The adventure begins: phase 1.

The Thursday following my day trip to Brighton I take the 9h20 from Ludlow to Newport. I then changed to go across to London Paddington. Sounding familiar? I told you Network Rail was becoming my second home! The trains were busy as everyone was making their way to Glastonbury. I have never seen so many Wellingtons! When I changed at Newport the Glastonbury people took a different train. I went onto Paddington where, usually, I take the Circle line to Victoria. But not this time. We were going to do things a bit different. I took the Hammersmith and City line (pink rather than yellow) to Farringdon when I got a train to Brighton where I changed to go to Hove. I thought I’d done a pretty good job of packing lightly with only one suitcase and a handbag but by the time I got to Oxfam in Hove I’d had enough of lugging my suitcase around. I’m sure it put on weight as the journey went on. So, what was I doing at Oxfam in Hove with a suitcase you might ask? No, I hadn’t just spent another 5 hours and another 5 trains crossing the country to make a donation! I was going to be staying with Amanda until Saturday when I would take yet another train up to Gatwick to fly out to Dresden in Germany. I arrived at Oxfam on Thursday afternoon at around 15h. I stayed in Oxfam, met a couple of the new volunteers, helped out a bit. In the evening I went back to Amanda’s and we stayed in and watched tv and had a catch up. On Friday morning she took me to La Forchette – a French café, as she thought I might be having withdrawal symptoms! The people were French! The menu was in French! If it hadn’t have been for all the English speaking people and the grey sky I could see out of the window I could have been forgiven for thinking I was back in France. In the afternoon I was going to go into Brighton and to the sea – remember, my feet never did get their paddle, but it was raining so I took shelter in Oxfam with Amanda and did some sorting. I quite enjoyed it. Not too much has changed. There are new volunteers but my word, they were needed. Things have been moved around and there’s more for sale now, the back room is also messier and Amanda is the new manager but all of these things are good. In the evening I showed Amanda my photos of Marseille and then I packed my suitcase. Yes, again. I still haven’t properly unpacked my suitcases from Marseille… I’m beginning to see a bit of a theme to my life – trains, planes and suitcases… Tomorrow would be no exception.