photo by Britta Hügel No travels to little towns and villages at the (long) moment, AND the shops are closed everywhere in Germany.
The only living person a lot of people nowadays see at all is the Amazon delivery man. Or the postman - which makes me think of the time when little shops in villages were also the post office...
But I agree with Mr. J.B.Priestly: shopping in small towns and villages is fun and a delight.
"We begin (to shop) as small children clutching our pennies and staring over the counter in a sweet agony of indecision."
Oh yes: I remember Mr. Meissner, the chemist's, just over the street - you could go there with 1 Pfennig (!) in your little hand and he would take down an enormous tin can, open it (ahh - that heavenly smell!) - and took out one heaped teaspoon of black sharp salty rhombic salmis - mmmmhhhh!
"We who begin to buy only when we are at the mercy of our instinctive drives do not want a whole floor of neckties or saucepans, with lifts to take us to cushions or tobacco. It is when shaving brushes and cheese, toffee and potato peelers, liver pills and socks, are heaped together that we go berserk, shopping like mad."
Every time I see the scene in the village shop when watching "Saving Grace" with Brenda Blethyn, where the two elderly ladies, having drunk a very special tea, hide behind the counter, pop up with big goggle eyes that pop out of the spectacles from the joke items - I have to laugh out loud, every time! (Well, you could put me beside an old-fashioned laughing bag and I would roll around with laughter 😂)
What do you think about shopping in little villages - or do those kinds of old-fashioned shops still exist in your area?
PS: As Tasker and Joanne asked ... here I will try to explain what "Salmis" are. One picture says more than hundred words - though in this case I doubt it.
See why:
"Ah, liquorice!" you might say.
Yes and no. They add something that sounds horrible: sal ammoniac - which gives a sharp tang and taste (liquorice is more sweet, salmis are WHOW! Salty-sharp).
People in northern countries love them and have many varieties: the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden - and the region where I come from, Bremen in Northern Germany - countries that are more cold.
It drives up your blood pressure - maybe this is why we Northerners love it (though I searched for it in Edinburgh in vain.)
I cannot say more to it - you have to taste it. For a lot of people ONCE is enough forever - the others I would call dangerously addicted :-) (you can buy it in every chemist's shop...)
