The journey so far has been eventful. There was a broken down bus just yards south of (before) my stop. It was stopped in the outer of two lanes. In the inside lane was a van parked on a double red. All the North bound traffic had to go onto the southbound carriageway, yet the southbound traffic insisted on its right to two lanes.
The bus I got on was packed out. The driver kept telling people to move down even though there was no space to move into. Nevertheless, at each stop he let more people on, and each time asked us to move down. At the penultimate stop before Brixton, a man standing close to the driver's cab said quite loudly, "The irony is that 90% of people will get off at Brixton."
The bus approached the stretch of road with three bus-stops opposite the Tube, in the outside lane, passing all other buses and stopping only at the red traffic light for the pedestrian crossing. People, myself included, began to mutter things like 'bus-stop'. As the driver passed the Body Shop and was heading for M&S, somebody asked him to stop and let us off. He protested that nobody had rung the bell (to my mind, a feeble excuse) - someone said that he ought to know everyone gets off at the Tube. (Brixton is said to be the busiest non-interchange Underground station in London. In truth it interchanges with at least a dozen bus routes bringing a ceaseless throng from four directions).
Someone else pointed out that it wasn't a request stop, therefore he was obliged to stop. A chorus resonated of "Yeah, not a request stop". Bemused, exasperated glances were exchanged. I contributed a "It's Monday morning - welcome to a new week." (There's always one embarrassing hag making stupid remarks, and it's often me!)
After work I had a bizarre conversation with someone I used to work with up until five years ago. We were, I think, 'friends-in-the-workplace', often discussing a wide range of subjects over a cigarette, but not close enough to stay in touch after I left. I explained where I was working; he asked me whether I had moved. I wasn't entirely sure what he meant. I think I would have seen him the Christmas after I left, when I had just finished a short-term contract with an accountancy firm. But perhaps he thought I was still at the old place. Whenever I see people from there, they give the impression of time never having moved on, as if they're still on the same old treadmill they were back in 98. Whereas I am on my sixth job since then, and have an entirely different outlook on audit, and, last week no withstanding, work in general.
And finally today, I cam to a dreadful dreadful dreadful conclusion. Dreadful, anyway, for an English woman's who's a quarter Irish. I think I have a slight intolerance to tea. Not 'Bel's tea, which was most welcome this afternoon, but the stuff I get out of the cupboard at work. every afternoon at work I have a slight ickiness. I've blamed it on quasi-flu; I've blamed it on the air-conditioning; I've blamed it on colleagues. But, the ickiness is a milky feeling that makes me burp. I drink milk by the quart at home, so it's not milk. I can only conclude it's tea. I shall have to change my habits of my entire adulthood of spending the afternoon guzzling tea by the bucketful.
