Eish! London. 27 - 28 June

Saturday, 27 June
What a day! It began with a bout of lying in bed and feeling sorry for myself, which I decided was a ridiculous thing to be doing, so I took Jane up on her offer to join her in Borough (it’s an actual tube stop so I found out, and not a ‘borough’ like Camden). I put on my South African rugby top, found my way to Borough and took a wee while to find the pub they were in. Seriously, what did people do before cell phones?

The game was great, because South Africa won. Naturally the English and Irishmen supporting the Lions weren’t in agreement, and the referees, weather, injuries, red cards and the like were blamed. Goodness know the South Africans know how to do that in style when they lose ;-) The most entertaining part of the game for me was the Irishman who was at our table. I love the Irish! They have such an awesome sense of humour and such a light-hearted way of approaching life. Everything is about the craik, about having fun. I wish I had their approach to life; to just enjoy it!

I think the Irishman’s jovial stance on life and the merriment of it all rubbed off on me; because I remained surprisingly calm during the rest of the evening, when I could have ended up panicking. Jane and I left the pub to catch the tubes home. It was late afternoon and we gauged that it would take us about an hour and a half by weekend tube times, to get back up to North London. What mistake in estimation!

We were on the tube, one station from Baker Street when the train stopped in the tunnel. The tube was full and it was humid and sticky underground. We waited. I sipped my water. Half an hour later: still stuck. Eventually the train started to move slowly and terminated at Baker Street. Relieved to be off the tube Jane and I figured we were lucky because all we had to do now was catch the Metropolitan Line to Uxbridge. No, we were wrong. The rain had turned into an electrical storm which had cut off the electricity so there were no trains running. We’d been having a great afternoon and were not to be perturbed, so we decided to bus it. We went above ground to the bus stop. Thanks to my new found transport knowledge it was easy to use the bus stop map to make a plan to get to Preston Road. We waited. It was 18h00 and bus services reduce their times at 18h00 on the weekend. 15 minutes later our bus came passed, and kept on going: FULL. What to do? There were a few of us at the stop now. We looked at each other. I grinned at my rain drenched friend: “Hot chocolate?”
She grinned back: “Absolutely!”
We thoroughly enjoyed our cuppa in Baker Street. It was weird because I’d travelled underneath Baker Street so many times, but this was the first time I’d seen it from above. We sat by the big bay window looking at the passersby and chatting about the usual things: Work, Family, Friends, Men, Hopes and Dreams and The Good Things that lay ahead for us. The rain carried on falling, the people carried on walking and London was the bustle it always is as we watched the world go by.

With hot chocolate in our veins and the spirit of friendship keeping us sane; we went back to the bus stop: The same people were still waiting!
“Come on Jane,” I said, remembering my little 5 hour tube strike stint, “We need to go against the traffic to a stop further up.”
Jane didn’t agree with my theory, but decided to follow me anyway, I was now on a mission to get us home, filled with the faith that I knew exactly what I was doing…

The next stop was really busy too, and we arrived at the following one just in time to hop on and sit at the back. Others squashed on at the next stop and we ended up sitting behind these guys who were the creepiest, dirtiest men we had come across in London; speaking the harshest sounding language I had ever heard. The sounds were seriously unpleasant and the tone in which they spoke and looked at the two of us was disturbing. Jane was not happy, I was thinking: “Merriment of the Irish”, “ignore them”, besides there are always odd characters on buses when I travel around: The guys with their drinks in brown bags, the ones who talk, sing or laugh with themselves, the ones who pass out (just like the guy who was on Jane’s left hand side), the ones who swear and shout, those who haven’t bathed, or who don’t have bus fare and try their luck anyway. Buses are entertaining microcosms of the areas in which they run. In the ‘upper class’ areas there are Waitrose and Marks and Spencer shoppers who speak in very posh voices; the mixes are always quite fascinating. Jane offered me some more anti-bacterial hand wash for the second time in ten minutes. Yes, the men near us were dodgy.

