SPOILERS!!!
Georgie is excited about her first column in the magazine. Yet, when she checks the online version, she is shocked to see that the ranting letter she wrote about her boyfriend Simon is part of her column. She must have sent the file by mistake. Now she feels unable to show the magazine to Simon or her friends back home. Viv, the editor, wants her to do some articles about her experience in some free-time activities in Brighton. The first one is a roller disco, and since Simon refuses to go with her, she asks Charlotte, who she has briefly met. Charlotte is still grieving for her baby, Kate, who died of a congenital heart conditions two weeks after her birth. Charlotte has been to counselling for months, but she is not well yet. We know that she has had problems with alcohol, and her marriage went bust after the death of the child. When Georgie suggests the outing, Charlotte is taken aback and comes up with several excuses, but Georgie keeps insisting, and Charlotte finally agrees to go to the roller disco. When they go, Charlotte admits to herself that she had fun and it was the best fun she has had for a long time.
Charlotte has also befriended Margot, the French woman from the top floor. They have tea together, and Margot, who doesn’t mince words, tells her that she is dying and her sons want her to return to France, but she won’t hear them out. Margot also tells her that she arrived in England almost forty years ago. Her husband had died, and she took an English lover, so she moved to England, and her sons stopped talking to her. When her lover died a few years ago, she and her sons made up, but now they want her to return to France, but she won’t hear of it. Charlotte finds Margot glamorous and interesting as she is not the typical elderly lady. So she thinks that Margot could be the elderly lady in the community that she could choose as part of the project in her company.
During the bank holiday Georgie returns to Yorkshire, expecting a wonderful weekend with all her friends. They arrange to meet in the pub, and when she gets there, her friends can’t stop talking about someone called Chloe, which annoys Georgie. When she asks about who the woman is, they tell her she is the one who has rented Georgie’s house. Chloe turns up, and Georgie is aghast to see how her friend fawn over her. Then at some point they start talking about Georgie’s work in the magazine, and Chloe wants to know what magazine she writes for, but Georgie simply says it’s something local, as she can’t let them read her column. Yet, Chloe uses her laptop and finds the local magazines in Brighton, and soon they are all reading the agony aunt column that Georgie has written. They are shocked to read what she wrote about herself and Simon, and then when Simon comes to the table, curious what the girls are all so eagerly talking about, horrible Chloe shows him the column on her table. Oh poor Georgie! Simon is not going to like it, but I think he needs to learn how Georgie feels about their relationship. Yet, this is not the way she should have done it even if it is a mistake.
As for Rosa, she is still looking after Bea as Jo is not well and has developed an infection. Her staying with her father only lasted hours as Bea felt snubbed and ignored, so she decided to go back home. Now we also know what happened between Rosa and Max, her boyfriend. What she found out is that the man had been lying to her all along. When a friend ran into him and called him David, and Rosa heard him mentioned two kiddies, she grew suspicious. So when he was supposed to leave for Amsterdam, where he supposedly spent half the week working, she found out that he wasn’t going to the airport, but heading for Oxfordshire. So now Rosa knows that his name wasn’t Max, but Max Channing, and he is married and has two children. Poor Rosa. I can’t understand how someone can be so callous and deceiving. No wonder she left him. What I don’t understand how she could let this creep affect her life so much that she ended up leaving a good job, move somewhere else, and do a different job for a pittance. We know that Rosa loves cooking, but her job at the hotel is horrendous, especially her boss who treats everybody as if they were his slaves.
My Reading Journal 