Bus Stop

OK so my cunning plans as always have gone just slightly astray, I did a blog and its done great numbers, I have another one prepped , I haven’t polished  it and this one springs to the front of my brain, and I simply couldn’t shake it, add that with 12 extremely long shifts with multiple issues , to say I was shattered was a bit of an understatement, I came home yesterday euphoric that I now have three whole days off and promptly fell a sleep in the chair in the living room, this simply does not bode well, so I better get my finger out and get this one done!

The music one will be here no later than Monday because I will sort that one out later today while I am on a roll…………Honest!

I may have mentioned in the past that I travel to work (most of the time) via public transport, I have done for nearly 34 years and sometimes it pisses me off and sometimes it doesn’t, but a thought occurred that I spend long periods of time with these people and I don’t really kind of know them, to be honest most of them leave me well enough alone, there can be people standing and they still won’t sit next to me, I must have a serial killers look about me (no comments please) now I call my mode of transport the plague carrier, simply because there is always someone coughing and spluttering away behind me!

I travel from Gimpsville to my place of work and in all honesty its usually takes about 40 -50 minutes depending on the traffic and I normally use the travel time to either listen to music (no surprise there then) or to have an additional power nap on the way to happiness, usually the bus is populated by the same faces with maybe one or two missing on occasional days, very occasionally there is an interloper, someone who only gets the bus once in a blue moon……………we don’t like them!

From time to time I play bus seat bingo, that’s when I sit were ever the hell I want simply to upset the apple cart as bus’s are worse than working men’s clubs for it being someone’s seat! I have mentioned bus seat bingo in previous blogs so I wont bore you with greater detail, there are a number of characters who populate my journeys to work, there is Jabba the Hutt a lady who does like just like that loveable rogue from star wars, the person who I have wound up the most (quite unintentionally) a person who is so highly strung if I sit in her seat she slithers down the bus to sit in it when I get off, the easy answer would be to sit next to me and I would soon get sick of her as she is huge and it would be an uncomfortable journey, however she hasn’t so I do like to sit in her preferred seat, now I don’t sit in it all the time simply because I like to share the love, the last time I saw her she smiled because I wasn’t sat in her seat, some one else was and she had a major strop / meltdown and got off at the next stop, I do wonder about some peoples mental health!

Then there is the fabulous boxing brothers, they hate each other and they always squabble bicker and usually end up coming to blows, they get on at different stops but boy do they hate each other, bus drivers wont let them get on the same bus now, that probably adds to the hate, they are always at different stops in the vain hope of getting on first I think! Then there is red hat man he Is obviously an office worker quite stylishly dressed, even though it doesn’t suit him and no matter what he always wears a home made woolly hat (in the 70’s they were called bobble hats and boys always cut off the bobble) he pulls on as low as he can, way past his ears and then puts a pair of beats headphones on over the bloody hat……..go figure!

Then we have the hulk a bloke who is as wide as he is tall and as he falls into which ever seat he sits in he is a sleep quicker than even me and he sprawls out in to the aisle people have to climb over him to get on, and he has an uncanny knack of waking up at his stop, bless him. There’s a lady who works in the courts I recognise the uniform even though she removes all forms  of identification, late fifties thinks she is super cool with shades on and the promptly puts her bag on the seat next to her until at least 80% of the journey (snooty cow) then you have me the irresistible imp with my roguish charm (I did say I wonder about peoples mental health) listening to my music (currently Diamond Head, Snowy White , Thunder, Lucifer’s Friend and many more) I have no issues with people sitting next to me, they seem to though maybe it’s my bag of severed heads I’m not sure!

Good weather bad weather you do see the same miserable faces (come on peeps they are all going to work) thankfully the service has improved of  late, I do miss the original old bus drivers, then we got some right misery’s but after an email complaining how crap the service was, it improved, I have no idea if they read all 12000 words, but boy did I feel better after I sent it I should have posted it on here as a blog…………..hmmmm I wonder!

Most of the new drivers have improved their work out look, there are no grumpy ones, one or two of them do drive like it’s a formula one car but hey ho it is better these days, I wish I could say the same for the reverse journey that really is the village of the damned, populated with all manner of arseholes and misfits, I fully understand why some people hate to get the bus at any time, unfortunately for me its simply too late! There is always timing issues on the return leg that cant be helped there is always traffic issues, you simply have to go with the flow on the return leg, I carefully try and identify someone who is not travelling all the way back to Gimpsville simply so that I can yet again claim the seat for myself!

There is one hot spot on the journey home that drives me nuts its crap in a car but wonderful in a bus, as nobody argues with a bloody big bus and once we get through that its plain sailing always back to Gimpsville, usually if it’s a double decker I gaze at the scenery that’s usually hidden from the single decker approach, its actually quite a pleasant journey home! Its when the time tables change that does my head in the weekends and bank holidays , its so obscure you simply have to take pot luck on the way home hence last Monday I had to wait an hour as I had just missed the bloody thing, I wasn’t a happy camper (me with my reputation)!

Its not cheap either sometimes I think it would be cheaper to travel by car but then I remember I haven’t passed my test and I return to my travel sulk! It was £3.30 for the week, when I started now its £34 for the same journey ……..lets move on now, learn to drive I hear some of you shout, erm that would be a no I still have anger issues from my previous attempts over thirty years ago, as much as I would like to, I think I would need to have a large lottery win to attempt it ever again.

So that’s it that’s what I needed to shake out of my head and get it posted I promise I will post the next one no matter how good the numbers are by next Monday, I have also been giving it some thought as to what to do when I hit the 500 mark and I do have a cunning plan, I will still be posting occasional missives but it might not be blogs, I need to have a better thought process but an idea is formulating, as soon as I now you lot will know, it helps me get less angry with Farcebook, if you follow me there you might an idea of which road I might end up travelling………..watch this space!

