Whilst out shopping yesterday, it occurred to us that we haven't shared our shopping adventures with you.

Food shopping in France was fabulous, as you would expect. The supermarkets have such a wonderful range of lovely looking fruit and vegetables and the French baguette cannot be surpassed.

Food shopping in mainland Italy, although we have only visited it once so far, was just as good as France. However, did you know that spaghetti actually comes in about 25 different thicknesses! If in doubt, number 5 seems to be what we are used to.

In Sardinia, if you were in a main town such as Olbia, the supermarkets are excellent. Once away from a big town, you have to go to the little mini-market shops that can be quite pricey and are either very good or very bad. Here in Sicily, it is pretty much the same. However, there are some differences that we have noticed.

Bread buying tends to be by weight not by item. Yesterday, we were in a little supermarket that didn't have much bread on show so I asked the lady behind the cheese counter if there was any other choice at which point she told me that she had lots more in one of many white plastic containers behind her and proceeded to open them. You couldn't see what was inside so if I hadn't have asked, I wouldn't have known that there was bread there. If you go to a bakery, you will see lots of lovely big, round loaves on show and you have to ask for a slice or half/quarter that is then cut for you. Italian bread is made mainly with semolina flour that gives it a golden, crumbly texture or with olive olive that makes it springier but which lasts longer. In Sardinia they didn't tend to eat doughy bread but large thin, crackers. How you were supposed to make a sandwich with those is anyone's guess.

A trip to the butchers is also a different experience. You usually enter through a beaded doorway (obviously to keep the flies out) and will have a display counter in front of you with not much in it. It is quite impossible to find lamb but chicken, beef, veal and pork are abundant. The other day, we went into such a shop and were met by a lady butcher. We asked for some chicken breasts and she took out of the fridge a complete chicken that she then started to cut up. They tend to cut the breasts into thin fillets and we have difficulty getting them to understand that we don't want it cut up sometimes. A chicken curry isn't the same with thin slices of chicken. Anyway, she chopped up the chicken, wrapped it up and then walked over to the cash desk to take our money and give us our change. All this without washing her hands. We can't decide whether this is a good thing because it shows that we are all too obsessed about hygiene nowadays or whether it is totally irresponsible and we now have salmonella. Will let you know if symptoms develop.

The marinas in Sicily seem to be very good at making sure your business goes to the right place so no need to worry about humping back loads of shopping because you will be provided with free transport to and from the local supermarket, usually by the owners grandfather in an ancient, beaten-up Mercedes, and it actually works very well.

Fresh milk can be difficult to get hold of and organic fresh milk almost impossible apart from in France. Longlife, semi-skimmed is surprising good but only when cold.

You can't really do a big shop for perishables because you cannot keep them fresh long enough. Our fridge is very good but we can only buy two lots of meat in one go and not lots of vegetables because we don't have the space, especially when Chris has filled his beer section!

Hope this gives you an idea of what provisioning aboard is like. A bit different from a quick trip to Sainsbury's!