The Village Shop.

A necessity in Burgenland.

Burgenland is made up of a lot of Gemeinden ( little village districts ). From what I have read, there are 171. As they are often some way from the bigger towns, the sole village shop is important in the community.

Granted, we do our weekly shop in town, but for milk, fresh bread, sweets and Lotto tickets, it is vital ! Of course the main commodity that one can get at the village shop, is Gossip...pure and simple.

Bob and I have got our little traditions. For example, every first Saturday of any month, we can discard all kinds of household and building rubbish in the neighbouring village collection dump. We normally do three trailer loads and always tend to look grubby and dirty afterwards. It involves picking up rotted wood, rusted metals, broken furniture covered in cobwebs and other things too. So you can imagine, what we look like when we are finished. On the way home, we stop at the village shop for fresh bread rolls. Bob double parks while I run in.

It being a Saturday after payday, the shop is always busy, and as luck would have it, mostly with the ' influential ' villagers. I try to slink in and out. Being covered in dirt and dust, while everyone else is dolled up, is a tad embarrassing. But every time, I get stuck waiting in the queue. Just so everyone knows, that I don't normally look like this, I tell all and sundry, that we just did the rubbish run ( and hopefully they believe me ) !

The owner herself, does the cashing up, and most customers get her personal attention. Which is good for the people waiting behind, as we tend to hear the relevant and sometimes interesting details. Various chuckles, laughs and opinions to information shared, can often be heard from the people awaiting their turn.

It can also happen, that the owner does something in the back of the shop. Which means that we sometimes wait a few minutes to pay. Not too bad, if you want to catch up on the news and shoot the breeze. But should you have an impatient and hungry man in the car outside, you have a problem !

Biggi