The joys of public transport around Greater Manchester.

Yesterday, a fine and sunny but windy day, was one of those days when you get up, get started and just carry on all day. In my case it went something like this: get up bright and early, put a load of washing in the washing machine, do some exercise, shower and get ready for the rest of the day, organise breakfast, hang the washing up to dry, rush out to travel to Manchester, meet an old friend as previously agreed, go on to my Italian class, travel home, keeping my fingers crossed that the travel worked out okay, serve up gourmet leftovers, watch a bit of TV and collapse into bed with my book!

My travels yesterday were full of incident of one kind or another from the very start. I hopped on a bus heading for Oldham in the mid to late morning. The bus arrives at the crossroads, goes into the village, turns round by weaving its way through a housing estate and then goes back to crossroads before finally turning towards Oldham. Yesterday it got stuck weaving its way through the housing estate. Someone had cleverly parked a car very close to a corner, preventing the bus from being able to swing round properly. Well, the driver could have done so if he had not minded scraping or even taking a wing off the car. Several local residents popped out to see what was going on but were unable to identify the car or its owner. The bus driver contacted his company who advised him to contact the local police. The bus was clearly going nowhere, at least not for a good while. Some people got off and went home. Three of us shared the cost of a taxi to Oldham. Thank goodness I had got on before the bus went into the village. Otherwise I might have been waiting for ages for a bus which was unable to get out of the village.

On the tram into Manchester, I was amused to see a very mismatched couple. She was wrapped up in a warm jacket, scarf round her neck, woolly hat on her head, warm gloves on her hands. It was a wild and windy day but this was a little exaggerated! He, on the other hand, wore a hoody with the sleeves pushed up and long shorts: his legs and feet were bare and the latter were pushed into flipflops. Yes, the sun was shining but ... the only thing they seemed to have in common was sunglasses.

The friend I met in Manchester declined my invitation to lunch at the Manchester Art Gallery, where they offer a very good home-made soup. She was happy, she declared, with coffee and cake. We caught up on all our news and set the world to rights. She bemoaned the fact that her daughter, a civil servant, is turning progressively more right wing. Despite having voted "Remain", she has just accepted a promotion that makes her a big wheel in the Brexit committee within the treasury. This slide to conservatism, with a small c or a large C, seems to my friend to be almost inevitable. She was almost inconsolable but the cake helped!

Waiting later for bus to take me from Piccadilly to Ardwick, where my Italian class is now now located, I was treated to the delights of two teenage boys, probably around 14 years old, amusing each other by phoning girls and swearing at them at the top of their voices. I did think about remonstrating with them; you can grow tired of hearing "f...ing bitch" over and over again. However, there was nobody else at the bus stop and I chickened out. I did not want their evident misogyny to turn on me when I had no back-up. Besides, the bus came quite quickly.

My return journey was expedited by a friend from the Italian class giving me a lift to Piccadilly to catch the tram for the first stage of the journey. Waiting for the second connecting tram at Manchester Victoria, I saw a man going round asking everyone if they could sell him a cigarette, despite smoking being prohibited on the platform and his having a small child in a buggy. The tram arrived and he was suddenly joined by a woman, presumably the mother of the child. They did not sit side by side, as might be expected. He sat behind her. The tiny child sat in the buggy and was alternately ignored and growled at by both parents. After belching loudly and resonantly, the father picked up the child and proceeded to use her to torment the mother, dangling the poor little thing by her arms over the mother's head. Eventually she upped sticks and moved further down the tram. The child was returned to the buggy - phew, what a relief! The father later followed the mother down the tram, taking the child in the buggy but leaving his coat on the seat. Drunk as a skunk and in the middle of an argument was my conclusion. They got off before I did, he having retrieved his coat.

The last stage of my journey back from Manchester on Tuesday is always a bit hit and miss. There is a bus from Oldham to Delph at 19.28 and I spend the last part of my tram ride watching the clock. If I miss the bus, there is not another for an hour and I often give in and get a taxi. Yesterday evening I alighted from the tram and spotted my bus waiting at the stop. A sprint got me there before the bus left. In fact the driver and a companion were discussing matters and not letting anyone on board. It transpired that this was not my bus but a completely different bus with a number that refused to change.

My heart sank. I was prepared for my second taxi of the day when, suddenly, my bus appeared, only eight minutes late. Sometimes things work out right. I managed to travel the rest of the way without further problems or items of sociological interest!