olivefarmer

Not the easiest thing to find. Better might be a kilo of frozen peas.

Dick Dasterdly

Right, nothing to do with 5 litre Mercs rather than Donkeys parked in the driveway then.

Neptuno

Re taking bags into stores not being allowed-what about Lidls, where people take in their own bags, place all their goods in them, then empty them on to the conveyor belt at checkout;Why does Lidls allow this? There are always enough trolleys. If their own bags are not properly emptied at checkout, whether intentionally or not, they could be accused of shoplifting;Imagine trying this in Tescos!

Dick Dasterdly

I stand to be corrected, but offhand I don't recall Lidl having any hand-baskets available.
I presume that customers going in the shop with the intention of just buying 2 or 3 items don't want to be hassled with a full sized trolley, no small ones being available as I recall.
I have done this myself on occasions.

I presume only having large trolleys available is in itself a type of sales pitch to encourage more purchases, therefore you wouldn't need to do it in Tescos or similar UK shops as the more convenient hand-baskets are available for minor items.

With regard to the carrier bags,it's been normal practice to charge for them as long as I can recall in Sweden and likewise charge a refundable deposit on various drinks containers on their return.

There was a time when it was practiced in the UK for soft drink bottles, but I presume fell out of favour with customers looking more and more for convenience shopping.

amideislas

It's a brilliant new idea that propels Lidl into the 20th century (yes 20th). Just started here a few weeks ago.

Fred James

And Lidl have always charged for bags for as long as I can remember - long before the new rules came in.

jackytoo

I would say the Spanish are paranoid. Nearly everyone in our calle had double metal gates..always closed. We had see through wrought iron ones and never bothered to lock them, neither the back gate leading out into the campo. nothing happened. We only had the rejas on the basement windows. great for the cats as we could leave a window open and much better than a cat hatch. The rest we had the Clima glass which is supposed to withstand break ins.

bobd22

I know some stores Lidl store certainly have small handbaskets, certainly the one at Algarobo Costa does they are inside the store immediatly on entering.

Dick Dasterdly

You may well be right, but I've been in a lot of Lidl stores throughout Spain and offhand I can't recall a one with baskets.

Same with Aldi in my area at least, and same with my Aldi in the UK, though I believe the Spanish version is just a franchise.

HBG

In our Calle, half of the occupants are Spanish and they all have grills. The other half are mainly Scandinavians and British and most of them don't.

One is an exception and we suspect he's Russian although he's very secretive and doesn't want to talk to anyone. We don't know what he's got behind his high walls and gates that are never open, He does have a couple of strange aerials on his roof that he can't hide, they're too big.

He could be a vampire, he only comes out in the dark. When the dogs see his big shape walking past our gate, they go bananas and I cross myself.

Fred James

No it is not a franchise.

ALDI in Germany consists of two separate companies originally set up as one company by two brothers who fell out and split the business between ALDI Nord and ALDI Sud within Germany.

The international operations are split between these two companies and ALDI UK is part of ALDI Sud and in Spain it is owned by ALDI Nord.

This explains why there are some differences in the stores and stock in the UK and in Spain.

There is a myth that the brothers split up and created ALDI and LIDL. That is completely untrue - LIDL has absolutely nothing to do with ALDI.

Dick Dasterdly

Thank's for that, Fred, I knew there was some difference, a big difference in fact from what I've seen.
The Aldis I know in the UK are light years ahead of the Spanish versions, in the areas that I know at least.
The UK version is much bigger and better in every way and heaving with customers every time I look in.
My local Spanish one is pathetic and shoddy by comparison, with a very limited range of goods and never more than a handful of customers, in fact I'm amazed how it's managing to survive.

The Nord and Sud versions are a bit confusing, pity they can't relocate the climates also to match.

chopera

In my experience the Madrileños are more concerned about burglary - not necessarily paranoid since there might be a good reason for it. Not only the bars on windows but also the puertas blindadas on every flat - each with at least 4 security bolts. Also the Spanish will check their receipts in the supermarket more than people in the UK - they genuinely distrust the people at the checkouts. Our next door neighbour pays for a securitas alarm and I always hear them set it. I can never understand it - it's a top floor flat that overlooks the garden. There is no way anyone can break in to that flat without either crawling over several roof tops, or breaking through two portales and sneaking past the consierge. The consierge says that there hasn't been a burglary in the 18 years he has been working there, but still our neighbour feels they must spend about €20/month on motion detectors in their flat.

agoreira

The mother of Spanish friends of ours live in Barcelona and she was telling us horror stories of robbers entering their apartment via the balcony after abseiling down from the roof!!! They thought they were safe so many floors up, always left the balcony windows open. Of course, the robbers weren't Spanish, they were ex military Eastern Europeans!

ononno

This abseiling lark is beginning to happen in quite a lot of the bigger cities in Italy too.