“This bus is terminating here. Ensure you take all your belongings with you.” What? Where were we? It was dark now and I had no idea where we were. Jane looked panicked. Luck of the Irish? Oh dear. We got off the bus and I started to pray. The driver couldn’t tell us when the next bus was coming, but his shift was over. We went to the road sign, the bus we were on wasn’t supposed to stop here! There were no buses from this stop heading in our direction. The rain was starting to get heavier. The stores near us were closed and the off licenses had beer holders lurking in their doorways. The men at the bus stop were the kinds who check you out like they check out the lycra-clad, very-mini skirt women on street corners. The women seemed tough. I walked up to the top of the street, no road signs visible. I went back to the stop, don’t panic; pray: Lord please help us.
“Come Jane, let’s head up this way.”
“OK.” Jane wanted to just get going as much as I did. Get out of the rain and the dark, out of a place where we didn’t feel safe, and home as soon as possible. We reached a crossroad and turned left to face a church. As we turned a bus was coming towards us with a left indicator on. It was our bus! “Jane we have to run.” Déjà vu: we were running to catch a bus again, at least this time we didn’t have luggage and no-one was sick. We made it! We had the right bus! Amen! And the heaven’s opened to empty bathtubs of rain over London.

There were no seats, so we stood in the middle of the bendy bus. (A ‘bendy bus’ is a bus where two buses are joined head to toe. Where the second bus’s driver would sit is a concertinaed join instead.) These buses are not the safest and you have to be very careful if you are standing in the concertinaed area. While we were standing there this little boy, maybe about 10 years old, was kicking, punching and almost trying to break the concertina. The teacher in me spoke out and I told the boy quietly that it wasn’t safe to do what he was doing and he should sit down. Boy did I get it from his mother! How dare I speak to her son? How dare I tell her son what to do? Who do I think I am?
“I’m sorry ma’am, but I actually work in transport safety and your son is in danger doing what he is doing. I was only concerned about his safety.”
“Mind your own business! He can do what he likes.”
Jane was flabbergasted and I was pissed off. If that child did break anything, then he would be endangering everyone on the bus, never mind possibly losing his life! Jane reverted to speaking Durban-style Afrikaans (as we had done on the previous bus): “Wie is sy? Dis sy kind! Jy wil net help. Hoekom sê sy dit?” (Who is she? It’s her child! You just wanted to help. Why did she say that?)
“Hulle maak my woedend! Dis nie hulle bus nie, almal is heir op. Ek sien hierdie mense in my klaskamer, daar is niks wat jy kan doen nie.” (They make me very mad! It’s not their bus, we are all on it. I see these people in my classroom, there’s nothing you can do.)
The two of us waited in disgust for our stop. At least the boy had stopped mucking around with the concertina. Ignorance can be so very dangerous.

Our bus reached Wembley Central and we jumped out for our bath in the rain to catch another bus to Preston Road. We’d only be home after 22h00 now. Ridiculous. Thank the Lord the last two buses had been quick ones to catch. As we stood on the last one every single window was steamed up, so I carried on with my Irish merriment and drew happy faces in the windows with my finger whilst singing: “Singing in the Rain.” Jane laughed and we sang along with each other in the overwhelming relief that home wasn’t far away now. By the time I got home the rain had soaked through everything. For the first time since living in the house, the little trickle of a shower felt like cleanliness from heaven.

Even the housemates and their random friends arriving back from a party wasn’t going to be able to faze me tonight. All I wanted was sleep; they were, however, in a very happy, promiscuous mood after lots of alcohol and South Africa winning the rugby. After snuggling into my duvet and managing to start to doze, I was awoken by people having sex next door. It was so infuriatingly inconsiderate and the one thing that will stop anyone from being able to sleep; but what was so sad for me was that she clearly said: “No,” and he clearly wanted a “Yes.” And he won. All I saw the next morning was a friend of a housemate who was not only hung-over, but seemed so upset and disappointed in herself that it made my heart sore for her. He didn’t seem to want to have much to do with her.

Sunday, 28 June
I bought new earplugs.