Jonola14

BUS JOURNEY

Many thanks to Mark R for this account of our bus journey from Luton airport to Watford Junction on Monday afternoon:

'The bus is there when we get back to the airport so on we jump. Marvellous, what a stroke of luck we thought, as we hand over three whole new pounds and ten new pence. Cases dumped at the front, seats with legroom at the back. Excellent. Off we go.

Half an hour later we see a sign saying we are one mile from the airport. ONE MILE. We have also been via the local council estate and are now trying to understand the accent that the local sportswear-wearing native scutters are using, but it would seem that only they can understand each other when conversing entirely with one word beginning with F. Perhaps it was the tone, volume or speed they said it at that made the others understand...

At somewhere called Harpenden an odd bearded fellow sits in front of Jon and proceeds to make even odder gargling noises while twitching every thirty seconds.

My suitcase then falls loudly off the rack in the front. (Mother's tacky greek pot is intact you will be glad to hear). I rearrange it to block off two seats at the front. All the women that subsequently get on the bus want to sit in these two places. They all tighten their lips and look around to see whose it could be.

The odd man then tries to talk to two women in front of him. The younger one gets off and he follows her, pawing, panting, drooling and generally being leacherous.

3 young girls got on and surround Jon. They are sharing one lollipop. NICE. Then one of them decides her pot of foundation was 'manked up' and drops it, decorating the floor. It rolls under the seats and hits a nice pair of shoes on a woman near the front. The nice pair of navy shoes now have a foundation colour heal on the right shoe.

So much for the 45mins journey time quoted by the train station man.

2 young boys of negligible and undeterminable origin loudly went straight to the back. Five minutes later there is some sort of alarm. The rear emergency exit is now open. They move to the other side of the bus. BECAUSE OF COURSE IT WASN'T THEM. Oiks. Bus driver stops bus and shouts at them to shut it. They don't move. He calls them some sort of name and they shut it. Must have been a local dialect.

At 6.05, after nearly 2 hours we pull in to Watford, relieved that there was no attempted theft of our suitcases, but mentally scarred from the ordeal.'

Posted by jonola14 at October 1, 2003 03:17 PM