Friday, November 23, 2007

RETAIL RUMINATIONS







Look what I've got! Yes, I finally stopped dithering and used my supermarket points to get an MP3 player. No, I don't know how to use it yet! All I want to do is listen to The Archers on the thing.


Christmas is coming but there is little sign of it in the stores here. Only one or two smaller shops have decorated their windows. Come on, shopkeepers - the place needs brightening up now! [Most families don't decorate their homes until the Immacolata Concezione holiday on 8th December. They will all display a crib and some will have a tree as well.] This morning I bought my first panettone of the season - well, it's a chocolate cake baked by the slow rising panettone method - because I wanted the pretty container it came in.


I also spent a fair bit at the perfumery, replenishing my skin care supplies. [Why does everything run out at the same time?] Yet again, I thought of how much I miss department stores. In the perfumery, the ladies will rummage through their cupboards to find you a few samples but you miss out on the "gifts" you would obtain in a department store when a particular beauty company is running a promotion. I always end up with a drawer full of samples of makes I don't use and I need the promotional goody bags for the practical, travel-sized items they usually contain! I suppose I could go to Catania, where there is a Rinascente store, for my make-up and I will consider it, though I 've gone off that shop since the "g and t incident", a story I'll retell here as only the five or so people who have followed the blog from the very beginning will know it: I had had lunch, preceded by two gin and tonics, in their restaurant and asked at the cash desk for directions to a taxi rank. As I walked away, I heard a cashier say, "Ha! She's had two gin and tonics and now she needs a taxi." I've never forgiven them for that and I wish I had turned round and told them what I thought of them, but I didn't. [I'd only been here three months and wasn't as assertive as I would be now.]



When I left full-time secondary teaching, I toyed with the idea of becoming a make-up lady in a large store. Now, I lack the retail gene and would have been quite hopeless at selling anything to anyone, but I fancied the idea of standing there in one of those nice uniforms that a company like Lancôme would give you and spraying perfume on passers-by. Then a friend pointed out that I'd probably want to hit most of the rich, leisured women who would use the store during office hours and I realised that she was right.




The last photo is one of Milan Cathedral that I took some years ago from the restaurant at the top of the Rinascente store in Milan. Now that's what I call a store!

20 comments:

Leslie: said...

Once when my friend and I were strolling around admiring the art in Montmartre, we were followed by a Frenchman trying to get us to do something (can't remember exactly) and he started speaking broken English - oh those Americans blah blah blah. Well, I was so fed up with him that I turned around and in perfect French told him basically to get lost. He was stunned! And took off. LOL

jmb said...

Good luck with the mp3 player. I'm sure you'll put some music on it too.
Don't wish Christmas upon us too early Welshcakes, although I do love the decorations. Here lighting up of houses is a very big thing and getting bigger every year.

I remember having lunch at the Rinascente store in Milan. I didn't until I saw the photo and it brought it all back. I went there with Mariangela, mia consuocera, one time on a visit to Milan.

The Rinascente store in Verona was such a tiny store you could hardly call it a department store.

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Ciao, Leslie. It's great when you can do that, isn't it? I was on a metro train in Prague when a Brit guy said, "Oh, here's the make-up lady" ['cos I was the only one with make-up on, I guess, though I have to say that I found the Czech women prettily dressed and made-up-not making you want to put your head in a bin-bag, as some elegant Ital women do]. I turned to him and asked if I could sell him a lipstick and he nearly died of embarrassment! Then recently [before you were reading my blog] a taxi driver in Catania tried to cheat me. I said, in perfect Ital, that I thought the fare was expensive and that I lived here - he quickly lowered the price and looked ashamed! [Shouldn't have happened, though, of course.]
Thanks, jmb. Putting music on sounds a bit advanced for me! People here are starting to buy outdoor decorations. Never been to the Rinascente in Verona but I love that Milan one! Auguri

Unknown said...

California,USA started Christmas decorating in the stores in October !! That's disgusting...Today is called Black Friday, it's when all the Christmas sales start. People will stand in line for hours to get a deal on gifts. Not me, I hate crowds.
I guess I'd be considered a "make-up lady, too" Welsh. Thought your comeback of offering to sell that guy a lipstick was hilarious!

Sharon said...

Whaa..I want one of those or an iPod!
My friend's family runs a Perfume and Beauty supply place in my area. They now have a chain of four shops. Let me know what you might want and I can price it for you and then send it along if you should desire something. They will be opening store 5 in the spring in Lipari. One store really looks like a department store.
I am a make up reject. Don't know and have never known how to use it properly.

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Thanks, Sharon. That is very kind of you. With regard to make-up, I'm so pale that I look absolutely ghastly without any!

James Higham said...

What's the state of play actually with the Archers at this moment?

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Hi, Marlene. And when I was in Britain in October, a lot of stores were ready for Xmas! I didn't know the significance of "Black Friday" over there.

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Hi, James. Phil and Jill have celebrated their golden wedding. They are off to Oz and grandchild is worried about their carbon footprint - you'd like that. Eddie's worried about the turkeys not selling so well - Liz has a post on that today. And the rape storyline is still running.

Unknown said...

Good luck with the MP3 player - I would be lost without mine (I too put radio programs instead of music on it) although I must admit that I have almost worn mine out - it no longer skips forwards and only sometimes will go a previous podcast :-)

Christmas decorations started going up here in Oz in early October - the "have your photos with Santa" have appeared in the last week. We don't have a Black Friday though - and I will be very grateful for that small mercy :-)

Ellee Seymour said...

I think I would love to visit Sicily for some Christmas shopping, if only there was time.

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Thanks, mountaingirl. Haven't tried it yet! So Oz gets the Xmas decorations up early, too! Oh, Ellee, what fun we would have!

Whispering Walls said...

I thought I recognised that duomo and my first reaction was, "Surely that's not in Sicily?"!

Dragonstar said...

Enjoy your MP3 player. I'd love one, but I'm too scared to try (one of my sons had one and couldn't get it to work - I couldn't even begin to understand the instructions!)

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Hi, Dragonstar. I'll let you know how I get on!

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Ciao, WW. No, it doesn't look very Sicilian, does it? Milan's was the first Ital cathedral I ever saw so I'm rather sentimantally attached to it.

Anne in Oxfordshire said...

I just love the pretty container for the cake!! I want one. Couldn't bring one back from Italy Boo hoo xx

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Hi, Anne. It is pretty, isn't it? - But a bit bulky for the plane or the post!

Chelsea + Shiloh said...

Ahh welshcakes, again you've confirmed its not just me, or some make up conspiracy
Why do they all run out at once.??..its madness...sychronised cosmetics...lol

i used to think the ladies at the perfume counters were so posh, so well made up, so immaculate,I was awed.. I was never actually game to approach them in my younger days
and yes, the stores here are well and truly into the the tinsel swing..

Welshcakes Limoncello said...

Hi, Abbey. I agree - it's a conspiracy - "Synchronised cosmetics" as you say!
One or two stores are nearly ready for Xmas here now. Auguri.

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