Friday, September 18

Our room has a fridge and tea making equipment so we ate breakfast in the room, using the rest of the M&S snacks we bought yesterday.

Afterwards we walked to James Street and got a train to Chester, which hardly seems to have changed since I was a boy. It is exactly the kind of English town that Irma likes.

It began to pour with rain so we stopped for a drink at the Old Queen’s Head. One pint later and the rain had gone as suddenly as it arrived.

Now we have turned a corner and we are walking down to the river to look for somewhere to eat. Or we will be when Irma has finished looking in a shop thathas caught her attention. The shops over the road are typical of those we have been looking at.

We will stop for a drink at a very old pub, the Falcon, and then notice that we are in the very street where yesterday’s landlord suggested we eat in Chester. How likely is that?

We will walk down to the river and there we will find the promised Bear and Billet, where we will indeed eat.

Irma will be suddenly shocked by the sight of a fourteen year old girl celebrating her birthday in he pub with her parenta and brother. She will be forcefully reminded of Auo’s absence. I will have been noticing how much she would have loved the accents and the expressions and the sheer amount of talking. We will walk back to te station in a sombre mood.

We will be so tired when we finally get back to Liverpool and walk to the hotel that we will be go to bed and sleep by about 20:00.