James O'Brien

Even though it’s only a few days until Christmas, I didn’t think Bondi Junction Westfield was all that busy today. Or maybe I was just there at the wrong time or in the wrong place?

I’m generally not one for “the big weekly shop”, preferring instead to buy a few things when needed from my local supermarket and shopping strip, so going to BJ was a bit of an adventure.

And besides, I was there to help my mate who has been crook buy a few things.

While he bought some fruit and vegetables from a corner store at Bondi Junction, I looked in the window of the Swedish Pizza Shop next door. Yes, seriously. There’s a Swedish pizza place in Bondi Junction called Sven’s Viking PIzzas.

Looking at the list of ingredients, I didn’t think any of them sounded particularly Swedish, except for one which was made with a meatball sauce. Though of course, it’s anyone’s guess what would consistute an “authentic” Swedish pizza, as I discovered when I visited Kiruna in Sweden in July.

We then wandered over to the Westfield where the thing which surprised me most was the number of mobile phone shops, all of them completely packed.

As we walked around I tried to keep an eye out for the Swedish stationery store Tom mentioned the other day, though it eluded me. The rest of the shopping centre was pretty empty though. Well, maybe not so much empty, but not as full as I expected.

I guess this shouldn’t be too much of a surprise, as it’s the first Christmas since the GFC. I feel lucky that I have fairly secure employment (well, I hope so), as I spoke to two friends today who’ve been directly affected by it. The brother of one of my friends has recently been made redundant, and faces all of the issues you might expect with a couple of kids and a mortgage. And I spoke on the phone to another friend who told me 70 people in her workplace were made redundant on Friday just immediately prior to their Christmas party. “Happy Fucking Holidays”, as my friend Michaela might say.

I’ve spent a couple of hours this afternoon working on my “year in review” blog post, had some dinner, bought a bottle of wine and have been listening to some music. That’s a pretty nice Saturday, eh?