Bad news from the market

[shewhomust]

Shopping this morning in town - that is, in Durham City rather than at an out-of-town supermarket. We try to keep the big supermarket visits down to one a month, but it's getting harder and harder to buy everything I want in town.

I may have been muttering about this before we left the house this morning, but what brought on this post was finding that Mother Earth - the wholefood stall at the back of the covered market - had put up a sign: closing down, February 23rd. While I bought my cannelini beans and black peppercorns, we talked to the stallholder about this: business just isn't good enough for him to keep going. The students who make up 50% of the population don't buy from him, and he struggled to find a polite way to say "the average age of my customers just keeps going up." I wasn't insulted: my average age just keeps going up.

The Market Place was particularly empty today, because the gusty winds had kept away all but the most hardcore stallholders. But even on a good day, the market isn't what it was. The couple who used to sell pies now have a shop in Sedgefield, instead of doing the markets; I still miss Marks & Spencer, and not just because we always met friends there.

And now I'm going to have to find a new source for my rice and beans and spices. There's some overlap with the Gateway (Fair Trade) shop in St Nic's, but I'm already thinking about my shopping list for next Saturday. Never mind stocking up for Brexit, this is serious!

Comments

[cmcmck]

We have had a bit of coming and going in our own market, but so far, the stalls we use tend to keep going.

[shewhomust]

Coming and going is the stuff of life; we, alas, have more going than coming.

New shops in town are all vaping and cupcakes...

[lamentables]

It's a lost cause, trying to shop in real life here, outside the supermarkets. There hasn't been a greengrocer in town in all the 22 years we've been here, and the lighting shop, outdoor gear shop, stationers, hardware store, and bookshop are all gone (some of them long gone).

[shewhomust]

Oh, I know it's happening everywhere... Shop rents are very high in Durham, which doesn't help, but up to now the market has been our salvation. I hope this is a one-off, not the start of a trend.