The price of fruit

I staggered on the bus with three very heavy shopping bags. Fortunately one of the front seats was empty and I could dump the bags in the luggage spot which avoids putting them on the floor and having stuff rolling out of the bags and down the bus. Which has happened before. I heard some bloke wittering away and suddenly realised he was talking at me. He was jabbering on about the price of fruit. Obviously a variant on the price of fish. He seemed to be telling me how expensive fruit was in Morrisons and was smugly telling me about his shopping expedition to Spain that morning. Apparently he had bought four grapefruit for two euros. What did I think to that? Very little, in all honesty, but I did ask if they were white ones. No, they weren't, they were red. Well, Mr Cheapskate FruitShopper, I don't happen to like red ones, I like white ones. And I know how difficult they are to buy in Spain. And if you think I am traipsing over to La Linea to buy red grapefruit that I don't want for 50 cents each when I can get white ones that I do want for 39p in Gib, you can think again. Oh, I didn't say all that. Just that I didn't like red ones. Arguing about the price of grapefruit seemed somewhat tortuous. Then he got onto the price of grapes. Well, I don't usually buy grapes so that was of no relevance to me. It turned out his shopping expedition had taken four hours to go round three supermarkets and spend one and a half hours to get back in across the border because the Police Nacionale are still checking everyone's papers as part of their work-to-rule. I do not wish to spend four hours on a shopping expedition driving to three separate supermarkets followed by a boring wait in a queue. I prefer to walk for 20 minutes to one supermarket, and if I have lots of stuff, I can then jump on a bus to come home. If I don't have much, I walk back. Or I walk down the road to one of the local veg shops. Depends what I want to buy. Then he started bragging about his place in Portugal with 3,000 square metres of ground. He wished he was there, lots of space, no parking problems, cheaper, but his wife was here in hospital. So he was staying at his flat in Gib. People really irritate me when they moan about the price of everything in Gib, spend ages going shopping in Spain, and yet they are quite happy to take advantage of things in Gib that they do want, in this case the health care. I know lots of people do cross the border to shop in Spain, but I would have thought someone with a place in Portugal and a flat here could afford to support the local economy. Good thing not all of us choose to spend our money outside Gib.