Opinion : A vegetable shortage in the shops? Not in my greenhouse!

What is the world coming to? It seems a vegetable shortage is gripping the nation with some shops rationing vegetables.

I could not believe my eyes when yours truly read an article on a national news site entitled ‘Lettuce ‘black market’ emerges amid national salad shortage‘.

It seems that due to inclement weather in southern Europe vegetables such as lettuce, courgettes, tomatoes, broccoli, salad peppers and aubergines are in short supply.

During my regular lunchtime walk around Wycombe town centre today your humble servant nipped into a large supermarket in the new shopping centre. It’s true. There were no lettuces just a notice saying that the shop was out of stock.

Naturally yours truly ventured into another supermarket in Oxford Road to see the situation there. While there were a lot of empty spaces they did have a few Iceberg lettuces and some of the ‘Little Gem’ variety too. However stocks were far from plentiful.

Let’s face it if there are growing problems in southern Europe the Europeans are unlikely to furnish our shops with supplies now the UK is trying to leave the European Union.

I fear we are likely to see similar shortages once the Brexit is officially announced with the triggering of Article 50. Let’s face it the UK, in particular our supermarkets, are dependant on food from Europe.

It’s bad enough seeing the UK entry come last in the Eurovision song competition every year as country after country plays a political card and gives the UK song ‘nul points‘. Now I fear the European vegetable shortage is about to give us a taste of ‘nul food‘ on the supermarket shelves.

Of course it’s those who rely on the shops for supplies that will mostly be affected if there are no vegetables in the shops. Luckily my good self happens to have a lot of lettuces in my greenhouse most of which are just about ready to be picked.

I can foresee that after Brexit everyone will be buying greenhouses to keep themselves supplied with food.

According to the aforementioned news article lettuces are trading at up to £50 each on the black market. The twenty lettuces in my greenhouse are now worth £1,000 on the black market. Wow! That’s great news. What is the world coming to when a humble lettuce is considered as a ‘black market’ item?

If you happen to be passing by the market in the High Street and you see a smartly dressed fat geezer wearing a cap selling lettuces come up and say hello!

Perhaps the town centre market isn’t the right place to ply my goods, maybe I should join the other black market sellers and start operating as a ‘lettuce dealer’ in the streets in the Desborough Road area?

If you happen to stop at the new give way junction where Desborough Road meets Westbourne Street (as mentioned in my last blog) and a fat man carrying a lettuce knocks on your passenger window then the price is £50, you just hand me the money and I can slip the lettuce in through the passenger side window….

What do you think?

*My blogs are published every Tuesday and Friday evening around 8.00pm here on the WycombeToday.com website.

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