A SEARCH FOR SALAD

I stood in front of the salads, contemplating the ropey pasta, the yellowing eggs and the peeled carrot. It was less than appealing and my plan had backfired, disappointingly. With a little sigh and a shrug of the shoulders, I headed for the entrance, past the greetings cards, the homewares and the towers of chocolate Easter eggs. I ambled out into the rain-soaked car park, hands thrust into my jacket pockets.

It seems like a waste of time, going to Sainsbury's for salad. The good stuff goes first, then there are just empty buckets where the fresh lettuce once glistened next to the succulent chunks of feta cheese. Plum tomatoes bulged where perfect discs of green cucumber burst into colour next to yellow sweetcorn and spicy chorizo - all long before I got there, of course.

I imagined a queue of trendy young things, clamouring for one of those see-through plastic tubs, loading it up with salad and then squashing the lot with a great dollop of thousand island dressing, smeared beneath the air-tight lid.

I should have got there earlier, I thought as I slipped into the car and pulled the door shut. The windscreen was spattered with thundery drops, the sky matching my tired mood, grey and overcast. I rested my hands on the steering wheel and shook my head at my reflection in the rear view mirror.

There's always plenty of chocolate, isn't there? If that's your kind of thing, it's easy to find, stacked up and packaged in its glittering foil and fancy boxes. Come one, come all! it sings out. Room for everyone! The more the merrier! Indulge yourself! Go on, you deserve it... Yet as Shakespeare noted and Portia quoted (and we'd all do well to remember)...

"All that glisters is not gold."

And anyway, I was looking for salad.