Granny Goes Gap

hmmm so at last i receive acknowledgement that my travel piece is to be published. i find this news inspires me to write again after many weeks without words. coincidentally, i was asked the day before yesterday, do you write a blog? and i said no. maybe it is time to start again.  

but what will my final piece look like i wonder? it may not bear much resemblance to my initial writing. 

write about your travel experiences to given prompts was the invitation. they liked what i wrote but insisted on changes, wanted to make it more uniform to fit with other peoples writing. i found it a difficult process, i had to agree changes in wording that they suggested, which just didnt feel like me and take out date references, as they would make it age and their journals must be timeless. 

i now await my copy to arrive. i think my piece will be presented as a series of questions, questions asked to each of five individuals in turn and i wonder if others experienced the same difficulties as myself, that their emotionally constructed words were also deconstructed. i considered withdrawing but an esteemed writer friend explained that this is the way it is. so i conceded and submitted. 

some friends now want to read my piece but i find i dont want them to read the chopped up, not me, me. so here are my original words and perhaps i will share the final article in due course.

Granny Goes Gap!

A disappointment when I was 45 left me lost and directionless until a chance conversation with an Aussie tempted me. My girls were both at uni so I booked a years unpaid leave and rented out my house. I lived with camel racers travelling red deserts and dust storms, worked on a prawn trawler, hitched a 2500k journey with road trains, slept in my swag, in water culverts, in cattle yards. I felt feral, I belonged to the earth and lived in the moment.

The year ended, I came home but couldn't bear money or living a city life. Happen-chance saw me on an ice breaker crossing the frozen Baltic looking for the Northern Lights in Arctic Finland. Whilst there, I watched pilkkiminnen (ice fishing),  competed in the Open European Yukigassen Championships (snowball fighting), lived with Sami reindeer herders, ate raw dried reindeer meat, wondered at muskox on the plains, drank moonshine and later, fell in love with the midnight sun. Four months on, a 66 degree parallel north marker made my heart jolt and I headed home.

I have hankered for that timeless, in betweenness ever since. 

In 2013 I retired from a lifetime of teaching. My son in law was terminally ill and I had two beautiful grandchildren, I began to see my life closing down. I was wild swimming, mountain biking, making original textiles but it wasn't enough. 2016, brought my 60th birthday and time to reflect. I remembered my travelling moments, the never never land of living each minute, by itself and for itself. I was ready to shed some of the obligations that go with parenthood and grandparenthood.

Whilst searching Google for the Hebrides, it offered me the Faroe Islands. Faroe Islands, I asked myself, where were they? I ended up taking a summer long workaway placement there in June 2016 but stayed just two weeks before going walkabout. 

Two months later I was on an overnight ferry to Jutland, where the Kattegat and Skagerrak seas squabble and fight with each other. I walked on drifting sand dunes and went island hopping, until one sandy island after another nearly suffocated me, so I went to Sweden where I drank with the have nots.

It is now nearly October, I've been home for a week. I can tell you stories about Faroese salmon farms, swimming in 8 degree oceans, both sides of the whaling story, tales of guys rowing the Atlantic, being dive-bombed by arctic skuas, how puffins stumble-plunge land. Those memories stay. The difficulties of accommodation, costs and loneliness fade. I feel free, I have broken the mould I had created for myself.

I'm heading for Cornwall, I leave a week today, my house is rented out, I have no accommodation booked. I'm planning northern Spain and Portugal in the spring. Why? Sometimes life just needs shaking. A girl I meet talks of Alaska, a friend takes a train across Canada, another bikes Mongolia and I start to dream big. Coastal Labrador communities by boat. I am 60 years young.

Listen, really listen to your heart and let serendipity in. The hardest part is the decision. Book the flight, rent out the house, turn misfortune into opportunity. Once you set yourself free, your journey will carry a momentum of its own. 

Just do it xx

28.09.16

Fate

Fate  30/07.16

Home for the weekend. Members of family and friends trying to get in touch but Im not ready to talk. Not ready to communicate yet with my world that was. Remembering Bens death was sad yet celebrating his life with friends and family good and there were moments of joy as red kites graced us with a close presence, closer than known before. Eerily important. And of course, there were Poppy and Edward.

Blogger has just lost the beginnings of a post again. Apple say its a blogger problem, that i should uninstall and reinstall, so i do. Or at least, i uninstall, only to find that iOS have deleted blogger apps and i can no longer reinstall it.

