Friday 6 December 2019

The bus service to the hospital

is not something I am familiar with as I do not use buses. It is years since I travelled on a bus. I cannot take my tricycle on a bus.
But Middle Cat is in the neighbouring capital city and the Senior Cat needed things. I could have asked a number of people. All of them would have willingly dropped what they were doing and ferried me up the hill to the hospital. 
I could also get myself there if I could work out how to do it.
I thought about this. I looked at the local transit site on the internet. I considered the hazards of crossing roads but the bus terminal is directly outside the hospital. There is no need to cross a busy road up there. The cars at the drop off and pick up point have to watch for patients and others with varying degrees of mobility. I am not the snail in this situation.
And this end I could pedal my trike to a bus stop and lock it to the shelter.
All that remained was to get across the road - once. I could do that couldn't I? It is not that busy a road. On the way home I would be on the side where my tricycle was parked. I would pedal across the road.
I parked and locked and was about to cross the road when a very elderly man alighted from the bus going in the other direction. He stood nervously on the edge of the footpath peering anxiously in both directions. Two cars went past. He was about to step out when a car came in the other direction. 
I decided that a driver was more likely to see two of us together and slow down because of it.
    "I'm going over to the other bus stop," I told him.
    "Thank you," he said, "I've come too far. I need to go back to stop nineteen. I told the driver but he forgot."
I had timed my arrival so as not to wait too long and the bus was only a couple of minutes late. 
We boarded and the very elderly man explained what had happened.
    "You sit there mate," the driver told him, "And out the front door when we get there."
We arrived at stop nineteen. The driver stopped. As the elderly man was getting out and nearly lost his balance the driver got out too.
    "Do you need to cross the road?" he asked
    "Yes, I can..."
    "Mate, I'm going to see you across the road."
Perhaps it took a minute and the driver made up some lost time before being held up by the road works near the hospital.
There were two other passengers on the bus besides myself. At our destination the other two left, as required, by the central door. The driver looked at me though and said,
     "Out the front door love. Don't want any accidents...and the old chap told me you had seen him across the road."
Little did he know how grateful I was that the old man needed some help!
I managed to sneak out the front door on the way back too.

1 comment:

jeanfromcornwall said...

The bus driver is one of those valuable people who sees his job as more than just driving. Would that they were all like that!