Tree shocks

There has bee trouble on the buses this week – running up to half an hour late in the middle of the day, every seat taken, some grumbles.

Turns out that all this trouble is caused by tree trimming, the need for which (in the interests, of course, of our long term safety) has meant the closure of one small stretch of road in Buxton. This has been enough to cause chaos, with shockwaves propagating all the way to the airport.

Yesterday the driver left it up to one young mum to decide for herself whether to get on with her baby buggy – all the reserved space was taken by seated passengers, so she would just have to stand in the aisle, moving aside each time somebody else wanted to get on or off. She decided to choose this certainty, rather than an uncertain wait for less crowded bus to come along in due course.

This might have caused even more grumbling, but everyone close by was full of cheerful commiseration & advice and also, once we were on the move again, gave us the chance to earwig a fascinating exchange (which could never have happened until a few years ago) of proud baby talk between her & a young man who is dad to a similarly aged infant (safely left at home with mum): Yes, they do that at this age, etc.

I lost count of the number of people who got off the bus at the stop for the hospital – free bus passes have contributed an unexpect4dly large addition to the bus company revenues & the calls on our council tax, so that at certain times of day half the bus gets off at this stop. I hope medical staff are being sympathetic to late comers this week.

Funny how much trouble even what remains of our English forests can cause; the trains have a special autumn timetable which adds five minutes extra to cope with speed restrictions due to leaves on the line.