Wednesday 31 October 2007

A Change Is As good As A Rest.

Well I hope it will be. This morning when I got to work that nice kind allocations officer made it known to me that he would like a word, he shouted, "Hay; you." in my general direction. He asked me if I would mind changing duties next week and as I have a bit of a favour to ask him in a few weeks time I agreed. Turned out I would have agreed anyway as the new duty has no 12As in it. I don't go within 3 miles of Long Road and the road works that are due to start on Monday and as regular readers will know, last 39 weeks. The week after that I am on holiday for 3 weeks so I will miss the first 4 weeks of the fun down at the college. There is a slight drawback to the new duty in that I will have to do a trip on the 34 route. It has been 3 years since I last drove a 34 and there have been a couple of slight changes to the route. I will just have to ask the passengers the way.


Today was Egg Throwing day. Egg Throwing Day is relatively new to England. We certainly didn't do it when I was a boy. Back then if we happened to have an egg about our person we would have eaten it, not thrown it at a passing bus. One bus was hit so many times on the front windscreen the passengers had to be put on the next bus and that bus withdrawn from service. That meant only one bus an hour instead of 30 minutes, a long wait if you are on your way home after a hard day at work. And one woman, who's son had been caught throwing eggs last year said, "It's only a bit of harmless fun." Make her stand at a bus stop for half an hour in the cold with hordes of egg throwing children wandering the streets from egg selling shop to bus pelting point back to egg selling shop and then ask her if it is harmless fun. Look at the photo of my bus. One egg hit the window by the baby buggy space. Baby had been sleeping quietly but spent the rest of the journey screaming after several eggs hit the bus all at once. Also passengers will be looking at that egg for weeks now. Egg, once it sets is very difficult to get off.

And finally; a female passenger, a holidaymaker, asked me if I went to Golden Park. "No." I truthfully replied. "Yes you do." Was her reply. I explained that I had been driving along the 12 route for 9 years and I had never heard of Golden Park so it could not be on the 12 route. I would have come across it by now if it was. So she now asked what bus she should get to Golden Park. I spoke slightly slower with my next reply which was." I have never heard of Golden Park so how would I know what bus goes there?" As she got of the bus she told me and everyone within 20 yards that all the bus drivers in Torquay were stupid. I did suggest she went to Brighton next year for her holidays. Sorry Brighton. Maybe she misheard me and will go to Blackpool instead.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Halloween time in Liverpool can be horrific Dave, one of our lads got both sides of his windscreen smashed by bricks last night, yes, they dont use eggs much down here, its more fun for them using bricks !Its frickin annoying, especially when an idiot like that woman says its only harmless fun ! Try telling that to the kid, who was part of a gang of youths causing mayhem (allegedly) and was running from the Police(alledgedly,he ran into the path of an oncoming Stagecoach bus and was killed !

GW.

Anonymous said...

One of our buses had two windows shattered and the doors damaged by brick throwing kids 'having fun' in Thanet last night too

Buncha said...

Yep we also had hard boiled eggs in London. Five buses with smashed windows and two drivers assaulted. We only operate 101 of the 8000 London buses, I'd like to know the figures London wide. It must cost the company's a fortune.

Mind you ive got an allotment, might go get some chickens and make some money next year.

Anonymous said...

Apparently in Liverpool it's called "mischief night". Unfortunatley, some youths were trying to launch fireworks at oncoming vehicles, result:
On of the group got hit by a Stagecoach bus and died.

Not clever

Mac an Lir said...

Golden Park Avenue is in Torquay off Barton Hill Road and Barchington Avenue.