Biscuits and Basingstoke

I call them cookies, but the English prefer biscuits. My mother in law keeps giving me boxes of them. Ginger snaps yesterday, macaroons the day before.  Maybe she knows I like them. Maybe she is just trying to get rid of me by making me fat and disgusting. It could be a war of attrition. Stranger things have happened in the English countryside, I am sure.

Just yesterday my new husband took me to the cinema in Basingstoke. Basingstoke is the most boring town in England. It has a mall. After the movie we had dinner at Wagamama, a chain Asian family style restaurant where you have to sit with other people. The nice waitress who seated us was surprised when we asked to sit at the bar instead of one of the tables. You see, the bar faces a wall and only has four seats. She said she didn't seat us there because most people get pissed off when she does. We were thrilled not to have to sit with all those Saturday night diners. I suppose they go out to see people and socialize. A dreadful idea if ever there was one.

Everyone was either very fat or very thin, and most of them had bad skin. The waiters at Wagamama seem to have better skin and look more fit than your average pub waitress who is overweight and pockmarked. Mr. Cooke and I wondered why their skin is so disgusting. Is it genetic? Waiters in London look better than they do here in the provinces. They should really do something about their condition. No one wants to buy food from a red pusy face.

I buy my soy chai tea latte in the mornings from some young people at Costa coffee in Hartley Whintney, a charming village a few miles down the road. The barristas, or whatever they call them at places that are not Starbucks, have good skin and are good looking. While I wait for my order, which they usually get wrong though I don't mind because I live in the country now and I am always in a good mood, I check out the local talent. During the week I see men in bad suits looking businesslike, though they aren't fooling anyone out here who has ever been to London. They probably work at the local estate agency. I see groups of mothers all having coffee together. Thank god I don't have any children yet or I might have to pretend I have something to say to them. They probably take yoga classes together from some crazy hippie who has never even heard of Bikram Choudhury. They plan. They organize. They all look miserable. On the weekends you might see an aging hipster who looks vaguely attractive and wears green knee socks.

The thing about living out here, a short hour from London where you can get and have everything except a smile, is that the people are nice. Most of them, anyway. I went to the hardware store to buy some caulk for Mr. Cooke and some picture hooks for me, and they didn't know what to do with a woman, much less an American sounding woman. The man behind the counter served the builder who had come in after me first, and had trouble getting a word out. Apparently my mother in law has had the same problem for the past 30 years. Maybe I will give her cookies to the men behind the counter and see if that will warm them up a bit...