This is utterly ridiculous.
The car's almost out of petrol and I've now made four attempts to refill it today. Failed every time because of the effects of wombats panic-buying.
Twice during the daylight hours I went to petrol stations only to be driven off by queues that stretched into the next county. A third time the queue was marginally shorter – although the fat-head at the front of it was filling petrol cans, which he stashed in his boot once he'd also filled the car – so I stuck with it until a pump came free. Turned out it was a diesel pump, but discovering this cost me my place in the queue and I couldn't be arsed to go through the whole jostling-for-position thing again, so off I went.
Just now I went out specifically for petrol, figuring that now night's well and truly fallen all the panic-wombats would have gone home and there'd only be a little casual passing trade to contend with.
We found out earlier today that our favourite all-night garage has been bulldozed – presumably to build flats on, or possibly yet another Tesco – but I tried all our other usual haunts. Most were closed, one had sold out of everything except diesel, and the third had nothing left but chocolate, the Daily Sport and those dodgy Ginsters pasties full of cheesy slime.
I wouldn't mind all that much, but we need to be able to get to the hospital at the moment to visit a sick relative. So tomorrow's going to be fuel-hunt day.