Despite my fondness for the small independent retailer, artisanal breads (whatever they are) and shops that sell only cheese, I often find myself in the same three Big Shops, running my enthusiastic fingers over shelf after shelf of splendid Dutch produce.
The first is
Albert Heijn (aka Albert Swine), who only weeks ago barred a chum from their Dam Square branch for accidentally chewing on a coffee broodje. (Not "brootje". A subsequent correction. In my rubbish defence, it was written on a bit of paper by a Frenchman. Twat.) It is exactly like Tesco but with approximately 100 times more cheese. The ladies on the checkouts check out very fast, and do not wait for the person before to have packed their bags and removed themselves before starting on you. It can make for shopping traffic jams made up of tulips, cheese, gigantic vegetables and salted liquorice, but it is not an entirely unpleasant experience despite Mr Heijn's affection for pointless packaging.
Take, for example, these carrots. Regular readers will be aware of the single carrot I bought the other day, but I wonder if they are prepared for what happens when you buy four!
(Beaver the Beaver has been trying to make a dam from them but has been thwarted as they are too large, and coated in glistening plastic which makes his small paws slip off.)
But Heijn is the last resort. They do biological things with green writing on and pictures of grass so you know the food is made of food and not of chemical jizz and lunar scrapings, and it's alright for milk and candles and stuff but generally, if I have time (which I always do these days), I take my hemp carrier bag and skip to the Biological Supermarket. There, the shop assistants are sallow and unkempt as only the thoroughly organic can be. They sell fifteen varieties of nut butter and a range of small sprouting beans; their carrots are frondy and their yoghurt full of tiny animals. It is muddy, but means well.
By preference, however, I skip along the market(s) on Saturday morning with my basket quivering, plucking apples from stalls and cakes from the hands of small children. It is quite divine, and every weekend I buy armfuls of tulips from a tiny lady in an apron, nut rolls from an academic in rimless spectacles and second hand books from a man with a pipe who thinks I am related to Robert Louis Stevenson.
And then there is
the Hema*. The Hema is like NO SHOP I HAVE EVER SEEN. It is perfect in all ways, like an excellent cross between John Lewis, Woolworths (UK version), Marks and Spencer and Habitat, but nicer and jollier with better designed things in. Also - and most excitingly - it is Monkey Central.
"LOOK AT THIS!" yelped my oldest friend on Saturday, clutching the aisle-end gondola. We stood rigid, barely believing what we could see with our own eyes for there, glistening in the gentle light of the well-designed shop lighting, was The Best Bedding In The World, Ever:
And then the next day, in the Food Section (which sells only ham, cheese, almond biscuits, sweets and crisps and is therefore perfect), I see these.
And then these, inserted over wands of jelly beans! They have improved the view from my office window, I am sure you will agree.
This weekend another visitor arrives, and with her an excuse to ask my favourite questions: "Have you ever been to the Hema? No? Would you LIKE to go?". I can hardly wait!
* Not, for once, an affectation. Gentle enquiries about the whereabouts of various products (cotton, candles, glasses, monkey covered duvet covers, foam sweets in the shape of mushrooms, tiny bicycle lights in the form of flashing mice, ham in packets and batteries) are invariably met by Dutch people with the words "the Hema!" (with the silent addition of "you cretin").