So watch the skies for incoming, thank you for all of the kind comments please do keep spreading the disease/word as the blog is growing and that makes me a happier well o slightly happier ( I am still officially a misery the wife keeps telling me), for the rest of my time off I foresee music and snoozing in that order everybody else in the family is off working for the weekend and that is kind  of OK with me (in a selfish kind of way) I can indulge in my favourite pass time……….isolation, until I post the next one (Monday at the latest honest)…………………………Toodles!

Brute Force & Ignorance

I know, I know, stop kicking off at me, I have been busy, I got a life I had a small holiday from work, I had a small nervous breakdown at the end of said holiday, I fell out with the wife (again) I bought her some flowers (before we fell out D’oh) spiralled out into a bad case of overeating and general malaise and then I had to go back to work so that I could catch up with most of what I had missed, which in the grand scheme things was sod all, but it still did my head in, next time I have no intention of taking my works phone home with me, I know shit will happen even if I’m there or not , I need to stop stressing about what I have no control over, stop being passionate about my job and try and relax with the family………oops!

Not that all things were bad, just as always little things ate into my brains like two mad squirrels locked in a tin box that’s way too small for them, can you picture that scene, yes I know, I over think things, thankfully I am getting better as I get older (honest) I am in a much better place these days than I have been of late, I can’t help that I love my job, is that wrong? maybe it’s the fact not everybody else is in love with theirs and do as little as  they can possibly get away with, now that does drive me nuts.

For as long as I can remember I have always believed that the trajectory of us the human race has always been in a (I know I’m getting all philosophical on you lot) slow forward moving motion, OK so we did start off an initial burst of well ok we started with a bit of brute force and a hell of a lot of ignorance, but ever so slowly we improved as we pulled ourselves from the primordial sludge evolving (allegedly) into beings of a higher level of intelligence and compassion. I know I got that one way wrong (I’m hoping that what we are going through at the moment is just a momentary speed bump in the road of our evolution) as I sit and watch our world (again allegedly) evolve around us stupidity and violence seem to have the upper hand ( I don’t claim to be a rocket scientist but come on even I can see the problems).

We seem to have turned our intelligence against ourselves we continue to allow bad things to happen and we simply do not challenge them collectively simply because we are said to be “good people”  allegedly now I know most of you have been reading these blogs (and books) over a long period of time, you know even when I am full of doubt and pessimism and even despair at times I do try and overcome this, I don’t always succeed but I do at least try, we know that mad bad and dangerous things do happen, its all part of some great plan (or so we are told)  I am so hoping so and  that it’s not actually the Matrix after all, why not well simply because I never got the choice of a brightly coloured pill, I’m not a fan of mass drug taking anyway (alcohol was always the drug of my choice and I have not had a drop in over 5 months…..WTF) we normally (as a collective I’m not Clark Kent just a concerned onlooker) resolve the problem just in the nick of time and we simply continue on our way, but its getting harder and harder to do and sometimes I find other people in a similar funk as me at work distressed and disturbed, good honest hard working people, people who I care a lot about and don’t seem to have the ability to help them like I would or should be able to, again in other areas like feelings or simply in relationships, I now I’m aware it’s not just me!

Hippy Alert, I like being alive generally, I like most of the people who I associate with (mind you there’s millions of suggestions who Farcebook keep trying to foist onto me who I have no idea what’s so ever who the hell they are) by and large I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, that includes my ex partners or anybody else’s, life is way too short, but I also don’t want anybody raining on  mine, unfortunately  I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel and the matches that I have are wet because some fucker keeps pissing on them, I may be more mature these days but I also dwell on things in a more adult manner (allegedly) and I don’t like it, I’m not a huge fan of what is happening. I may be in the body of a middle aged man, but inside I’m still the same 15 year old who wants to listen to music, chase girls and drink beer occasionally and then for the process to start all over again, well maybe not the chasing girls bit (I don’t think I was ever that successful at it) so can I simply have double dose of music please, friends are seriously ill and I cant help them mentally or physically, and boy do I want to help them! the wife is not in a good space at the moment and again I keep trying to throw her a life belt but it always seems to on a rope that is way too short,  that doesn’t mean I’m not going to stop offering her my support if she needs  it. these things happen to everybody not just us, a little bit of luck would be nice every once in a while for everybody out there not just for me and mine, I feel that we are slipping backwards not forwards, since when do we stop helping our fellow man, we all need somebody at some time and if ever there is anything I can do to help please let me now, because if you help just one person trust me our lot will be an ever improving one, lets try and use the intelligence we were given and not fall into the trap that liars and the snake oil salesmen are trying to lump on us and a lot of us seem to be falling for it…………rant over honestly

Now this wasn’t the blog I intended, but its what has flowed from  my pen and keyboard today, so I’m going to post it and I will take the abuse and any kind comments that come my way, life is not a rehearsal you only get one chance make sure that you have an excellent road crew to assist you with load ins as well as load outs and that will get you through, friends come and go, people die people go through good times and bad times and I cant thank the people who have helped me over the years enough, you are some damn good peeps out there, whether they know it or not I will always be there for them, so for the future cunning plans abound (I just as always need to make it to pay day……again) watch for the skies as I have a historical one brewing, I simply do not know which band I want to write about, but I’m guessing it could be……………wait until the next blog to find out!

So keep spreading the disease as the numbers have been fantastic even during yet another sabbatical, honest I simply haven’t had the time, I have had the inclination but time rules everything, as soon as the numbers drop on this one the next one will appear, that’s a threat not a promise (me with my reputation) so until the next time …….I suppose its Toodles!