When karma calls you just have to listen. Go with the flow.

Carla has brought me things i needed from home, has taken back things i dont need for my forward journey. Or didnt need. Things change. The matter of a few hours and plans are not as they were. What is the saying about a speck of dust and a butterflies wings? One tiny thing affects the next. I want to say the order of events is unimportant but i think the order of great importance.

Two days ago i was hoping to stay at a friends flat in Oban to think for a while but i suspect she has not seen my mail. Yesterday, i was off to a small scottish island but the house had no wifi and vodafone no signal. This morning a fb message asks will i volunteer for a shift at the nolsoy festival. a glimmer in the knowing im not returning, that i might actually like to. i see a fb post about women, almost friends, swimming in nolsoy harbour. I know Im not returning yet slowly the land of maybe maybe, becomes maybe. I check my once assumed accommodation, knowing it will be gone and find its still there waiting. I smile at myself and think, maybe.

My attempt to change the date of my flight to an unspecified future date meets with failure. My attempt to name a date in the near future costs the equivalent of three flight prices. So its use it or lose it. Lose it then. I find a self described, 'hippie' camper van from Edinburgh, think i might take it for two weeks, a road trip might suit. I let my choices sit while family clouds personal decisions, the fog has come down.

Late afternoon i book my scottish campervan, excited to check out the desire i had when i first retired of living in a van. I put through a booking for two nights, check it out then take it for a fortnight if its an ok space, bookings for it are low, its readily available. I can buy a dongle or write offline and hotspot my phone. My plan is clear and purposeful.

I begin to read some of my australian journals and fall in love with my words. I know how important it is for me to begin to make some sense of them. Ive talked of this for so long. I just need to be away from home, somewhere reasonably comfortable, with internet. The journey i began fifteen years ago is not yet over for me, not yet complete, still needs to be heard. I need to live it, love it and mourn it again.

Early evening, my campervan booking is rejected, no reason given. 

I check in on line for my flight. Tomorrow morning i will pack, buy Doue Egberts and some pre soaped razors before i catch my bus to board my train to take my flight to get the bus to board the ferry to nolsoy.

My pack is both lighter and heavier. My journals are physically heavy but emotionally light. the weight of two pairs of shoes, excess electronics, lonely planet Faroes and clothes have gone. 

Writing without the app is now a chore. Nothing flows. Spell check doesnt work. Photos cant go in. I despair. Ive searched and searched. The blogger app just isnt there. I try wordpress but dont make sense of it on my tablet. I struggle writing using on line blogger rather than the app. I struggle trying to use apples Pages, copy and paste.

So I'm returning to write but without an efficient writing platform. I check the App store again, nothing but i suddenly think to check purchases and discover i bought a blogger upgrade! Its still there, I download, copy and paste. Maybe im away again.

Shades of grey

Shades of grey  02.07.16

The sign says picnic spot and invites me to drive in. I need no second invitation and am pleased to draw to a halt. The sky, the road, the mountains and Sundini, the deep channel between Streymoy and Eysturoy, are barely different shades of grey. For a moment, when the cloud descended, I knew not which was road, mountain or fjord so the idea of stopping was welcome. I have obeyed the sign and eaten my roll, finding myself hungrier than I expected. The rain beats heavily and from my secure driving seat I can barely make out Eysturoy across the water. I sit a while. It's good to have a companion to converse with even if Siri says she will not work without internet connection.

I am surprised that the distances seem smaller when driving than walking and hitching. Barely had I left landmarks I know than I ascended sharp mountain ranges with bends that made me anxiously check my position on the road. Ears fogged and popped as I began a long descent which culminated in a tight hairpin bend before crawling deep into the bowels of a subsea tunnel that stretched for miles, joining Vagar with Streymoy.

I dislike dark tunnels, underground, anything that makes me feel shackled, repressed, trapped. I become claustrophobic and fear for my life. Today, i imagined the water would come bursting though the rock and I would drown. I tried to decide on a plan of action, exit the car before it submerges or wait for things to settle?mIf I got out, before the car submerged, I would risk tons of rock landing straight on me but may make my way up towards the surface or at least die trying. if I sat in the car until everything settles I think I would stand no chance, for the car would be crushed and buried by mounds of rock and I would endure slow suffocation or drowning. Risking myself to the water as soon as I can seems a better bet. 

