On board HMS Mercury.

Please don't ask me to do this again! 35 kilometres up and over, down then return, to find accommodation which is £48 for one person in a hostel. There is a flaw in England and it's the cost of traveling on a shoestring. True I could have carried a tent, but I would've been at least 25% overburdened, not just fifteen percent. And how was I to know the weather would be dry as a bone in May?

From tomorrow I am heading to Chichester to meet up with Michael and the garrote he is carrying. Tomorrow I will need to find a route myself, unless I stick to the Monarch's Way until it hits a station heading to Chichester.

The weather will change shortly. It'll be wet a while(Wednesday is forecast rainy), but perhaps not the entire summer? It doesn't matter to me as I will be firmly stuck in Leeds, Wetherby, etc, until September as that's when dog sitting begins in earnest: 26th June on and off until 3rd September when I will sod off again.

This accommodation is in a decommissioned Royal Navy telecommunications station, a stone frigate known as HMS Mercury, which has been converted into something peaceful. There is a curfew from 10pm until 8am, but I don't think I'll see 10pm? It's strange but I stayed in Winchester at the Mercure and this was known as Mercury... Freddy would see the coincidence?

***

Startled awake by an overdraft on my account: bus transactions never show on the day of the journey so there can be an amount watching and waiting to take a bite from the unsuspecting wallet. Sorted now, but I am definitely awake!

Around here, on the coast there are both Portchester and Fishbourne, Roman remains of a grand scale and I am wondering if I should try to see at least one of these prior to Chichester, where I join up again with Michael? Ditch the walking which has taken me from London to nowhere in 5 days.

***

Back to 'me' remote from the world this morning, alone in a fairly large hostel. Back to In Our Time podcast and two coffees. I see there is a train station in Petersfield. I'm thinking I walked too much yesterday with that very heavy rucksack. And the weather is more murky this morning and I am not too far from the sea.