It is a bit like waking up in the morning after a heavy night out and realising you are still a little bit drunk. That's what I thought when I saw the first Christmas advert around the start of November when it was a shade over 30 degrees centigrade outside. Everything seems normal, but you feel a slightly jarring sense that there is some way in which you are viewing all this from somewhere else, and you shouldn't be. That the song they chose to accompany the decidedly summery weathered advert was Shakin' Stevens' "Merry Christmas Everyone" made it even more surreal. Don't get me wrong: I am a massive Shaky fan, but I find it hard to follow the logic of using a song whose first verse starts with the lyric "snow is falling all around me" in a country where the odds on a white Christmas are even smaller than Old Blighty.
Australia is a sufficiently different culture from the UK that you can easily convince yourself that you are on the other side of the world and everything is a new a exhilarating experience to immerse yourself in, without the tedium of having to learn another language. So, when something as familiar as a previous Xmas No1 comes on the telly encouraging you to start the festivities in November, there is a sense that there is some part of this that I am not quite getting. It is ever so slightly unpleasant, and whilst I wouldn't say it makes me homesick, it does remind me that even though I have adjusted myself to life in Oz pretty well, it isn't quite home yet. It is at moments like this that you realise that you are a bit of an outsider.
Another weird one was Remembrance Day. I had been so preoccupied with 11/11/11 being named Nigel Tufnel Day (google "these go up to eleven", watch the youtube clip that you are bound to find from This is Spinal Tap) that I had forgotten all about the true meaning of the day. It wasn't until I saw someone wearing a poppy that it struck me what day it was. Again it slipped my mind until I was in one of the excellent Asian supermarkets in the Adelaide Central Market (more on this in a minute). At the 11th hour a solemn voice on the tannoy reminded us all of the appropriate minute's silence with which to reflect on the sacrifice of all those who go to war, and then the traditional "Age shall not weary them" stuff. So there I was, standing in silence along with all the other people of European heritage, hands clasped in front of me, shopping at my feet, staring silently ahead and feeling slightly guilty about scanning the shelves for a big bag of turmeric during the allotted time of reflection and consideration for those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice. The surreal element was added by a number of my fellow shoppers who either didn't understand the announcement, or just weren't that bothered at the solemnity of the occasion as they continued making purchases and talking to each other in Cantonese (I assume). Nothing wrong with this at all, but again I was struck with a sense of being on the outside looking in slightly. I imagine that it is this slow burning realisation of all the things that are not the same is what most ex pats find it most difficult to get on with, and that successful integration into a new country depends on how you cope with this. At the moment I find it quite interesting.
The Adelaide Central Market deserves some mention (http://adelaidecentralmarket.com.au/). It is one of the most iconic and best loved parts of the city, and is definitely a high point for me. It is probably best described as a cross between the old Bull Ring in Birmingham (although mostly focused on food rather than clothing etc.) and Borough Market near Southwark Cathedral. It is located a bit of a walk from the main retail area (Rundle Mall) towards the outside of the CBD. This allows it a slightly bohemian feel, although there is still a Coles supermarket for you to buy all the normal things. There are loads of grocers, fishmonger and butchers providing a good range of the normal market fare, as well as some more niche stalls who specialise in one product. There is a mushroom seller, an olive place and some really nice cheese purveyors, as well as a couple who specialise in kangaroo meat. You get the general idea. Before we had a house we didn't really bother shopping there as we had nowhere to cook using fresh ingredients. So at the first opportunity I shook off the tyranny and perceived high prices of the supermarkets and headed into town on the bus to go to the market.
We have been led to believe that the market was the place to snag bargains and get amazing deals. Not being one to go into a new situation unprepared and being on a very tight budget, I went to the supermarket first to buy a few essentials not available from the other traders and to check out the prices of what I was looking to get from the market. So with a brain full of the price of peppers and potatoes, sausages and salmon I headed in.
After a confusing half an hour I hadn't bought anything and was feeling a bit down hearted. The prices were, if anything, higher and there was so much choice that it was just getting confusing. However, time was running out. It was 2pm and stalls were beginning to close (most shops shut at around 5pm in Adelaide). I started indescriminately grabbing things, only to realise that as I moved from stall to stall that I could have got whatever I had just bought cheaper on the other side of the market. As far as the "market being cheaper" idea went, I began to suspect to suspect the following:
It was bollocks!
That was until I heard a cry from a fishmonger: "All this salmon $4. A kilo of salmon for $4. Who wants the last one?
I was in there like a shot. Now I realised why there were crowds of people hovering beside the various stalls. They were waiting for the end of day deals. It was a game of brinksmanship that tested your resolve and courage. You stood shoulder to shoulder with people looking derisively at the nervous Nelly who jumped for the first bargain the trader offered. The game was to wait until it looked as though all the good stuff had gone, and once the last X of Y at $notverymuch was produced you had to pounce like a salt water crocodile seeing its unsuspecting victim walking along the shoreline. It was a sweaty, nervous atmosphere; peopled by others with the same competitive nature and drive to not spend anymore than they absolutely had to, but I tasted victory that day and the freezer still groans under the weight of all that salmon. In my mind I have now edited the mantra of Adelaide shoppers. The market is the best place to get deals and snag bargains at 2pm on a Saturday afternoon; if you can hold your nerve.
Just a final word of caution though: If something looks to good to be true, it probably is.
After all the feelings that it was a bit of a waste of time spending $8.80 on a bus ticket and about three hours going there and back to the market, imagine how delighted I was when I stumbled upon some chicken mince for $1.50/kilo at the butcher where I buy my roasting chooks. Ok, on closer inspection it was neck mince, but again we are on a tight budget and we're not too proud to eat what others turn their nose up at. So I dived in there after I saw a pensioner buying some. "Perfect for burgers and kebabs" I thought and enough to keep us going for a month.
At this point I probably ought to mention that in Australia it is clearly the custom to feed pets with fresh meat, albeit of a lesser quality than the truly excellent meat intended for human consumption, and at an accordingly lower price. Penny kept reminding me every time I went shopping in the supermarket that they put the meat for pets next to the normal stuff, and they don't label this particularly brazenly. You can see what's coming next, can't you?
I got the shopping home and bunged everything in the fridge, stomped out to the garden to pick some fresh herbs, rolled up my sleeves and got on with making use of the chicken. I don't know how anyone else does it, but when I make burgers I get all my bread crumbs, herbs, garlic, onions and chili minced up in a bowl and and add the meat before making it into patties. So after doing all the prep. work, imagine my surprise and dismay when I put my hands in to the bag of mince and realised that it had a gritty texture. Penny's words started to appear in my mind like the title sequence of Tales of the Unexpected. What I was feeling was bone fragments. The necks were obviously minced up without removing the vertebrae first.
Now, I am not one to waste my effort and money by giving up easily. So I decided to make a burger or two first and shove one under the grill to see if the bone fragments were as noticeable once cooked. All I can say is that it took about ten minutes to stop myself from choking and thoroughly remove all traces of bone from my esophagus after the first mouthful. Needless to say that the burgers were relegated to the wheelie bin.
This experience does beg a couple of questions going forward:
Did I subconciously insert the word "meat" into the product name when I hastily purchased 20 kangaroo meatballs for $5 from the market the other day, and am I man enough to eat them and find out.
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