I continue to descend andam surprised when my ears fog and finally pop with the depth I have dropped. A motorbike clings too close to my tail, almost nudges me to speed up, adds to my anxiety. The limit is 80 but I think 70 sufficient for me now, thank you. I find myself pushed by him and note in alarm that I'm now doing 83 and it's too easy as we are still descending. I brake gently and try to suppress my rising irrational fear that I won't reach the other side. It must be near though, I must be near. 

With relief I note the beginning of an ascent but it is short lived and levels off again. I drive for what feels like many more miles, tense and anxious. Eventually I see daylight and with relief, watch out for the service station at which to pay the £10 toll. 

My picnic is eaten, the windows steamed up. Any attempt to have windows slightly open just results in everything getting wet. Rain drives from all directions. I have studied my map and despite the lack of road signs hitherto, I think I will know my route when I get to Hvalvik, I just need to go left then stay left. Choices are limited on an island when driving by the sea.

The rain continues but my picnic has all gone. I want to hold on to this place of sanctuary and stay just a few minutes more but as I drive away the rain suddenly departs and the roads become dry. I can see the Streymoy mountains on one side, the mountains of Eysturoy on the other and the waters of Kollafjørdur between us. Im pleased to stop and take a photo, waterfalls such as this have accompanied my route for some time. The rain has ceased but the skies are still grey.

As I notice my turn and leave the main road, my heart skips as I begin to drive my first buttercup route. I notice multiple pull in places for photos or sight seeing but wonder what there is to see, it looks pretty uninspiring. It soon dawns on me that these are notbviewing spots but pull ins where a driver on the right must give way to the right, unless it's a lorry then give way to the left or if you are going downhill you must always give way to right or left over a car coming uphill and in a tunnel you do what it tells I think unless you meet a lorry. Or something equally confusing. Just as I had to stop earlier, unsure of speed limits I'm now unsure of the rules of the road. Nor, I realise, do I and have my driving license with me. I stop, but my Bradtt guide does not cover the rules of right and left give way. I conclude that for a lorry I will not always move out of its way, especially when in a single track tunnel and cars? Well I'll see what sort of seems to make sense and no doubt other drivers will soon put me right if I get it wrong.

Buttercup routes are rather aptly named as the ground is littered with buttercups all over the islands. My heart now lurches rather than skips as I find myself on narrow single track roads that drop on either side and whilst not particularly dangerous, would nevertheless ground a small car and need a rescue truck to retrieve. I drive carefully, if I hit a sheep, I have to report myself to to the police and pay compensation to the owner and sheep roam freely at will. 

Sometimes there is too much to say and not enough time. Sometimes there are so many memories, so many thoughts that occur,  that I would need to record them in the moment and cannot do so. I think I will remember them but my drifting kaleidoscope of thought trains has gone. I wonder if the mental act of driving has temporarily taken my memories away, sent them to some distant corner where they wait to surface. I could look at my photos and regurgitate but my writing comes from my heart. I am saddened that I have no more words for the moment but suffice to say I've been a tourist today and there will be a point where I can record it.

It's only 10.45 and I'm in bed. This is the earliest I've been to bed since arriving and it's definitely lighter than it will be in an hours time. The birds too are different, I hear them chattering a goodnight to each other whereas I'm used to just hearing those that call on through the night. 

It's been a long day but my brain is tuning in. I'm too far behind to write now but forgive my notes for these things belong here and will be done in good time

Fossa waterfall

Saksun: Smell of smoke, Just like uk history, hay silage, Gov supporting wool market, Spinning wheel, Building with wood, Bbq polluting, Smell of pine, stacks of turf, Icelandic ponies contentious, rye, wild plants in turf rooves, sheep drying , Birch bark, polluna, 

Tjornavik

Allotments, cyclists, dried fish, arts and crafts, black sand, angelica, Risin, Kellingin, hippies, sun on water

Linear Kollafjørduron, Card games cafe chill

UK trains

UK trains  15.09.16

I meet a woman at Liverpool St. She admires my froglet, thats the way she says, and we are talking, how easy is that! She is travelling to India in a months time, asks where ive been and for how long. I sometimes think i might be embarrassed to say ive just been in Europe but i dont. 

When she has gone i start to think though, ive never really been attracted by India but wonder why not and begin to think, for the first time that actually maybe i would be, could be. And then i think i need to find a travel companion, not go alone. But how hard to find someone with a three month travel itinerary and where would i start to look or would it be to just start with a hostel and pick up people on the way. Wheres the kickoff point for people going to India? 

