Taking the Bus

This bus pic is by

Les Chatfield from Brighton, England

Something's badly wrong at Entrecard right now. None of the drops I made on Sunday registered, nor the ones I've just done. Fortunately the time was not wasted because I do my EC drops while I do Adgitize clicks. I sent EC a message this morning about their scanner not recognising the widget on my pages. I wonder how many of those they've received. The one good thing is that if you click on an EC widget, you still get to the site so at least we can all still get some benefit that way.

Yesterday I was oblivious of all this as I did nothing online except check my emails and send a couple. I took the rest of the day off and had a bus ride to Dorchester with my hubby, using our free senior passes. The bus takes about three times as long as a car trip, but it goes around lots of little Dorset villages that we know of but haven't yet been to, and we enjoyed seeing them from our vantage point at the front of the top deck. I took note of the fact that the Martyr Museum at Tolpuddle was very close to Athelhampton House & Garden, two places that are on my list to visit sometime soon.

In Dorchester, we strolled a round and checked out the shops, then met up with friends for lunch in the Kings Arms, the splendid looking hotel in the middle of the high street. It was built in the early 18^th century but has recently had a bit of a face lift. The food was good and the company great, and when we paid the bill, the manager came over to thank us for our custom and invite us to use the car park when we come again. As long as we buy a cup of coffee, we are welcome to leave the car there for a few hours. That made us feel welcome and comfy, and it was a really good marketing ploy. There's plenty of competition for meals in the town, and many of them would be cheaper, though not better value, I reckon.

Anyway we finally and reluctantly moved out of the cosy bar area, which had two log fires burning, and back into the cold of the street, and we went our separate ways. But we were in for a cold and anxious time, because our bus didn't turn up. It was the last one which would take us all the way home, as well as the schoolchildren from the surrounding villages, so it was a bit of a mystery. When it was nearly half an hour overdue, hubby phoned the bus company, to be told that they'd had a breakdown but put on another bus which was due to arrive any time. As he finished the call, it came around the corner to our stop, having already been to the school.

We got on the bus and the driver apologised for our wait and asked us where we wanted to go. We took our seats and enjoyed listening to the light hearted banter of the schoolchildren, whose numbers steadily lessened as we stopped at Puddletown, Tolpuddle, Alfpuddle and Briantspuddle. Eventually we arrived at Bere Regis and the last of them alighted, at which point the driver came upstairs to tell us he was now taking the bus out of service and would take us directly to our home bus stop before returning to Dorchester. Apparently there was another bus about to start there and do the rest of the route. So our bus became a rather large free taxi for the two of us.

When we did get off the bus, I thanked the driver and apologised for making him drive so far. But he wasn't a bit put out “Not at all,” he said with a lovely smile. “I apologise to you for making you wait so long.” I had been thinking I wouldn't be repeating the bus riding experience, but that made me think again.