Tall Man

the tall man was on the bus again today, his head sways with the motion of the bus, i suppose most peoples do but his is eventuated but to his size. it's mesmerizing.

£ (2)

the bus was empty today. that is fortunate because i dropped a pound and as it was empty i was able to scrabble around on the floor to retrieve it. if i had not been so desolate i may have had to repay the cosmos back for that pound i found. which would have been rubbish, cos i like pounds.

Winter cleanout

Busses run on their own schedule and not mine, for some reason. As a result of this i have to wait at stops for them to appear. As a busy on the go type of chap i loath to consider this brief hiatus in my daily activities as down time, so often carry out location nonspecific day to day tasks. Today was no different. As i was by a bin i took to opportunity to sort out the crap in my wallet. I took out all the receipts that had accumulated over time and sorted them into ones that i needed to keep and ones that i could discard. It turned out that the all fell into the latter category. So there i stood wallet in one hand pieces of dog eared paper invaluable to the id thief in the other. A bus did not suddenly start up a bird did not flit into my field of vision there is no simple explanation to it, but i then threw my wallet into the bin. i did not mean to do this. I will end todays blog here because the events that follow are to ignominious to recount.

Merry christmas

on the way home as i gave the driver my ticked i took my first tentative steps into the festive season and wished him a merry christmas. he did not great this with the warmth and good humor i had expected. slightly deflated i made my way to my seat and dwelt on the situation.

After a few brief minutes of contemplation i realised my mistake. i should have wished him a merry christmas as i exited the bus not as i boarded, by wishing someone a merry christmas you are automatically assuming that you will not see that person again before that day. in all probability i would see that driver again as i exited the bus. by wishing him a merry christmas on entry i was implying that i would not be exiting the bus in a normal fashion and leaving the implication that he is a bad driver. and would crash the bus forcing me to leave it via an emergency exit or more likely by being thrown through the windows. it would be inappropriate to wish anyone a merry christmas in these circumstances and the christmas cheer would probably be drowned out. i offer this not as entertainment, but as a warning. chose you merry christmases carefully. i hope i don't get him again till the new year.

It's open

As you will no doubt have realised a bus lane has been constructed on my route from work. today the cones were removed (i was not present at the time so am unaware as to whether this was with or without ceremony, i will keep my eyes on the local press for you) this simple (or elaborate as it may be) act transformed a sparsely trafficked left turn lane which busses had the right to, and did use to speed through traffic into a fully sign posted and red tarmaced bus lane which people wishing to turn left can use.

the driver chose not to use it.

Tumbel Rumble

i have two shirts for work, this is significant because the number of shirts i have for work is fewer than infinity so i must re-wear these shirts, the upshot of this is that i have to wash them, and regularly do.

today i did the washing part fine the shirt was perfectly washed and everything was looking good, but as many of you will be aware washing does significantly increase the moisture contend of any garment. "no problem" i thought as i turned to my trusty tumble dryer. "you shall dry my shirt in no time".

i looked at the shirt label and then at the controls on the tumble dryer, the label instructions were simple enough. "DO NOT TUMBEL DRY" i could understand those instantly. the instructions on the tumble dryer where however not as lucid. so incoherent are they that i feel compelled to describe them to you at lenght.

on the front of the tumble dryer to the left of the tumble dryer there is a table in black and yellow that goes on about rpm and type and weight of fabric (there is no discernible way to set the rpm. my shirt is blue it appears that blue is the only fabric that they did not put in this table) there are also three buttons "open door" "low temp" and "start" (this button is in an authoritative yellow and set apart from the other two. to the right of these buttons is a dial covered in numbers half are in black and half are in yellow (a nice unifying theme i would have thought if i have been judging the machine by it's aesthetics rather then its ease of use and drying abilities) the black and yellow numbers turn out to be units of time less than an hours but over seconds. the black is labeled high and goes up to 150 and the yellow is labeled low and goes up to 100 this did not clarify the situation at all. undeterred i remember that i have a key that tells me how to wash and dry things so i looked at that. it explains that if you have a box with a circle in it it should be dried at low. the same image with a dot in the middle is normal and with two dots goes on high ( it tentatively suggests that 3 dots should be very high but not many people use this but implies that they should) i do not have any symbols or normal mode i have a dial with high and low on and a button to press to reenforce the message that i want my clothes done on low incase i think my dryer might suddenly set it's-self to high behind my back.

i put the shirt in on low for 30 minutes and press the low button (because all i have left due to the confusion) and eat some toast. four slices and twenty seven minutes later i return to watch the dryer finish up (this is very dull as the door is solid metal) open it up and take out my slightly less damp shirt. i put it on and a jumper over the top and by the time the bus arrives at it's destination it is dry. with a few stylish creases to boot.

i know this did not strictly happen on the bus, but how rubbish would a blog saying "my shirt was soggy at the beginning by dry by the end" be?

on the duel caraway new signs are being put up out covered in lack bin bags, i wonder what they say. i think i saw a man with a pot of paint putting writing a B on the tarmac. but it could have been a P.

santa 2

i saw father christmas again today. this time he was in the high street. he didn't wave at me but was hugging an elf.

the tarmac on the coned off section of the duel carriage-way is being sprayed red.

