[originaltext]In the evenings we go out and see what takeaway is on offer. Thes

In the evenings we go out and see what takeaway is on offer. These country towns are strange places. They aren’t like what you’d think from the descriptions in guide books. You expect them to be pretty and cosy with nice fresh air and happy people, good fresh country food, locally killed meat and free-range eggs and apples and pears from the fruit farms. The reality is different.
For one thing they have great sprawling industrial estates, at least one in each town and some have two. And even if they’re small, they have suburbs of little new houses. You never see any people walking about the industrial estates among the factories, but they must be there because at 4:30 or 5:00 the cars start coming out, thousands of them, they come pouring out, clogging up the roads and queuing at traffic lights. Sandor says they built those factories to stop the local people going away, and if this is true, it certainly worked
You can’t really go out in those towns in the daytime, you can’t move for people shopping, the crowds of them, though what they find to buy, God knows. Every other shop is a bank or a building society and the real shops are run-down branches of unpopular food chains and souvenir knick-knack places and stores selling sports gear.
Each town has about 15 pubs and one, or at most two, good restaurants where Mr. and Mrs. Apsoland could afford to eat, but Sandor and I never could in my wildest dreams. Well, Sandor’s wildest dreams, the noisy ones he often has. I never dream. Then there’ll be the Chinese restaurant and the Tandoori takeaway and the fish-and-chip shop. Only this last is usually closed by the time you want to eat in the evening. By that time, the whole of the town is closed and has become a spooky place.