Haunted house

It gets dark before six these days!

Today was to be my Grand Day Out in Cheltenham. I hadn't been there shopping for months. I hadn't had a totally free day for weeks.

I got to the bus stop in time for the 10.48, as opposed to the 9.48 service. Little did I know what a difference that would make! We got through the village of Painswick, before the bus shuddered to a halt opposite the community home known as Paradise. All we could see was a steep bank, and some trees. There we waited, entertained by the driver and each other, until eventually an engineer arrived. He could not fix the overheated engine, so another bus was summoned. By this time the wartime spirit was prevailing, and the community singing was about to start. The second bus took us down the hill to Brockworth, where we had to cross two main roads, shopping trolleys and all, and pass through a delicious cloud of frying-bacon aroma, to take a third bus. The race traffic was heavy as we approached Cheltenham... almost two hours after setting off, we reached the town.

Hotel Chocolat: tick
Waterstones: tick
Oxfam.bookshop: tick
New John Lewis store: tick
Lakeland: tick
Post office inside WH Smith: tick

Etc, etc. I got some shopping done. I couldn't help noticing the wall of sleeping bags and rucksacks outside Costa, opposite the gleaming new John Lewis. This year the count of homeless people in Gloucestershire has increased dramatically. Young men collected money for homeless veterans outside WH Smith.
Who's going to have Christmas this year? I wondered. Austerity might be over inside John Lewis, but out on the street...

The same jolly people were on the bus on my return journey, which passed without incident.
I'm now helping CleanSteve with his production line of home-printed photographic cards for his first solo stall tomorrow.