Ouch

If you ride the same bus route often enough you start to have built up quasi friendships with certan drivers, exchanging plesantries and the occasional humourus comment with them. It may seam that this is an agreable way for one to carry out the daily commute, and it would be if it were not for the inevitable yang to this blissful ying. while certan drivers could be considered friends others are undoubtably enamies these drivers sneer when they are not handed the exact fair and break in an uncooth and abrasive manner.

today i had one of the nice drivers (the one who missed my stop twice previously.) since that incident we have often exchanged nods and laughs. he was driving a different bus today, slightly shorter and older than the standard with less seats and more rickety hand rails.

At university the main form of bus on my route was of the bendy variety these had two exit points. the front door from which we all boarded and the back door. The seat i prefered was on the back right just behind the set of four seats. that seat was closest to the back door, a door exactly the same as the front door except that it was closer to many seats and once the passengers had exited the bus it took less time for them to get home. for some reason the drivers did not like to open these doors so in order to get out of these exits once bell had been rung we had to stand up by the door befor the bus had stopped. most of the time it oppened but sometimes we had to use the emergency escape button.

since university i have continued the habbit of rining the bell getting up from my seat and moving towards the door befor the bus stops. today i did not differ from this routine, i rang the bell, got up, walked to the front, popped a headphone out thanked the driver he joked with me, i then turned round and walked in to the door. ouch.

one lane on the duel caraway from where i work to the main road has been coned off.

A tale of two journeys

The bus was late and crowded today. i suspect these two facts are not unconnected but will spare you my opinions on woefully optimistic bus timetabling and inexplicably crowed Tuesdays. my stop is pretty near the start of the bus route, so i invariably get my pick of the seats (i have now settled on the raised one with the hight back max leg room minimum back supporting work) it is the normal that i get this seat to myself for the full journey. today i when i got on there were two free seats so i took one next to a woman reading the metro in a rather spread out manner. and left another to contend with the napping balding man.

i was uncomfortable, but seated. a full three minuets when by with me sitting quite contently on my slither of fluffy nylon, that was until we turned into the high street. the stop was almost entirely obscured by people. so much so that i was rather proud of the bus driver for noticing it was there and stopping, until the bus left and i saw "BUS STOP" emblazoned in yellow paint on the road. in this crowd was a variety of people, short ones, tall ones (the main reason for the stop being camouflaged today) old people, young adults,parents, children and toddlers (i know they are children but it is such a enjoyably descriptive and aesthetically pleasing word). all of these people were more deserving than me of a seat so naturally i offered mine to an old man. he was being so fussed over by his daughter trying to find him a seat that he didn't hear me offer (even tho i did say it quite loud accounting for the possibility of degraded hearing due to age). i then offer my seat to a nice old woman she thanked me and took me up on the offer. i did not mind giving my seat up, she was three to four times my age so must have stood more than me, it's only fair.

due to it's over crowding the bus took longer to get up the hill and he had to drive past some people and not pick them up ( i thought he could have fitted on a couple more but apparently there was a plastic sign that had more of a handle on exactly how much space there was on the bus and how big these people were than my eyes.)

if you have read some of my previous blogs you may know that i do not sit in the shelter but on a bench near but not to close to my stop at work. today was no different. there was one difference. as usually when the bus pulled in to it's stop i got up and strowed to the back of the cue, however if you imagine the bus the cue was at a 45 degree angle and i was approaching from the same angle but the opposite direction, if you were to draw a line on the cue put a line at 90 degrees to the bus and then draw a line mirroring the cues line i would be walking on that line. so now you know how i was walking. as i walked up and tried to walk past the people i was right by the door ( the point where the line of the bus both 45 degree lines and the 90 degree line intersect) the door opened, i expected my fellow travelers to scurry on the bus out of the scrawly rain, they did not, they all took a step back and waved me onto the bus, i took a step back and gestured them on the bus with an expression of "i've only just got here you were clearly first don't be silly get on" to that the gesticulated to me "no really you can get on first" what could i do? i got on first. it was a strange situation, maybe they had heard about my morning journey, maybe they were impressed by my stride or hair beard combo. what ever it was it felt so right. i hope this is a signal of bus journeys to come. i expect so.

Santa

A rather wet Father christmas waved at our rather crowded bus, only one person waved back. He was I.

Giant

today the bus was late. it was so late that when it came i had been sitting down in the same position for so long i had forgoten my height and was surprised how tall i was when i stood up.