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.