I wonder whether there are workaway places in India, im sure there will be, ex pats, just like Judy in Sri Lanka, where i couchsurfed for just a couple of days, planned to stay longer but couldn't bear her ex pat attitudes, ran away with a young female traveller i met there, a young czech woman, think I would hate ex pats in India but they may serve my purposes.

As i sit on the train waiting to leave i am reminded of a journey from London many years ago, escorting permanently excluded pupils home from a day trip. Time to go home and the group were hungry, two members of staff went to McD for supplies while a colleague and i took the kids on board. I wasnt even really a colleague, just an add on from another area of the service so i knew not the kids or the staff. The time moved on, the kids were hungry, i held the train as long as i could, standing with one foot on the platform one on the train, before being heartily scolded by a guard and made to sit down. 

We moved off. We had no tickets. We had insufficient personal money to deal with hungry kids. The train pulled away. I tried to reassure the kids that my colleagues were on board but was secretly terrified that they would not be so, waited with anxious breath. Some twenty minutes pased before they managed to make their way down from the other end of the crowded train where they had leapt in at the last minute as the train was about to depart. I cannot begin to tell you of my relief.

Rubbish first class on this line in the evening. Tea, coffee, crisps and biscuits. Thats it.  I was expecting free alcohol, sandwich, snack and fruit so ive paid a fiver for a packet of crisps. Great. Ive run away from my allocated seats due to companions with table fulls of mcdonalds. Ive moved to four seats on my own but close companions from ipswich and lowestoft are talking over loudly involving half the carriage i think. Go away!!!!!

Thank heavens for shake delete, i just somehow deleted accidentally, with the momentum of the train,  a lot of my writing. I looked and looked but it was gone. I remembered shake and i shook. It came back

India, mexico, peru. Oh dear am i beginning to dream more widely? My house may have to go.

I seem to have made a couple of decisions that dont fit my original plan of action in the last twenty four hours. Ive utterly loved being spoiled by my old schoolfriend Jan who picked me up from Luton airport. The joy of being 'home', being able to read a menu, understand systems, find a glorious lido to swim in today.

And now im on the train to norwich, the most difficult and unrewarding first class experience ive had in my short first class train ticket experience with Poppy. I just want them all to shut up! Its friggin first class! And i want some wine!

Shucks, nearly posted without discussing my surprising decisions. Im swooshing on Sunday having said i wouldnt swoosh, ive said i have no time and really i dont.  two days after arriving in cornwall i think I'm  going to be doing a swim run event. Huh? Me? Swim run? Shitzer

The mouthies in the seats ahead of me have stopped yakking, probably related to the arrival of a partner but i am pleased to find more peace until we stop at colchester. I now i have a garrulous  rather large man who can't stop talking on his mobile phone. And i thought i might sleep!

Airports

Airports  15.09.16

Phew what a fiasco!

It was thirty two degrees yesterday i hear people complain, good job i stayed indoors. I think it is approaching that in this aeroplane now with half an hour before take off.

So i caught my train, due to arrive at the airport two hours before my flight. Nope, it went straight past the airport, apparently there was a traffic jam so they made us go past. We alighted and waited for a train to go back. The first train stopped but nobody was allowed to board. Fiftenn minutes after arrival we caught a train to return to the airport and ever since then ive been walking. 

The train dropped everyone at point x from where you must read boards to find out which terminal you will be flying from. Great, the furthest, so across the tarmac we go for fifteen to twenty minutes. Already checked in i was saved horrendous queues for selfcheck in machines that were mal functioning. I went straight to baggage drop and through security but oh so slow and such hold up simply because there were insufficient trays for peoples belongings despite piles of trays sitting at unused desks.

Forget easyjets forty min bag drop and thirty min boarding gate, you'd never make one from the other! Apart from anything else such as passport control, they inform you that its a 13 minute walk once youve got through. I picked up a coffee on the way, got to the gates and sat for five minutes before being more or less the last to board. Crazy. Good job i gave it the two hours.

Endings

Endings  13.09.16

23 degrees. walking back at 7.45 pm and its 23 degrees, it feels pleasant but im glad i didnt discover this digital thermometer until a couple of days ago, i might have complained even more about the heat!

