Regrets, I’ve got a few mate!!

Birmingham Moor Street 27th April 2007, originally uploaded by loose_grip_99.

The biggest is still being in bloody Birmingham!!!!

An hour later, the Euston option has vanished. The trains cannot cope with the number of people trying to do that route, so ticket-holders for Cardiff etc are not being allowed. Rats! Despite having very little power left, I phone home and tell Richard the news. He suggests that his brother could pick me up if I can get to Droitwich. I can’t find it on any of the boards and assume trains are cancelled but a guard tells me I need to go to Moor Street station.

I still have my plastic bags (how common), I can’t get to Cardiff or London, I have to walk in the rain and I have a mobile phone that has only one bar of power left. My knees are aching and I hate everyone!

I somehow mistake the direction and do a tour of the Bullring wishing I could instead go to the Harry Potter party at Borders but I feel wet and dirty and unloved – I am accused of being a terrorist and now I feel old and knackered. Young people and couples bounce in and out of shops, looking in each other's bags at new purchases, laughing and planning nights out. Other single people are like me: older, slower and wary looking. I feel too wet and dispirited to face going into Debenhams to buy some luggage … hell, I feel too fat and tired to go into Boots for Nurofen. I can’t eat in public and alone – fat people often don’t eat in public because people assume it is all one does. I had a ham roll yesterday about 1pm and a bag of popcorn – it is now 3pm the following day and I am wet, tired, alone and hungry, wearing yesterday’s clothes.

I trundle slowly onwards to Moor Street but have missed the way, and after a lot of walking (more than I would ever usually do) I am not only wet and tired but back where I started staring at the entrance to New Street Station. My exuberance and Blitz spirit of the previous night have left me by the time I finally get to Moor Street but I am momentarily buoyed when trains seem to be running. But no, Droitwich is another no-go area.

I again ring home. Richard suggests I go stay in Manchester with my friend Linda – that is further from home and the rain is heading North. I don’t want to do this, I want to go home and have decided I am close to jumping under a train (if one goes that is) or buying that Nurofen and taking the lot. I want to cry but instead sit on Moor Street station and play Avril Lavigne on my iPod and other jolly numbers to try and get out of the funk. It makes it worse (dammit I did cry!).

I feel like ringing my friend Susan for a chat – she hates Birmingham with a passion so we could have a laugh but I now have almost no power on my phone. Another hour passes and I am glued to the bench, looking at the palm trees and cappuccino bar which look fake in this bleak empty station. I am feeling sorrier than myself than I have for a long time. I hate being alone, I hate having to fend for myself – I hate not being young slim and gorgeous and able to get a bed by batting my eyes in bars like I used to do!

Richard rings to say his brother can get me if I can make it as far as Redditch – “yes trains may run that far…” the guard tells me “… from New Street” You are having a fucking laugh!!!!