Half way to the station my bus came up against a dickhead of a van driver who must have decided that the bus driver had overstepped the mark by not giving way when there was only room for one vehicle to proceed. So the van driver proceeded to block the road for over 5 minutes, nonchalantly making himself appear unconcerned by doing some paperwork. Meanwhile behind him the cars queued up, as presumably they also did behind the bus. It was an easy manoeuvre for the van driver to reverse into the adjacent side street, whereas reversing the bus was not an option. There was stalemate in the street until the van driver inevitably took action and drove onto the pavement allowing the bus through. Interestingly neither the bus driver nor the van driver demonstrated in any way, not even a horn toot! Road rage without the rage.
Once on the train I tried to make out what was being said in a couple of potentially interesting conversations. In the first, a young woman was on the phone and making the point that ‘we’re moving towards 100% recycled plastic in our bottles’. My daughter would have loved to know more, but that’s about all I got. In the other conversation, between three young people, my ears pricked up when one of the girls explained that she ‘had to wear an outfit that made me look like a prostitute’ and that ‘it was one of those posh events where £50 notes are bandied around’. There was some mention of ‘big tips’ so she was presumably a waitress.
On the return train journey I got off my train and asked a young woman wanting to get on my train if she needed assistance with a bulky suitcase. I may be an old man but I am a gallant old man. She accepted my help but then I discovered the case weighed a ton of bricks necessitating a dragging of the case over the train step rather than a carry over. Assuming it wasn’t bricks, it must have been full of books or contained a body. I wish I had been quick enough to have joked something to that effect…
Such are the experiences you get travelling on public transport that you don’t get in a car.
things change 