Pick up a penguin

We stopped by Fiesta the other day and as we always do when we're in there, we stopped by the British Aisle where they have a small selection of British foods as ridiculous prices.

Feeling naughty we picked up a packet of penguins. If you're not familiar with Penguins, they're two pieces of biscuit with chocolate cream in between and covered in chocolate.

Later that night, we had one each with a cup of tea. Ok, I had two with my cup of tea but purely for research purposes for this post :).

Penguins are made by McVities and it reminded me of the McVities factory I used to live near.

If you lived in Burnage, or pretty much anywhere in South Manchester then the chances are that you knew someone who worked at McVities.

I remember when I was a kid we must've known someone who worked there as we used to get boxes of broken or unmarked biscuits that me and my brother used to love. There would be penguins in there as well as many other different kinds. I seem to remember a lot of 'United' biscuits too which had a crunchy coating with honeycomb mixed in the chocolate I think.

We used to pass the factory a lot, especially as it was across from Cringle fields where we used to play football and I remember they used to always decorate a little hut at the front with different coloured lights for Christmas.

As I grew older, my main memory of the McVities factory was riding passed it on the bus into Manchester. Most people on the bus were either asleep, wearing headphones or reading a newspaper, doing whatever they could to block out the rest of the world until it was time to get off and go to work.

Most of the buses in Manchester were so old and dirty that it was virtually impossible to see out of the windows but you always knew when you were approaching McVities. The smell of freshly baked biscuits filled the air. This was the only break from the diesel fumes you'd get and every single person on the bus would stop what they were doing, distracted by the smell. People would lift their nose into the air to breathe in a bit more biscuity goodness.

It wouldn't last long and everyone would soon be back in their own little world but as long as you could smell the biscuits, everything was alright in the world.

It was even better on the way home as the smell was just as strong but it also signalled that it was nearly my stop.