Shopping and moral dilemmas

Thank you for comments and welcome to a new reader, Glorious Needlework and Life (from Canada - how marvellous to live in a place where you can pick up deer antlers in a forest!  We do of course have deer here, but I've never seen discarded antlers).

I've been rethinking our shopping.....not that we need much now, it's amazing how this crisis is making us all realise we can't waste anything, and must use up what we already have.  I did initially think we should get our shopping delivered, as both of us have medical conditions meaning we're at risk if we get the virus.  Neither of us is in the 'high risk, vulnerable' category, but I have 3 conditions, husband 2, that put us at a higher risk of being seriously ill if we do come down with it.....husband's heart failure means he's likely to be very ill indeed.  However, the supermarkets now seem to be keeping the delivery slots for those in the high risk category, and rightly so.  We have a delivery booked for the end of next week, and that will be the last one we have.

The click and collect shop wasn't ideal, in terms of what shopping we got.  A quarter of the stuff I ordered was completely out of stock, with nothing offered in substitution.  About another 8 or 10 items were substituted....mostly with things that I wouldn't choose myself.  Eg, I'd ordered 15 free range eggs - we use a lot of eggs and I only ever buy free range, have done for years, they were subbed with 10 caged hens eggs.  I always get smoked bacon, good quality rashers, not the cheap water-filled ones....we got given unsmoked cheap water-filled ones.  There were other subs that I would never have picked up.  I know I could have refused the subs, but didn't because I felt in the current crisis I should just be grateful to have anything at all.

So in future we will be going shopping ourselves, possibly once every 10 days or so, that way if there's something out of stock, I can at least choose an acceptable alternative (or go without!).  I just feel I should be leaving the deliveries for the really vulnerable, or people who can't get out to get their shopping.  A bonus as far as I'm concerned is that shops are now saying 1 person, 1 trolley.....which means husband (as he's the more vulnerable one) will be staying in the car, whilst I do the shopping on my own.  Seeing as I rarely get to go shopping on my own, it'll be quite nice!

Another concern I have, a moral one really, is to do with online shopping for what would be classed as non-essential items.  Just as all this virus stuff started, I was beginning to think about buying more plants and pots for the front garden.  Now of course the garden centres are all closed (isn't it terrible that millions of pounds worth of plants are going to have to be binned by the garden centres?).  Whilst we're all on lockdown, now would be an ideal time to get stuck into the gardening, and I do want to get on with it to make our front garden as nice as possible this year, and I also want lots of pots to break up all the concrete husband is laying.  I know I could order plants and pots to be delivered....but that means somebody has to pick and pack them, someone else has to deliver them, so I'd be putting others at risk as well as myself.  It's a bit of a dilemma.  I've looked at things online but not put in an order, I probably won't.  In theory I could pick up some plants and pots from the supermarket, but again that pricks my conscience a bit, it's not really essential stuff.

What would you do?