Where is Ben? the cookie man

I told the counter man I had traveled 8,000 miles for a cookie.

There was a blank stare............

Was it my accent?

Was it the fact I did not say kilomoters?

Was it because he thought I was just another crazy?   

Ben's cookies.

I always visit Convent gardens and 2 years ago after a long absence I returned.    There was a VERY large crowd/line at one shop.  A shop so small only 2 patrons could enter, belly up to the counter and try to select 

what treasure they would buy or how many.

Across from a cupcake store is Ben's Cookies.

they were too busy to talk, they are always busy but you can find their info on line, just like everything else.

The fresh, warm out of the oven cookies are large and larger.   You select and then they are weighed to obtain the cost.

Try to buy just one!  Just try it.  

I may become a cookie expert just to find out if there is a better cookie anywhere.

so far my favorite is white chocolate chip.....and yours?

from their web site:

• We Bake Cookies!

We have been making cookies since 1983 and selling them through our stores since 1984.
Our original store in Oxford’s Covered Market is still baking cookies every day. Ben’s was founded by Helge Rubinstein, author of The Chocolate Book and many other publications and an ardent chocoholic! Our cookies are sold by weight and can be bought individually or packaged in bags, boxes and tins, each bearing the logo created for us by Quentin Blake, the well known artist and first ever children’s laureate.
Ben’s Cookies currently has ten stores and will open a few more soon, so please visit us here again for more news.

Travel Warrier 3 1/2

there is no surprise if I tell you it rained today…..what do you expect in London.
and once you are wet there is nothing to stop you from pressing on.   You can not sit in a hotel or B&B all day just because it is raining.

Instead of choosing a museum to hide out in I went to join a walking tour in the ‘City’.     As usual plans change and mostly with a nice surprise.
As I made the inevitable wrong turn I was too late for the tour but stumbled on St. Paul’s cathedral.   I don’t write about the wonderful sites, monuments and churches you can visit all over the world.  There are other better sources for this information, companies with the resources to spend months gathering information.    But my topic this week was where a shy solo traveler might eat lunch or dinner.    I try to find one hot meal a day but when you find it difficult to go into a ‘sit down restaurant’ your choices are limited.
Cakes are as good as they look                                                                           

Road Warrier Solo #3 ARRIVAL

What to do when you are too tired to enjoy a new city?

I often arrive to the start of a new adventure so tired from planning, preparing to leave and arriving that I cant enjoy day one, can even stay awake and often begin the start of a ‘travel cold’.

Perhaps you are one of the lucky few who get off a plane and start to site see, eat the local cuisine and if you a blogger, begin the first of many posts…..

Well I am not that lucky.  
Even splurging for a very comfortable ride with sir Richard Branson (seats great, food too strange to eat) I barely made the 1hr tube ride into London without dozing off.   I really resent my body when it can not just ‘buck up’ and get out there.   

first day:  maintenance, tube card, endless search for a sim card, tube travel with 1/2 of the worlds population squeezed into a shoebox, lovely street walks with major monuments/buildings within blocks, annual visit to the crypt under St. Martin in the Field for a bite to eat, more tube squeezes, (is this where the phrase squeeze the tube came from?)  and finally to sleep for 10 hrs….

hey what happened to shopping?  the famous British tea or at least CAKE?   I mu


I must get out there today to make up for all of this..