I’m seriously considering writing a very angry letter to TFL this evening. I’ll probably always remember today as the day I spent well over half an hour waiting for a bus. I’d been having quite a pleasant afternoon up until that point, going up to Stratford and trundling along the regents canal. It’s a route I’ve taken a few times before, and have grown fond of.  When I got as far as Camden, though, it was approaching time to head home, so I found the nearest bus stop, intending to get a bus down to a Jubilee Line tube station. 

Ordinarily that wouldn’t have been an issue, but today it seemed no bus was going to let me on. The first bus had a pram in the wheelchair space: that got to me slightly, but I let it slide. The driver assured me that another bus would be along soon. He was quite right, but when the second bus came the ramp turned out to be broken and wouldn’t extend. The poor driver spent about fifteen minutes trying to get it to work, during which time the other passengers on the bus were getting increasingly Impatient. In the end I suppose he did the only really fair thing that he could do: he gave up with the ramp and drove off, leaving me to wait for the next bus again.

Needless to say, by then I was getting rather irritated. My temper became considerably shorter, however, when I saw a mum approaching the bus stop I was at with a pram, clearly wanting to get on the same bus I did. Let’s just say, her body language made her intent clear, and I wasn’t happy about it. If she nicked my spot on the next bus, all hell would have broken loose.

As it turned out, neither of us were able to get onto the next bus as it was already occupied by a lady in a scooter. I know I can’t really complain about that, although a small grumpy part of me thinks old people who use scooters shouldn’t qualify for the bus wheelchair space because they played no part in the decades long campaign to get busses accessible. Either way I was then left to wait again.

By then I had been sitting at the same bus stop for about half an hour. Heads were going to roll for this, I told myself. Then, when the next bus appeared about five minutes later, would you believe it there were two prams in the wheelchair space. Fortunately at that point my luck changed though. The driver of this bus had presumably been told what had happened with the last three, as he told the mums with the prams to get off and leave the space for me. I always feel slightly guilty when that happens, but the rules are the rules, and that space was very hard won indeed.

I just got home tired and rather hungry. An afternoon which started off as quite a nice trundle turned out to be something of an ordeal. In my twelve years living in London, I’ve never had so much trouble with the busses. They usually work quite seamlessly, yet today, perhaps because of where I was in central London, nothing seemed to go right. I suppose it has to be expected from time to time; but being unable to get on bus after bus, four in a row, really does get to you.