Bus Stop

We had to go to London a few weeks ago to sort out a passport for our little boy. I worked out that the easiest way to get there was to catch a series of buses: three in all. I allowed an extra hour for our trip and we set off with three and half hours to get to our appointment.

The first bus was late. Roadworks in Oxford and peak-hour combined to slow things right down. But only by 10 minutes. So, 50 minutes of my extra hour left. Not too bad.

The second bus was late. Traffic congestion into London was heavy. So, there we lost 20 minutes, which meant that I only had an extra 30 minutes left.

The third bus wove slowly through the treacle-like London traffic. We were within about 500 metres of Trafalgar Square when we noticed that the bus was not moving. It was mid-way through a merge into a different lane and had been that way for some time. We also noticed that none of the other traffic was moving as far in front of us as we could see. The traffic, including our bus had stopped.


We gave up at that point, realising that we would not get to our appointment on time. But we thought we would go to the passport office anyway and try and make another appointment for another day and make it as late in the afternoon as we could. We decided to catch the bus all the way to the stop we wanted, rather than get out and walk (which would certainly be faster) mostly out of curiosity. Would the traffic ever start moving again?

Eventually it did. Slowly the bus jerked into the neighbouring lane and the traffic inched forward. The bus stopped at Trafalgar Square, and the loud speaker announced the stop, people got off and the bus doors shut, as they normally do.


The bus continued on at a painful pace, and suddenly about a metre onwards from the bus stop, the bus doors opened again. "This bus terminates. This bus terminates. Please leave the bus immediately and take all your belongings with you. This bus terminates".


We left the terminating bus in gales of laughter, which was hardly fair. The poor bus was clearly so utterly demoralised that it simply could not go on. Where did it go after it ejected all its passengers? Is there a quiet spot near the Thames where depressed buses go to sob at their perceived failures to deliver passengers to their destination? Do they retire in despair to the country like overworked horses?


Needless to say we arrived at the passport office almost exactly four hours after leaving home. Thankfully they rebooked our interview for that day so if could all be done on the day, and our boy now has a passport.


But we learned a lot about English buses. They are late. They are reasonably comfortable (important given that they are late). They have fragile and delicate egos. They are not victorious over the monster that is London traffic. JMB