York, Sheffield again, London again

Somewhere in York I crossed an International Dateline of the soul and lost a day. The place in which I was initially booked was run by Indians apparently in the habit of conducting informal auctions on their rooms, then passing on the overflow to a neighbouring establishment, which is where I ended up. This was a lovely B&B run by a 'semi-retired' Yorkshire woman who had given up the game when bookings became computerized. She immediately took a maternal shine to me, perceiving perhaps that I needed it. My room was lovely and so was York: small, and easy to get around on foot. I saw the Minster - predictably amazing, although by then my standards for England's beauty had become unreasonably high. Mostly I just walked around.

My second day there was mostly concerned with my cash issues, as I was down to about 15 pence. It was Easter Monday and everything was closed; my father had to wire money to the only open Western Union outlet, which was a small grocery store in the suburbs. It was off the edge of my map so my father had to give me directions from Google Maps, over the phone from Australia, which resulted in predicatble chaos particularly as Google Maps' idea of a street is often, in York, an historical laneway that is now a bike track or an unsignposted gap between two buildings. After about an hour of wrong turns I managed to get myself approximately in the area and some locals narrowed down my target for me. Got money from a half-stocked grocery store while feeling nervous about the shady-looking lads lined up behind me and observing my cash-wad closely.

After two nights it was back to Sheffield to return the car, which had proved a reliable if somewhat over-sensitive travel companion. I was very pleased with myself for locating the correct A road after only two circuits of the York Ring Road, and went happily off down it, only slightly disturbed by the constant roadside references to a town apparently not on my map. Approximately halfway to Scotland, I realised I was heading in the wrong direction and turned around. Fortunately I had allowed several hours for my lousy sense of direction. Back on the M1 and I was soon back in Sheffield. Sheffield is a mid-sized city that reminds me quite a bit of Wollongong, which was no help in trying to find the car return place. I circled the city centre aimlessly, hoping to chance upon it (it worked in York!), kept stopping to ask people for directions (Northerners are all lovely), eventually got a map from a helpful newsagent guy. Found the right street, the grimly appropriately named Corporation St, then drove up and down it 5 times before finding the place, which was prominently located on a roundabout I had been circling, unnoticed by me due to my efforts at catching the correct exits.

I was sorry to be without the car, but also a little happy, as sooner or later I was bound to shoot off a roundabout into an oncoming lane and kill somebody. (Although by now I'd match my roundabouting skills against any Australian driver. Still, there is something to be said for traffic lights.)

I found where I was staying, dropped my bag off - though it was still too early to check in - and went to sort out a train ticket back to London for the following day. Then I called Tash to go get a coffee and see if we could make things right. I didn't expect much from it, as when we had left it off neither of us could speak without offending or irritating the other.

So we had coffee, and made slightly grim chit-chat. Then started talking, and had another coffee, talked some more, went for dinner, had a couple of beers at a cool cheap pub, and somewhere along the way remembered how to act around each other, and why we were friends in the first place. And it was really nice, and happy, and sad - good that we worked it out, and sad that it took us until the end to get there. And I kept thinking how much I wished I could call her up in a few weeks and go have a beer and laugh about things. And, as with Bree, how much I wished some of my favourite people didn't live across the world.

I said goodbye to Tash and went back to the pub where I was staying. It was a little late by now - though not very - but the pub was obviously not a hub of Sheffield night-life. It was closed; there were envelopes stuck to various doors: ATTENTION MR N CARVAN. YOUR ROOM IS 5. PROCEED UP THE STAIRS. YOUR KEY IS IN YOUR ROOM. YOUR LUGGAGE IS IN YOUR ROOM. I followed the directions and found my room, although there was no luggage. I was too tired to be all that worried - I figured my luggage was too heavy for anybody to want to steal in its entirety. I crashed out. A half-hour later, I was awoken by a knock. The poor manager was there, out of breath, having carted my backpack up three flights of stairs. 'I'm so sorry!' She said. 'I forgot.'

The next day, today, I caught the train back to London. I'm back in Paddington, which is the next best thing to home right now. Going to catch the tube to Notting Hill to get some dinner, then tomorrow will have another try at the Charing Cross booksellers. I'm still to find a single winner to help defray the cost of my trip. At this point I could really use a first edition of Macbeth, preferably signed.