As a child, I bemused my parents, particularly my mother, by my almost obsessive fascination with buses. Not in a trainspotter-ish way, you understand, but as a user. Over a long monsoon in Mumbai as a five year old, I spent hours looking out of the bedroom window, counting buses and wondering where they went. And, as soon as I was allowed out on my own or, in Mumbai, with a doting grand uncle, I was riding buses further and further afield, visiting family or just exploring.
Growing up into a non-driver - I still haven't gone as far as even taking a driving lesson - buses, and public transport in general - became a part of my life, albeit generally in an urban setting. Luckily, as a Londoner, there was no shortage of buses and, no matter how far you went, you could always get home. And one should thank Ken Livingstone for that, to some extent. I even managed to get a holiday job as a result, admittedly for my father, locating poster sites and marking them against a scale of his devising. It was an enjoyable, and mildly lucrative, way of spending my summer.
It was only upon moving to Mid Suffolk that I began to realise that buses were not something to be taken for granted. Upon asking Ros when the buses to Creeting St Peter ran, her answer (Thursday) came as something of a surprise. And, since then, my bus rides have been restricted to an occasional treat. until yesterday, that was...
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