I have paid for a pint, the same chicken and mushroom pasta i had on my first night here but also ordered a small salad to go with it. I have 60p left. Do i bring it home for Poppy and Edward to play with in the toy till or leave it for the staff? Tough call. But perfectly judged from a financial point of view. Theres now just the nine pounds in Danish money to spend at the airport in the morning. I can manage that.

There are many photos i might have taken and havent, perhaps many missed experiences i would have liked but i cannot think of any in this moment. Other than meeting people of course. 

I paid premium for helpx today, i had forgotten quite why i preferred workaway but i now have paid up accounts for both and discover helpx to be more like wwooffing, more farm and building type work. Less likely to engage me, more hard physical graft that i cant do these days. Theres a travel companion side to it though but glancing in, after paying my subs, its not very active and 98% under 25s.

9.30 and time for bed. All packed. Alarm set for 6.45. Wondering if i really have my aeroplane ticket and if i really have checked in. Its so bizarre doing it by mobile and with no internet now i just have to trust i got it right. Phone battery dead, ipad 15%, power pack dead. Phone on charge, ipad waiting as soon as phone is charged, battery pack can wait til im at jans tomorrow, i wont need it til my late train home on thursday night. Bugger, house key is buried deep in bowels of backpack where its been safely locked away for months, i dug out english cash but forgot my key. It can wait, phone at 76% can also wait. Ipad on charge, earplugs in.

I wake and i dont want to be awake but give in and look at the time. It is 1.35 am. I feel as though there is somebody, some presence, i feel uneasy, try to drift back to sleep. My earplugs give me a sense of unease but it is essential i wear them here. I must sleep but am so unused to needing an alarm that my body does not want me to use it, says stay awake now.

I suddenly remember i should have printed my airline ticket and have not done so. I remember atlantic airways efficiency and text reminders about flights. And then i groan and realise its ryan air and i will surely pay for not printing my ticket. Yet i checked yesterday and it is in my 'wallet' on my phone. If in my wallet it surely does not need printing. I need to check.

I am flying with easyjet. I am checked in and my boarding pass is in my wallet. Whats more, having planned to be at the airport two hours early i need check my luggage in only forty minutes before flying time. Further more, i had allowed time for the wretched passpost border control but in fact it is a swift twenty minute train joirney to the airport, not the forty minutes into Copenhagen itself. My alarm will wake me way earlier than i need but i leave it.

I remember It was my potential change of plan, to fly from Gothenburg that would have been with Ryanair and would have neccessitated printing my ticket. My train ticket back from london needs printing. Having made the date error by purchasing on my phone, this time i bought on my ipad only then to discover that i cannot get my ticket in my phone but must print it at a station. Travel can become complicated. Satisfied that all is in place I leave my writing and drift back to sleep. It is three am.

I wake from a dream where i think i am being prepared for sacrifice. I am with Sikhs and being perfumed and cosssetted. I feel very privileged to be allowed to witness this religous ceremony. There is a halt in the ceremony, i am unsure what for but the reality of my situation begins to dawn. Why would a non sikh be allowed into a prestigious ceremony, why am i being treated as i am, as the most important person here. Taking advantage of the halt in proceedings i ask for the loo and post on FB, i think im about to be sacrificed, post my phone number and ask for help. I message Rebecka, in Sweden asking her to get the police here. I then go into one of those loops where i have so many different endings or non endings. I dont die in any though, tie sheets and hang out a window, climb onto rooves, just walk out, many endings. The best is where the police phone me and i make my eacape before they push their way in to arrest everybody. Large sharp knives are lying ready. 

I feel so uneasy and unsafe with my earplugs in i remove them, it is 4am and traffic is quiet at last. I drift to sleep again. I still wake early at 5.30 and this time do not bother to go back to sleep but make a coffee and get up. My host was not sleeping at home last night. I have not known any night whether she is home or not and this is slightly disorienting but i have learned that if not home by ten she will not be home. 

As i am early, I unearth my key from my pack and then repack it. I am ready in good time, have a second coffee, heft my rucksack to my shoulder and hear a noise. It is my host. She did come home last night aft all. Hence the reason for my poor sleep. My subconcscious heard her but did not expect any one to be in the flat.

Taking the last advantage of the wifi at Malmo station, heading for the train and the plane. 

Where am i at?

