20 east

No, not the Blur album, although the speed at which gangs move around tidying up the parks and streets of Warsaw is a bit of a blur!

<<I thank you! King of the corny linguistic segue at your service!>>

Why is segue so completely NOT spelt how you think it should be – segway? Hang on, I’ll check, must be foreign…….yes, seems to be some confusion but it’s from one of our Mediterranean friends – Italian, French, Latin roots no doubt and if I had even a basic musical intelligence I’d probably not have had to look that up.

So, where was I? Oh yes, the parks. Every year I’m deeply impressed and every year I forget to mention it. The leaves start to fall and out of nowhere there are hundreds of gangs in overalls clearing them up. Snow starts to fall and, not quite so quickly but fast enough, people appear to start getting it out of the way. Generally, this whole business of keeping streets and parks clean, tidy and well maintained is something Warsaw does exceptionally wel. Far far far far far far far far better than the UK.

I am full of admiration for my adopted home in this regard but have one question. Are these workers actually criminals or others doing the Warsaw equivalent of ‘community service’? I don’t care either way, just interested. Answers on a post-card to:

“King of literary segues”, Ul. J. Bonda 1, 00-007 Warszawa.

…to find the ultimate grocery shopping experience in Warsaw. As someone who, in the UK, was totally besotted by Marks & Spencer food stores, buying groceries in Warsaw over the years has been a long, hard and frustrating slog. There’s no question that you can buy some very good ingredients here but it would be best placed in the hands of someone who can turn it all into something to eat. That’s not me, I’m afraid. I’m someone who needs to pick up a box called “Duck a l’orange”, another box called “Roast potatoes” and another called “Organic vegetables that were read poetry every Tuesday” and then stick them all in the oven for a while. The ingredients are here, the convenience is not. I’m not complaining, per se, as the reason is obvious. Convenience costs and people just can’t (couldn’t) afford it. Nobody’s going to set up a shop to serve a minute percentage of the population.

Still, we’ve moved on considerably from when I first arrived. Back then, finding anything beyond the very basic stuff involved a fair amount of driving around to the few “special places” that somehow, almost accidentally it seemed, managed to import a few choice titbits. It was a bit of a treasure hunt but it was worth it. In the very early days and for at least a year or more, I was actually stuffing my suitcase with longer life stuff when I visited the UK and bringing it back here. Seems a long time ago now.

The improvement started with discovery of places like ‘Mini Europa’ (the original one, now rarely visited) and it has been getting better every year. ‘Albert’ is improving, ‘Piotr & Pawel’ do a decent job as does that other good one with the green colour scheme (forget the name). We mostly use ‘Bomi’ in Klif Centre on Okapowa these days but, let’s face it, grocery shopping is a bind at the best of times so we started looking for internet shopping. For many years, the idea of internet shopping was just a dream but it eventually arrived, I suppose a couple of years ago? We’ve used Eddie Leclerc a few times as their system was good and prices were very reasonable. We’ve tried Bomi internet but it was hard to find everything on the net that was in the store so it involved a lot of mucking about. In the end, the complications and inability to get exactly what we wanted forced us back to the chore of dragging our sorry asses around the shop again. Then you have a run of 20 minute check-outs and swear you’ll never be back….and so the circle of life continues!

Anyway. Today sees what might possibly be the start of a new era in the scatts household. Friends of ours pointed us to Frisco, a relatively new internet only shopping experience and today (when Marta wakes up and rubber-stamps my order) will see the placing of the inaugural order from said establishment. First impressions are very good. The system works very well and can be done po polsku or in English. The translations have been done, for the most part, professionally, so you do have some idea what you’re ordering. I would have liked delivery tomorrow p.m but they have a notice that they are “expecting more vans in the next few days” so that might account for the earliest being Tuesday morning. I’ll cut them a bit of slack on that for now. The range of products seems to be very comprehensive and covers almost all the things we’d want to buy in Bomi. We’re told this business is owned by Mr (forget the name) who also owns the Polish Mercedes franchise. This is told in the way that “If he owns Mercedes then it must be great”. Can’t say I agree with that but we’ll see how it goes, eh? Would I be a cynic if I suspected those new vans will be Mercedes? (EDIT – “Your shopping will travel to you in modern Mercedes Sprinter vans”)

If this works we might just have the beginnings of a new food shopping paradigm (pretentiousness alert!). Bulk order from Frisco, (if time permits) fruit & veg from local bazzar, (if time permits) bread from local bakery, (if time permits) cold meats & sausages from local specialist and (whether time permits or not) biscuits, crisps, ground coffee, tea bags, marmalade, nuts, tinned soup, Christmas puddings and assorted other goodies from the (currently very small) Marks & Spencer food sections in Arkadia or Zlote Tarasy! I asked last time if there were plans to expand the food section. The answer was “nie wiem”. Personally, I think the time is right, the time to expand that food section is NOW!! There are plenty of people walking around Warsaw with more money that I’ve got these days so the only question is whether they have fully embraced the concept of spending money to save time cooking. Let’s face it, it will impress the neighbours if nothing else! Go on, M&S franchise person, you know it makes sense. Please! Błagam cie!