Public transport, a tetchy subject for most I’m sure and when our peticular subject (me! how about that…) was having trouble with it in the morning, she would be more than willing to spread the news of how useless it is. “The government wants people to start using buses! But why should we if the service is unreliable!” she cries freely in her mind, sandwiched between strangers in the slow moving stuffy bus as it strains up hills, listening to the dull mindless prattle of some dance students. Oh I’m almost certain they might be nice people, she says in her defence, but my mind wasn’t so easy to consider.
So at last the metal being comes to a chugging stop outside her destination, and in a careful sweep she leaves the aweful place behind to skim a quick dash across the road to stand in the morning cold with other students, in the morning run of the Trent Park circular. But where is it, she wonders as the waiting students numbers increase, it’s meant to run every fifteen minutes! Or so it was, but I guess all buses are the same. You wait ages for one…
And at last two came along, much needed for the array of students awaiting its arrival. And so she hopped on, her mind constantly on that ticking clock, and the awaiting lecture room… was she to be late?
As her heavily booted feet climed the small amount of stairs, and her eyes caught a familiar face, and that casual hum of chatter, pre-lecture, she knew she was there in the nick of time.
An hour passed slowly. Talk of yesterdays imaginings filling the air with laughter.
Elephant vampires? (Yeah, cos you think those are tusks right?).
What wonders those three spoke of we shall never know (except them of course, but that’s beside the point).
Two hours now passed through lectures based on photographic journalism, and the effects of empire (because that fit in how?) and soon the sweet cool air was to wash over their sleepy faces and awaken them in time for a seminar. So soon after two lectures, was their outcry, but a journey to the room was all they ever made. And so they sat within the room, and for the time that past it was stories to be made about lives of possible ancestors, only to have them ruined (or in my case down graded to a mere servant from an almost respectable nanny!). Jokes were to be said, and laughter to be had as the atmosphere lightened (at the clearly “well though out” burst of “you’re a viking”). And soon time was up, and the seminar was over and it was a two hour slot to be filled before the end of the day. And so she and her friends advanced towards the Union, while the one with the big hair joked (although he was sooooo serious) about his past ancestor being a Sultan called Ali Baba, an Arabian name pointed about by the other, and so jokes ensued of a flying carpet, a magic lamp, a pet monkey and “aaarrabiiiiaan niiiights!” and so forth.
Lunch was short and sweet, until the arrival of the final seminar, that was almost due to be cancelled (much to manys delight) only for the problem to be solved.
Someone came along with a bastard key to open the door. *scowl*.
A short sweet lesson on peoples stories based on a page of a few pictures. Death and destruction was on most peoples minds. Concerning? Only when they were fronted with an array of pictures that could suggest no other! At least then we had no trouble with keeping the stories real. Unfortunatly.
And so the end came. Up aboard the bright white beast and out towards the public space. It was a matter of catching one of the ugly putrid metal beast, only to be denied after half an hour of waiting. It was too full. And so she waited with the one with big hair for another half hour to pass, whilst speaking of many things, of many wisdoms, of bog rolls, oh wait sorry, I mean blog rolls, of Michael Jackson, of family and other. And so they positioned themselves cleverly where the bus would open its door, and as the great beast came roaring around the corner it did so stop, for them to finally venture home, for a long awaited rest.
lol
