On the way to the train I recheck the contents of my sack. Notebook, Simone, underwear, socks, toothbrush, a folded shirt, camera, my pen and dark glasses. Everything I need. I have hopes of writing but instead stare sleepily out the train window, noting the changing landscape as we pass from the graffiti-scrawled walls in the outskirts of Paris to more open spaces, sandier ground, scruffy pine, and finally the pull of the sea.
