The Vicar's Wife

One of the many excellent things about living in the inner city is being close to cheap local shopping. This includes being able to buy 10kg bags of onions and samosas about 100yds from our front door – very handy for this curry loving Vicarage. Paddas is an Indian grocers which sells everything you need for curry and much else beside – there are two shops, either side of the dual carriageway. Then there’s a meat shop ie a butcher which doesn’t sell beef and a ‘sweet’ shop, selling samosas, pakora and eyewateringly sweet Indian treats.

Well, it was excellent. Because this morning I went out in search of onions for tonight’s curry and four shops were shuttered up. I thought perhaps there’d been a family bereavement and went further into the tow-un in the hunt for my groceries.

I asked the chaps in the shop I went into what had happened. Was it a death, or perhaps a raid from Immigration? But they said that the shops had been shut ‘by the bank’. And that theirs might be next to go because Mr Padda is their landlord. They said it was ‘Mr Cameron’s fault’ and laughed like they thought there might be a little more to the story.

I hope their shop stays open. On the way home I saw a lady with a shopping trolley who was walking painfully towards the town. I asked her if she knew what had happened, but she was just aware that the shops had shut. She said she lived around the corner and had found it so convenient to shop there. We’ll miss you Paddas.