response. It's not as if the Minister held a party and was spotted licking her constituents, and her public humiliation will probably be a better deterrent against rule breaking in the long run. Just my two pennorth.

Maybe she had a list of other thing but they were not available. I did not know until recently what a super food cucumber is!

I had to go to sainsburys for milk as it wasn’t in my online shop but I was still charged for it. Maybe that’s what happened here

PLEASE EXPLAIN TO US ALL WHY YOU ARE SUCH AN UNPLEASANT LITTLE BUSYBODY

There is no law that you can only go out to buy an essential purchase.

The law is you are permitted to go out to "obtain basic necessities, including food and medical supplies for those in the same household (including any pets or animals in the household)".

Food is a basic necessity. What food someone chooses to buy is none of your business. As others have posted, there in fact could be a myriad reasons why cucumbers are essential - including a child who won't eat anything else BUT there is no restriction on only buying essentials.

The amount of vile would-be-Napoleons spying on their neighbours and others this has provoked to scuttle out of the woodwork is staggering.

Wtf is wrong with people. You don't know her circumstances whatsoever. This might be the first time she has popped in days or weeks.

Bloody guidlines don't tell you what essential food you can buy it says only travel if its for essential reasons such as xyz.

Mind your own business and stop judging other people.