I seem to have spent most of today on buses. Well, that’s not strictly true. I got up reasonably early, after snoozing the alarm at least twice, and did my usual run round the village. A quick shower, some breakfast, a bit of tidying up and suddenly it was time to set off for the bus to the dentist’s. My appointment was for 1.30 but I was planning to catch an early bus in the hope that, arriving there earlier than scheduled, I might manage to be sneaked in ahead of my allotted time.
Manchester’s Bee Network buses were obviously against me!
The bus I aimed for never showed up. Or maybe it went very early, but I was at the bus stop almost 10 minutes before the timetabled time. If ir went at all it must have gone about 15 minutes early as I did not see a bus disappearing into the wide blue yonder as I approached the crossroads. And we have a clear sight of the crossroads as we approach. So, no, I reckon they just missed that bus out, which they sometimes do if they don’t have an available driver on that route. And to judge by the number of notices offering work driving buses that may well be the case.
So my careful planning was all to no avail. I arrived at the clinic with a few minutes to spare, saw my dentist, and calculated which bus to catch to reach the smallest grandchildren’s school in time for the regular Thursday pick-up. Buses from my dentist’s to Oldham town centre are advertised as being every minutes. Going in the opposite direction I should say they were much more frequent, but I had to wait 15 minutes.
At the bus station, in contrast, I was able to hop immediately onto a bus heading towards Greenfield, where the school is situated, or at least to Greenfield railway station, arriving there with just the right amount of time to walk down the main road to the school at the ether end of the village. Interestingly, the bus I caught from Oldham had a display, and an annoying voice, telling you which stop was coming up next. As the bus approached the Green Station stop, the screen gave information about which trains and at which times were available today from the railway station. What a good idea! All buses should do such things.
I collected the children and we eventually caught what was to be my final bus of the day. Arriving at our designated stop at the crossroads, we had a small delay, almost a rebellion, as the small boy determinedly tried to catch a ladybird which was climbing up the window inside the bus. Five-year-olds have no sense of urgency! We alighted in the end, apologising to the driver and the other passengers but leaving the ladybird behind.
In compensation I let him capture a woodlouse from the front garden and put it into s jar for observation. I was a little concerned that he might drop the thing and lose it in my living room but fortunately this did not happen. How is it that a child who can confidently handle woodlice, centipedes, worms and caterpillars makes a great fuss if there is a spider within close range?
So that was today! Oh, and Granddaughter Number One, all alone in her house as her housemate has gone away on holiday, came for a family tea, our regular Thursday scrambled eggs and a bit of salad before my daughter gives her father a lift to chess club with his various bits of equipment.
So here I am, writing an evening blogpost!
It seems that European Commission is trying tonpersuade people to be survivalists. According to this article, people in the EU are being advised to stockpile enough food, water and essentials for 72 hours as part of a European strategy that aims to increase readiness for catastrophic floods and fires, pandemics and military attacks. Because we have not been fighting each other we have grown complacent but natural disasters such as the flooding that devastated part of Spain and fires which caused major disruptionnin Greece apparently show that need to be prepared. Quite how having a stockpile will help if you are forced to evacuate your home remains a small problem.
It’s not just natural disaster. We are also warned of danger from military attack. I assume this is a bit of reinforcement for the story doing the rounds that Russia wants to attack some, if not all, of the countries of Europe. As Mr Trump talks about taking over Greenland, by military means if necessary, maybe it’s the USA we need to watch out for.
In the meantime, I have a couple of bottles of water, supplied by our daughter some time ago, maybe even years ago, when the water was cut off because of a supply problem. Is years-old bottled water still even drinkable? And we have a few tins of baked beans. Hardly a good survivalist stockpile. We might have to make use of the various Tupperware containers of home-made soup from the freezer.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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