The Bus - the daily soap opera

It took me a long time to get used to riding the bus. We used to live right across the street from a tube stop, so I NEVER took the bus, unless I had a lot of time on my hands and wanted a 'scenic' view. Now, we live a lot further out, and have the option of either a 15 minute + walk to the tube, plus an hour and a half on the train. Or we catch the bus a few minutes walk from our house, and cut down that train travel to less than an hour. Not a hard choice. BUT this bus only comes every half an hour. So over the past year we seems to have created our bus routine.

Our daily bus routine.....

7:20 Monique leaves the house in plenty of time to walk leisurely to the stop while snacking on her breakfast bar. If she gets to the stop and the two teenager girls who take the same bus aren't there, then she knows the bus came early, and she missed it, and will have to get to work another way - which is what happened today :(

7:30 Murray comes running like a mad man down the street while Monique stands in the doorway of the bus trying to convince the driver to wait just 30 more seconds. OR Monique sends a text 'bus' to Murray as he missed it by a few minutes.

7:30-45 Murray and Monique get on the bus and glance towards the back. Those two darn teenage boys have now spread themselves out on the back seat - one on either side. We USED to sit in the back (as that's where the most leg room is) but the boys would get upset a few stops later when their friends got on and they couldn't all sit together, so now they have pushed us out. There's NO way we're going to go back there and sit in the middle between them - and they know it - sneaky little twerps. So now we sit in the front. We prefer the left hand side because then we can see and listen to Napoleon. He is the teenage king of the little boys on our bus. He looks just like Napoleon Dynamite (i.e. geeky, very curly hair, tall & skinny). He always sits perched up on one of the front seats. His little subjects are a few years younger than him, and always sit next to him. They spend EVERY morning arguing with each other.

IT IS SO SO FUNNY!

The younger boys will bring something up about school, and Napoleon always retorts with (scoff) (in a posh accent) 'Oh well when I had that subject it was so much harder, and I was first in my class, blah blah blah.' These little boys look up to him like he's a god - a know it all older boy. It just cracks us up.

This morning we were on another bus (missed the every half hour one), so we got a whole new group of school kids to entertain us. We sat near three school girls with very posh accents. They spent the entire bus journey with one of them discussing her report card in detail 'And then she said I'm smart, but that I could do better in Chemistry...' while another kept interrupting to tell their other friend about the rules of Lacrosse. I dunno - the bus is entertaining!

I DID read a very disturbing thing in the paper this morning though. That by mid 2008 they will have the technology in place so that people will be able to talk on their mobile (cell) phones on the tube. OH NO! Sure it would be more convenient, but it's already annoying enough when you have people yelling into their phones on a very crowded carriage while you are squashed up like sardines. I PRAY for those tunnels to come when I'm stuck in situations like that.

There have been a lot of letters to the editor in 'the metro' newspaper lately as well about what do when people play their mobiles out loud on the tube - with the new phones that are coming out - this seems to be happening more and more often. One reader suggested that what he does is take his hearing aid out and offer it to the person who's being so noisy - and they usually laugh and turn it down. Obviously I can't do that so I just say 'Excuse me, can you please turn that off, it's really inconsiderate to the rest of us.' Hello - this is England - we want to sit quietly and read out papers - cheers - thank you very much.

Anyhow, enough of my ranting.

Last night we went to our FAVOURITE Italian place il MasCalzone in Putney, ohhhhh I LOVE that place. Great food, good service, and close to home - you just can't beat it! And oh did the waiters LOVE Lorraine (we went out to celebrate her b-day and give her her pressies)! They were hanging around our table smiling at her practically all night! It was nice to see her and catch up on what she's been up to.

And tonight - I have a surprise for Murray. An early birthday present..... and I'm trying REALLY hard to be strong and not tell him what it is. It's proving hard! But I'm determined not to tell him..... surprises are FUN!