Yesterday after a good breakfast and a good shower I set off from the hostel.
The layout of the city has changed slightly but not so much that I can't remember it.
I found my way to the famous church where people light candles, a lady from the Island used to light a candle here for me when she was here. I lit a candle for me and for two people I know who aren't well and for my sister's boyfriend.

Then I went to find a bus. The buses have barely changed here, I got a bus, the same number and route that it was when I was a teenager, the bus when past where my older brother, brother F and his wife used to live, through the grim slums on the edge of town, and stopped at the stop where it used to stop so that I could get off.
I walked through the slums. I looked at the mountains of ubbish spreading everywhere, the dumped furniture, the dog poo and sick and weeds, and I was glad that despite my break for freedom from this place ending in a failed life I had not had to come back to live here, and never will, I lived in overwhelming fear of having to go back to my family when I had left them, and that fear stayed for many years.

I walk through the slums, it is already getting hard to walk. I stop and look down the hill to the end of a road, a road where my family had two different homes, I don't need to struggle down there to know what they look like, one is boarded up and derelict forever, the other is a normal family home to some ethnic minority family.
I turn right, cross the road, turn left, and there is another of our old homes, the last home I knew with my family before I left them. It has been paved outside and is divided into flats now.
I turn and walk away, past boarded up houses and houses with falling down curtains, skips full of rubbish, I wish I could rescue all the people from here and show them fresh air and light, but to some of them this is home, and who am I to help anyone? look at me!

I reach the other bus route, on the edge of the really dangerous areas, one of the buses that used to run is still running, I wait, the same old rap music is playing nearby, I know it, I know the words, I know the sentiments.

The bus comes and I get on and look out the windows at the ghettos, I used to cycel this route to go and deliver my papers in the better areas, I used to take this bus to the next terminus and change there to go to college.

As we near the better areas where I used to deliver papers, I get a shock, the great landmark tower blocks are gone, demolished, they are building sites for new flats, I can't believe it, I was hoping to go in one of the blocks and go up to the top floor and look out over the city, for old times sake. But they are gone.

I get off at the terminus, the shopping centre there hasn't changed, and even here there is more rubbish than seven maids with seven mops could clear in a lifetime, this is a better area but right on the edge of the slums and gangland and there are no borders.
I go to the toilet at the shopping centre and go for another bus. Same old bus, same old route.

I get off the bus at the crematorium. There is a funeral about to start there, another family's bad day.

I remember the end of Dad's funeral, my mum didn't know what was expected of her when the female funeral director took mum outside to the memorial area where she would speak to all the guests, I remember all the floral wreaths here for dad, today there are floral wreaths for other people's dad's and grandads, other people's mums.
It is raining and I go into the memorial garden, I never got to say goodbye properly to dad because mum ran off with his ashes and I was so far away in the Island. I also want to see if there is a memorial plaque to my two friends who died in 1995 or 1996.

I had no idea that the memorial garden was so huge, I suppose that because this is a vast heavily populated city the crem here is quite busy.

It is pouring with rain.

'In this winter city the rain cries a little pity, for one forgotten hero and a world that doesn't care'.

I go and shelter in the great cold halls of rememberance. Huge endless mausoleums full of memorial stones ranging from many years ago up until last decade. I cannot see a memorial to my friends in here and it is eerie in here, chill cold and no-one else in these spooky corridors and bays full of memorial stones, as I finally get to the end of the corridors my phone beeps with a message from my brother, and the cold stillness is broken.
My brother is making arrangements to meet up.
I feel closer to my dad here, I have felt closer to him since I arrived in the city, as if a remnant of his spirit is here in this great fallen city.
Yesterday as I came into the city I caught the train that he used to catch to work, and I remember changing the words of a song so it went 'Dad he is hurrying, he is catching the 9 O'clock train...'

When I came out of the mausoleum I walked around the memorial gardens, miles of memorials, old and new, but no sign of a memorial to my friends, who died near here and were both cremated here. Not even the usual finding instinct that I have, that used to amaze Janet, I can find anyone and anything.
No answer in the wind and rain, no word from my old friends' spirits to say that they are there, I didn't get to say goodbye to them or go to their funerals.

It continues to rain and the next bus I want stops right by the crematorium so I head for the bus shelter. I am glad that buses and routes have stayed much the same here in the city, it means I can get around and do what I have to.

I get the bus and hop off again maybe three quarters of a mile down the road, then I cross the old familiar roads onto yet another bus route.
I catch the bus and get off in the area where my brother lives, I struggle up the high street and go into the library where I wait for my brother.
My brother sends a message to say he is stuck behind a bus. He gets to me eventually, he is carrying his 9 month old daughter who is my neice and this is the first time I have got to meet her. She is shy so I show her Patrick giraffe and she smiles.
We go to a cafe to have a cuppa, my niece keeps trying to grab the cups of tea, so I give her the giraffe to play with, she is happy with that and keeps throwing him on the floor so that her daddy picks him up again, great game!
My brother is stressed, work is hard and they have his girlfriends sister and boyfriend living with them as they were made homeless and the girlfriend's sister gave birth last nigh, so it is all very tiring for my brother.

Then it is nearly time for me to head back, so my brother gives me a lift to the petrol station where he will get fuel and I will be collected by my friend from there. The baby is kept quiet by Patrick, who she has decided is 'duck', thats a new one, he is usually called a camel or a teddy.

My friend turn up promptly and we set off.
The journey is ok, it is raining hard a lot of the way, we pass a bad three car smash, and we go through two of the counties where my family travelled when I was young.
We stop outside one of the old familiar towns to get potatos so she can make soup later, we have a cuppa at the supermarket cafe, then we are off again.
She decides that I should stay with her rather than her have to drive into town in the bad weather, as she lives 15 miles out of town.
We get fish and chips for us and her housemate at a village chip shop and I tell her I want to stand outside and smell the woodsmoke, I miss the cold dark coutryside nights and the woodsmoke, it feels good to sniff the air.

We get back and I meet her housemate and the two dogs, we have supper and I go to bed and sleep until nearly 9am, we have a good breakfast and I have a shower, then we head into town with a pot full of soup as the church is having a meeting with lunch, I will go off and come back for some lunch.

And I did.