Yesterday morning, having arrived home late from work as usual on Friday night, I dragged myself out of bed at 5.45 to walk to the bus stop by 6.33. This is the time the first bus leaves on a Saturday - so it says on the timetable. I got to the bus stop at 6.25, and stood there until 6.45, when I began to wonder what was going on. I called the number on the stop, but got a voicemail; because obviously, no one in their right minds would be out of bed that early on a Saturday morning. I texted the number which tells you when the next bus will come, and received an answer: 7.22. This was very annoying for a number of reasons: not only because it meant standing at the bus stop for an hour, but also because my next connection was at 8.05 in a place that's around half an hour away - so on public transport, 7.22 would be cutting it fine.
I sat down on the pavement and waited until the 7.22 arrived at 7.28. Dragging myself up the steps, the usually-grumpy bus driver greeted me with a cheerful smile. "You've been 'ere a while", he said, in his wonderfully old-school accent; "you were 'ere when I were driving t'work." I agreed, and told him the timetable said there was a 6.33 bus. Disbelieving, he emerged from his bus-driver hole behind the wheel and came outside to look. "My", he said, "so it does. I'll 'ave to tell 'im it's wrong." He grinned at me, and I smiled back wearily.
Luckily, the bus managed to arrive just in time to get me to my next connection, but not in time for me to grab a coffee, which meant that my mood didn't exactly improve. When, three-and-a-half hours later, I arrived at my destination to a room full of screaming children (I was helping at a science fair), my headache worsened. As the afternoon wore on, the chromotography experiments with coloured pens and filter paper, the 'rocket mice' being catapulted out of bottles for force experiments, and the fun everyone was having with the water vortex put me in a better state of mind, and when Maya, the friend I was meeting for coffee while I was there, walked through the door at 3.00, I was feeling quite cheerful.
We found a beautiful little Mediterranean deli and flopped down on a sofa to swap gossip on old friends. I told her about Jon, who died on Thursday, and we both looked sufficiently sad for a few moments before moving on to juicier topics. All in all, a good day. Would I do it again? Yes, even though I didn't get home until 10 at night. But next time, I'll know what time the bus leaves. Unless I look at the timetable again.
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