I really like the way you have set up the world this story takes place in. You have done a wonderful job of describing just how oppressive a life Rose is living. The descriptive details set the tone perfectly.

This paragraph stood out for me. The feeling of being on the cusp of some great moment of self discovery.
...Perhaps this was the end of her days of wondering, and the beginning of her days of taking action. The day the spinster became the adventurer, and never went back. Either that, or it was the day Rose Tyler walked down the wrong road and was murdered by the maniac waiting at the other end. Whatever was at the end of the road, it wasn’t another bundle of shirts and another moment of her worthless, workaday life. That alone made it worth the risk.

Time for ch.2!