Before Seven 11

So a travelling tale today about my adventures on the Number 11 bus.

Now I use this bus because it is the only one that goes from this area that actually runs to a timetable, the others are all billed as “every 8 to 10 minutes” or “every 15 to 20 minutes at peak times”, you know the sort of thing.

My bus has a timetable and it is pretty reliable and before 7pm it runs four every hour and they usually hit the bus stops, no, not literally, within a few minutes of the predicted timetable, not bad for this day and age to be fair.

On the early morning run to work the bus is practically empty, as my stop is near the beginning of the route, so I have my favourite seat. Before anyone ahhhs at the old lady on her favourite seat, our eldest grand-daughter also sits in the same seat every day, on her bus to work early in the morning and amused me by saying nearly all the people she sees getting on head for their favoured seats every day too!!

Anyway I am so comfortable in my seat happily reading my book that twice in the last month I have gone sailing, well bus riding, passed my stop. Luckily the bus terminates only a couple of stops further on from where I am supposed to get off for work so the worst that has happened is that I have taken some unscheduled early morning exercise!!

Going home is a different story, the timetable is harder to maintain due to the volume of passengers in the evening and it is often a crush for a few stops until we reach the railway station when it often thins down a bit.

But yesterday I had a new experience that shocked me, a bit like when it’s dark and rainy and you look out onto the patio and suddenly see the eyes of a damp cat looking at you, the bus did not stop for me!

I was standing at the stop in good time, I saw the bus approach and put out my hand to hail it, it was coming quite fast and was not indicating it was pulling in so I stepped a bit closer and waved a little more vigorously and whoosh it sped past me. Now I’m too old to be embarrassed by such rejection but I was left wondering why I had been abandoned, yes the bus had a lot of passengers but it was not packed and could easily have taken one more Freedom Pass holder.

I had just decided on the scenario that he hadn’t picked me up because he had mistaken me for an unruly schoolgirl when another bus came along and I realised that the bus that hadn’t stopped was in fact the earlier bus running late and probably trying to catch up to his timetable!!

As Hila Baker would have said “Be Soon”