The Ghost of Christmas Parsnips

Ben Wildmsith

In my defence, I love parsnips, always have. I like them roasted, naturally, but also curried, au gratin and if you have any of those Tyrell’s crisps, you won’t for long if I’m around.

Parsnip soup, you say? Where do I sign?

So, when I arrived at Lidl today to do the Christmas shopping, as I am mandated to under the Good Husbands Act (2019), I was thrilled to find my favourite vegetable on sale for eight pence a bag.

Eight pence! It’s like finding that fags are a quid a pack in India, time to fill my boots. I figured six bags would do, after all there’s only Mrs W and I, so no need to go overboard.

In my mind’s eye I could already see and smell a large Pyrex dish heaped up with these sweet, crispy beauties sizzling in honey with a touch of chilli.

And so this is Christmas…Indeed it is, Mr Lennon, and what I’ve done, seeing as you ask, is secure the root vegetable deal of the decade!

Expensive impulse purchases

I set off around the rest of the store in buoyant mood. I love a bargain. A little victory in the rigged game of life, however contrived, is sweet. I’m not thick, I know they’ve worked all this out, expecting the elation of 8p parsnips to translate into expensive impulse purchases, but it doesn’t do to dwell on that sort of thing, not at Christmas.

Are candied almonds an indulgence? Have I demonstrated sufficient virtue over the last 12 months to warrant a tub of them? No, I haven’t, but I want them and that’s pretty much the same thing, so in they go.

I’ve opted for a small trolley to put a hard limit on this sort of thinking.

After dieting for nearly all the year, I said nearly, don’t judge me, I’m in the mood for practically everything on the Christmas aisle.

If it’s mulled, chocolate-coated, ‘luxurious’, ‘festive’, ‘specially selected’, oak smoked or has a German name then it’s in the running to find a welcoming home in my gob.

Sod it, I’ve suffered enough, haven’t we all?

Bereavement

I’m less stressed doing this than I am most years. Recent bereavement has made this a singular Christmas featuring that spaced-out, insulated feeling that kicks in when you’re in public during grief.

Oddly, it seems to be making the experience more enjoyable. The shrill, bright clangour of seasonal commerce generally grates on me to the point of peevishness. Bloody kids…

This year, the cheery shrieks and ho, ho, ho bonhomie of it all are warming, they penetrate the fog and nudge me into feeling something.  I find myself smiling at people, glad that they are alive and happy.

Still, queuing really isn’t my thing. As a big lump with sharp elbows, I’d absolutely thrive in cultures that favour a thronging approach to social organisation.

Here, my sole Darwinian advantage has been neutered by the UK’s only remaining expression of communal restraint. Tapping my toes and trying to remember that eye-rolling is considered impolite, I endure the woman in front of me insisting her voucher is valid, requiring a manager to be called.

Catching myself scowling, I look around and see a toddler in a trolley. A quick game of peek-a-boo seems to cheer us both up.

Fraught

Receiving the shopping at Lidl is a fraught experience. Items come at you across the scanner with machine gun rapidity and it’s wise to have several bags open in your trolley to keep up with it.

I’m focussed on filling the bags as efficiently as I can, balancing delicate items on the narrow bit of metal they provide so that they can be put in the tops of the bags, and I don’t bring home a dozen broken eggs again.

Suddenly, the process halts.

‘How many of these have you got?’ the cashier asks, holding up a bag of parsnips.

‘Er, six,’ I reply, feeling the eyes of the queue on me.

‘There’s a restriction of three,’ she sniffs accusingly, before removing three bags of precious, grief-assuaging taproots from the belt and putting them on one side.

I feel eyes upon me. In this famously Socialist valley, I seem to have been outed as a resource-hoarding glutton whose behaviour at the trough must be regulated by others.

My God, the shame, I might as well be wearing a top hat and a blue rosette.

Carting my restricted haul back to the car, it began to rain insistently, pinging off my bonce in seasonal reproach. The little baby Jesus’s tears, I suppose.

Damn it, forgot the cheese…