Where am i at?  13.09.16

Where I am at is not about where i am, but the journey i am on. I may be in the same physical place but be on a different journey every day. It is the accumulation of these journeys that leads to travel experience. Today i have been on a journey of self indulgence, of introspection, of exploration, thinking and planning. What do i want, where will i go, why and what for and who are the people that i might choose to spend a while with on my immediate journey along the way.

I sit here now at 6pm reviewing my writing. I am looking at the lighthouse, wondering if i might find a symbol to match my journey each day and think the lighthouse would be good for today. i have been viewing my options, finding my way. There will be rocks, i may steer a different course but for now the lighthouse is enough. It is square, i have seen it several times before, even taken a photograph of without knowing it might have been here, waiting for this moment. 

The sun is sinking behind the tourist office that helped ground me on my arrival. My day has passed on a drifting tide of internet, one thing affecting the next, patterns slowly building. It is as though i have already begun my journey home, left my travelling self behind. i have taken advantage of having a whole day to think, plan and make contact with others. 10.30am until 6pm. Sitting in one seat. Not moving save for looking up for a while to eat the vegetable feta salad i brought with me. 

My day did not start out this way but this is how it is so often. My plans morph into another world. I began by reading my posts since i entered Denmark and enjoyed, at times, was moved by the importance of my words. i was touched that i seem to write with positivity even when i have often felt anything other than that. 

I enjoyed reading my writing, began to think it might be worth doing something with, and was surprised by that. I had felt that with my change in audience, my writing had become mundane. I have felt, not as though writing for myself, to vent and to clarify but writing knowing others are reading and with that, has come an imperative to write something, anything and i have often thought my words flat. Perhaps i have just done a good editing job. Perhaps my perception of myself is flawed.

Half an hour ago a council worker came and removed two thirds of the 'Boris' bikes from oustside the station. I thought it odd, thought rushhour might mean they may be needed and i have watched progress as numbers have increased and dwindled and now, at 6.15pm, all the racks are empty.

I thought i was visiting the museum today, going swimming, finally going to turning turso before using the internet at the station. I decided instead to take the bus to the station, not walk and to use the internet early, clear the decks leaving me ready to enjoy my last day. I had made a list of all the connections i needed to make, the ends i neded to tie.

I have enjoyed my last day, have felt very peaceful and engaged. It is the first time i have caught the bus to the station, such spoiling on another scorcher. I understand this is a heatwave. I have not overheated all day, have not felt frustrated, have barely even moved in fact, sitting in the shady hall, with table and chair, only noticing the time through the actions of those around me. The smell of food as they came to eat at lunchtime, the realisation that lunch time must be long over when nobody else brought food for some time, the solitary young man who played with his phone in a desultory manner for what might have been two hours. A woman, my age, sitting typing beside me and i remember i apologised for i was talking to myself, trying to work something out but she was as lost in her world as i in mine so need not have worried.

The hours drift and i do not notice them pass.

I have said i need to keep my time free once home until i have completed the majority of tasks i need to do but have now filled every evening and two days in my first week home with friends. Fretting and trying to arrange times with people once home will cut into my organisation. Having time schedules may help me be more focussed, more efficient in my tasks. 

On top of that i have contacted Jonathan Lorie, asked to meet on a day in London, seek advice and direction, clarification. I have made contact with Another Escape, a new travel journal whose owner/editors i met on my first night in the Faroes, have finally purchased a copy of their magazine now that i have an address of my own, for two weeks, at home. I will read hard copy more carefully than i am able to read on line to ascertain whether i think i want them. I ask, do they want an oldies perspective, it all feels very youth biased but think i made an impression, they wanted to hear my stories, said they hoped our paths might cross again. I could just write a submission but know that if i get an invitation to submit i am far more likley for any submission to be read so it is the invitation that i seek. Thats another thing i remember from Jonathan Lorie. Maybe i might book in on another weekend course while im in Cornwall.

It is 7pm, a few bikes have been returned but instantly taken again, the racks remain empty, such strange behaviour to remove bikes at a critical hour. I should go, my bag is not yet packed, i dont want to leave. Not i dont want to leave tomorrow but i dont want to leave this spot right now. oh my goodness! The same young man has brought bikes back! Fourteen of them! Rushour has passed. Why might you service bikes at rushhour if that is what has been done? How bizarre.

No, i need go, get closer to home, buy myself food. My day has all gone roundabout. I thought i would pack and then go out for food on my last evening, not leave my packing until after spending my last pennies, on food and beer.