I’ve travelled home today, thankful for being out of the office to be honest – the pressure of the last few days has been the worst I’ve ever known.

One of those fabulous chance meetings happened to me on the train. As I often do, I got chatting to the person sitting next to me. It was weird because I rarely sit in my allocated seat but the station announcers had been saying ‘if you’ve not got a reserved seat, you can’t get on the train, it’s heaving’ (words to that effect anyway).

She was (my very favourite type of person) an elderly lady who was coming to Cornwall to visit her daughter for a week’s holiday. I calculated 78 from the story she told me. She had an interesting observation to make. She’d lost her husband at 63 and claimed (probably rightly) that she’d coped in the time since he’d gone because she’d always had something ‘of her own’.

She’d worked in an Oxfam store for thirty years and the network of friends she’d made were her support and guidance through the grieving process and the start of a new phase in her life where she had to rebuild a new life without the man she’d been married to for forty years. She ‘took every opportunity’ presented to her, including the companionship of men who have found themselves in the same situation as her. She was completely, utterly delightful. My journey whizzed by in what felt like an instant and I left her feeling sad not to share any more stories with such a lovely lady.

Her tale of working in Oxfam made me choose today’s pic. I was telling her about my reading and photography hobbies and how these days half of the books I read and most of my ‘props’ are bought at Oxfam, used a few times then taken back in for them to resell. It means I can have interesting props, Oxfam get two donations and because I’m buying second-hand I feel as though that’s also more environmentally friendly. I do think that Oxfam does a wonderful job and of course it’s based in one of my favourite ‘homes’, Oxford so to support them in this way makes me happy.

So, this is from my latest haul – an Oxfam sugar bowl (£1.99), stood on slate, which was rescued from our hearth when we changed the fireplace. I do love ‘hard light’ don’t you?

A year ago today, I was at the same 'do' as last night - but that day I snuck off early to meet Colin and Paul.