Two wasted trips the Newton Abbot.

On Thursday I made a mistake. Now regular readers will not believe this statement, having gathered from previous post that I am the prefect bus driver.
But I did.
This is what happened. A young lady got on in Torquay and asked for the Willows , a shopping complex on the outskirts of Torquay. She also asked if I could tell her when we got there. I explained that the bus did not got all the way to the Willows but that it was a ten minute walk after she got of the bus. She paid her fare and sat down.
Now I don’t have the best of memory for thing like remembering to tell people when they have arrived at their destination. I like to think about other things, such as driving the bus and what I am going to post here each evening. So I have a trick; I press Zero and C on the ticket machine and a piece of ticket roll emerges from the machine with “Not valid for Travel” printed on it. A paper feed we call it. This I stick on the ticket machine with a piece of blue tac I keep in the cash tray for just this propose. From then on each time I issue a ticket I remember “The Willows”. Bit like a knot in a hankie.
But before I could do this 4 people got on the bus and wanted to go to Paignton. By the time I had explained to them that the bus did not go to Paignton and where to get a bus to Paignton I had forgotten about the Willows and only remembered when the poor young lady came up to me in Newton and asked if we had reached the Willows yet.
This was definitely a “Hole in the Ground” moment. Eventually I dropped her of at the Willows 40 mins later than she should have got there. Mia Culpa, mia maxima culpa.

To day, Friday, it was a lady’s purse that made the trip to Newton and there was a happier ending. I dropped some people in Fleet Street in Torquay and one of then handed me a purse which she had found on the bus. I am always upset when this happens, some poor soul has lost some thing and probably needs it now but it may take two days before they get it back. Anyway I dropped the purse in my bag to hand it in when I finished my duty at 16:30. It was now 13:30. However 15 mins later an other driver got on the radio and asked if any driver who had left Torquay in the last 20 mins had found a purse. So I was able to tell the driver that I would be back in Torquay in 50 mins and be able to reunite the purse and owner.
A happy ending, I like happy endings.