fidobsa

I rarely go in our village shop as they don't sell much that I would want to buy. There is plenty of dried food like pasta and rice but a poor selection of fresh stuff. The bread is nice and fresh but they are sold out by about 9 am so not much help when you want to make a lunch time butty and find there's no bread.

Today I had to go there because I can't be away from the house for long. I have ordered a new bath online and they quoted delivery time as "5 to 10 days". Today is the 9th day. As it is cash on delivery I can't leave a note telling the delivery person to put it in the barn or whatever. I wanted milk but found the village shop does not sell cartons of milk, only plastic bags! I suppose people who buy it regularly in that form will have a suitable receptacle but I don't. I started to pour it into the almost empty old carton but then remembered that the drop of milk in that was on the turn so it could spoil the new milk. I ended up with some in a pint beer glass and some in a picnic type plastic cup with lid!

If we had an "Open All Hours" type shop, complete with David Jason type delivery boy I would patronise it a lot more but my attitude is that they don't make enough effort to deserve my trade.

FenTiger

Lucky for me when staying at in-laws house. We have a mini coop (only two aisles) at the bottom of the road 40 metres away and a bigger co-op (four aisles) another 40 metres further down from the mini. around that area there's two tobacconists and alcohol shops, as well as cake shop, posta, bank, pharmacy (gyógyszertár), plus an assortment of fruit and veg stalls. The bigger coop sells fresh bread too but likewise you have to get it before it's all gone. There's even a pet shop but I don't ever want to go in there again because the animals did not seem to be treated as well they are in the UK.

Looks like Fidodsa needs a bigger pantry so there's room for a carton of Long Life milk!

Englishmum

If you live in a village, isn't there a farm nearby where you can buy milk?

I currently live in Switzerland, in a village at Lake Zug. I've just had a cup of tea and used up the last of the milk. In a few minutes I will go over to the farm behind our apartment and buy some milk; there is an refridgerated automat. I take my own 1 litre milk bottles (purchased from a department store kitchen dept in Zug) and put in CHF 1.20 coins for each litre. The milk is unpasteurised and from the farm's dairy cows. They have a little portakabin where they sell items as the barn is currently being upgraded.

I can also buy fresh eggs from their own uncaged hens and apples and pressed apple juice from their orchard and in season they also sell cherries and vegetables. They also sell home made jam, lackerli (gingerbread squares) and local honey and cheese. There is a freezer containing local sausages, burger patties and ice-cream. There isn't a cashier (the farmer's wife is too busy doing other things - it is a nice young couple running the farm and they are only in their early thirties) and there is just an honesty box where you record what you've purchased and leave the money to be collected later by the farmer.

There are farms all over Switzerland selling produce in this way and I've seen honesty boxes at roadside stands in English country villages and farms where they sell local produce, also in France and Germany. Don't they do this in Hungary?

fidobsa

I've not seen the honesty box system in Hungary but it can be found in northern Scotland where I used to live. In Hungary people tend to be a bit paranoid about gypsies, expecting to to be robbed all the time, whereas there is really very little crime in most places. Probably at one time some of the villagers would have kept a cow for milk but not these days, though lots of them still have hens. The bigger farms tend to have beef cattle rather than dairy so there are not many places to buy milk apart from normal food shops. It is different in rural Croatia. There each village seems to have a special hut containing a milk cooler. Villagers can be seen cycling to the hut with mini milk churns at certain times of day. A tanker calls at these huts and collects the milk. Some of the farmers with more cows have their own cooler on wheels which they wheel to the roadside for the tanker.

duztee

Since I live in a town with Tesco, Lidl, Spar and Penny and plenty of corner shops I don't have any supply problems.

But the bath thing is so typically Hungarian!
Why does it always take suppliers here a couple of weeks to deliver anything?
It can be very frustrating to someone who is used to the British 24 hour/next day service.

And why do they have such an aversion to credit card payments?
I have just been to the local steel stockholder and bought 210,000fts worth of steel, but they don't accept card payments only cash.

I regularly get deliveries from a currier van driver who speaks good English, and was quite shocked by the amount of cash he claims to be carrying at the end of his deliveries on some days.

Peter_in_Hungary

This, I think, shows how safe the society is here, with less crime than many other countries. The amount of money the local Postie carries around on her bike can also be quite high and you don't hear of muggings.

The shops I have spoke to about the lack of card acceptance have all said that they don't accept cards because of the cost, both setup and charges by the card companies.

fidobsa

Yes, our post in the village is delivered by women on bicycles who also have a satchel full of cash for paying out refunds on overpaid utility bills etc. In UK they:

a) would not trust ordinary posties with cash
b) would be worried for the personal safety of posties carrying cash

My father worked as deputy postmaster in Pershore, Worcestershire. The GPO taught him to drive so that he could collect cash and load in new rolls of postage stamps at machines in Strensham Services when it opened in 1962. The normal postman had to go there every day with post but would not be expected to take on the extra responsibility of handling cash.

As it happens I have also ordered a set of kitchen units from another supplier in Hungary. When I was placing the order I thought this would also be COD and it is but they require a 10% deposit which can be paid via a bank or at the post office, filling in your own blank yellow "check". I can do online banking but only with my UK bank account which only allows payments to UK accounts. I therefore want to go to my Hungarian bank branch and organise the payment in person. Again I can't do that until the bath has arrived but the kitchen firm are now threatening to cancel my order because they have not yet received the deposit!

duztee

Yep!
Sounds perfectly Hungarian to me.
I paid a cash deposit when I ordered my kitchen, then waited 6 weeks while they 'constructed' all the required (totally standard size) units.
Paid the remainder in cash on completion and had to arrange collection and transport myself. good customer service it wasn't, but then I suppose from their point of view I am not likely to be ordering another kitchen any time soon.

Back to the thread.
The owner of my corner shop speaks English, so wins a bonus point over the supermarkets.

TerryandBrigi

Wow would be easier for sure, from our place to nearest cities, I think there are two English speakers, myself and herself !!

To be fair, it is the smallest of sacrifices, to be in the surroundings we chose.

llareggub

Our village shop is superb, she is only open at stupid o'clock in the morning until 11 and then from 3 until about 6... But she will get in pretty much anything we ask for and always sets bread aside for us, however it is a village of just 180 people and the same family run the village pub on the same plot of land so it really is the heart of the village. Add that to the fact that less than half of the people in the village have a car it is always well stocked with both fresh and store cupboard standards.

John Gilbert

We have two village shops in Lesenceistvand, one of which is great. It sells food & useful stuff such as weed killer, firelighters etc. They may be very marginally more expensive than the big stores but I try to use it reasonably often. Use them or loose them.

fidobsa

I tried to get mousetraps in ours when I discovered mice in the house. They did not have traps but they did have things like tea bags filled with "poison" and mouse glue which is supposed to catch them when spread on a piece of thin board or whatever. I didn't try the glue as it seems cruel but I did put down the sachets of blue stuff which the mice seem to enjoy with no ill effect!

Rural Hungary

We have two as well which is surprising considering the size of the village. Between them they sell just about everything except what I'm actually looking for

fidobsa

Do you still have your house in Hungary then? I assumed you had sold up and left long since.

Rural Hungary

No, still here but have a new project near Heviz