Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day, Cathays Terrace Lidl?

Welcome to Lidl, a magical land full of strange foreign food, weird and wonderful rip off alcohol, and everything you would absolutely never need to buy for your home. Situated in the heart of Cathays  like a beacon of light, the products on offer here are at heartwarming prices that our maxed out overdrafts and student loans (what’s left of them) can actually afford.

Trashed your bathroom at pres? Need some new underwear? Or just need to live on a minuscule budget?

Lidl has it all.

Is it a supermarket? Is it a garden centre?

Even though the bakery is sold out by lunchtime and you often have to queue for what seems like forever all the way down by the cold meats at the back, Lidl is still unquestionably the best supermarket ever. The staff are overly polite, always saying: “Hi, sorry about the wait”, like a broken record, even if you’re being served at 11am when it’s dead and there was absolutely no waiting time.

Better than Ann Summers

The fruit and veg section is just as good as any grocers, and the weekly offers make it sometimes even cheaper, like this week when broccoli, tomatoes and aubergine are genuinely all 39p. Mad. No where else has such a variety of exotic fruit and veg. Just because I’ve never heard of  a kumquat, or have any idea what recipe I can use it in, doesn’t mean I don’t want to buy it.

And on Friday at 5pm when you’ve realised you’ve been back a week and need to stop living off pesto pasta and do a proper food shop, you arrive at Lidl only to be welcomed by carefree empty shelves and crates. But you don’t complain because you love it. And luckily, they’ve still got plenty of XXL pasta.

Size does matter

When it’s so busy you can’t move and half the things in your overfull basket fall out, you love it even more because you bump into literally everyone you know. It’s a social hub where you always get chatting to that girl you never normally speak to from your seminar and suddenly make spontaneous plans to hit the Lash.

See you at the lash

It’s even good for health freaks with the help yourself pick and mix of a bunch of different seeds and nuts. It’s also good for the adventurous type in Cardiff, who enjoy delicacies like kangaroo steaks, and a three-fish roast, all for the price of a pint in the SU.

Once you make the  transition to Lidl, you question yourself as to why you ever thought shopping at the overpriced, poorly stocked and so-busy-you-can’t-move, Tesco Express on City Road or Salisbury Road was ever a good idea. Plus, a teeny basket of food at Tesco costs the same as a whole trolley-full at Lidl.

Going out five out of seven days a week wouldn’t be possible with Lidl’s selection of unbelievably cheap alcohol, and who doesn’t love the 19p instant noodles for when we can’t be bothered to cook dinner.

So thank you Lidl, for giving us affordable sirloin steak, for 17p lemonade mixer and for making a whole roast dinner as a frozen ready meal.

Thank you for the 65p cheese slices because we can’t be bothered to cut real cheese. And we lost our only sharp knife in freshers.

bae

So thank you Lidl, on behalf of all students, for just being you xox