Shopping, shops and more shops

Doing the weekly food shop at my local Sainsbury's on Thursday morning was quite an eye opener. If the media is to be believed, we are all busy counting our pennies, tightening our belts and generally hunkering down for a long, hard recession. Maybe some of Sainsbury's customers know something the rest of us don't but I was amazed at the sight of all the extra deep trolleys piled high with food and drink everywhere I looked. At the checkout next to mine a 'mature' couple had two trolleys, one full of food and the other full of bottles and cans and they were not the only ones to be struggling with two overloaded trolleys. I began to wonder if I had done a Rip van Winkle and woken up the week before Christmas.
Mind you, anyone who has money to spend or suffers from shopaholic tendencies is now spoiled for choice in the fair town of Wrexham. Not content with a bustling town centre and various other small retail parks on the outskirts, we are now blessed with Eagles Meadow. I haven't ventured in there yet although it opened last week but I am told that by no means all of the units have been let. Apart from the fact that we have suffered two years of traffic diversions, road works and widescale disruption for this white elephant to be built, many of the shops which are opening up there are closing their branches in the town centre, which leaves us with the strong possibility of that area becoming a ghost town with the attendant problems that boarded up shop fronts generally attract.
However, it was interesting to note this morning that the queues of traffic were not making their way towards Eagles Meadow. Maybe they were still all stocking up at Sainsbury's.