Saturday 24 December 2011

Manchester for Wigilia

Eddie, Moni and I flew into Manchester airport late last night, picked up a hire car and drove to Babcia Wanda's. Temperature +9C, it has stopped raining (my wife said it rained every day last week, my brother said it was +15C in Derby on Thursday). Shops crowded with last-minute shoppers - the prices at John Lewis hard to believe (expensive) what with the pound costing 5.30 zlotys (compared to 4.70 last December).

Papers in England talking about men being habitual last-minute gift buyers, with 80% waiting for Christmas Eve before buying presents. This phenomenon has been named the 'man dash' by the media. Canny retailers change their shop window displays to cater for the change in gender of the predominant customer group.

To my surprise, the car park outside John Lewis and Sainsbury's in Cheadle was almost as full of black SUVs with darkened rear windows, so it seem a broader socio-cultural phenomena than just the bad-taste merchants of Warsaw. Lack of imagination seems to have no borders.

And now, time to sit down to śledź, barszcz and the other accoutrements of Polish wigilia. Fortunately, no carp (hello taste - where are you?). I can't say this is my favourite time of year.

This time last year:

This time two years ago:

This time three years ago:

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Merry Christmas!

Survived the Wigilia fish fest as well - our host kindly provided me with a plate of sliced ham!

Bob

Chris Oz said...

I'm afraid I had to suffer it. I relate it to the once-a-year pain of brussel sprouts in the UK.

Bob, I can promise there will be no carp at ours today.

Michael, a very merry Christmas to you and yours

Chris