So glad I don't get the bus any more...

...from London Bridge...it's heart breaking to have to join the back of a queue like that on a Monday morning!

Christmas Railway Fun!

Just got a *very* good bit of news - I only have to cover one day between Christmas and New Years (the 31st) *and* I can do that cover snuggled into my duvet with a laptop (instead of trying to get into London)...

The reason that this is *very* good news, instead of just ordinary good news is the fact that between the 25th of December and the 1st of Jan they are basically going to shut down the railway between Brighton and London (major building works at Gatwick airport, working on the wonky signals that fail all the time in town and *totally* ripping out the huge great rickety junction outside Purley station and making a shiny brand new one)...pretty much the only way into London Bridge from the South of England is going to be hopping on a replacement bus (and praying)...

This would be fine (and probably a nice adventure) apart from the fact that Flyingpops (at that stage) is going to be just a handful of weeks from the new baby being due and I *really* don't want to be stuck in London (if "The Call" comes) waiting around for a replacement bus service (not normally terribly new/reliable buses) to shudder into view and then wend it's merry way through central London/East Croydon/Purley and the Purley way (during the sales) finally to deposit me half an hour's walk away from the hospital (goodness only knows how many hours later)...

So that's one less (big) thing to worry about...now able to look forward to my (apart from that one day of cover) twelve days (off) of Christmas! :)

The Emergency Exit...

...from the Shuttle Bus...hope I never need it... ;)

Tower Bridge and Routemaster Bus

You *couldn't* ask for a much more clichéd shot of London, quite frankly... ;)  The guy actually slowed down when he spotted me struggling to frame the shot and waved!  I gave him a big thumbs up back... ;)

Found the Sun Bus...

Found the Sun Bus...
Originally uploaded by finkangel.

Car in the middle of Woodlands Road

Why, oh why does this sort of thing always seem to happen to me? Especially when I'm supposed to be hurrying home to babysit Thomas...thought I was doing quite well to start with, managed to score a "fast" bus yesterday from Redhill (the one that goes via the hospital *before* going half way round the rest of Surrey) got as far as Woodlands Road and a car rolled backwards, directly across the road in front of us and pulled suddenly to a halt, then proceeding to just sit there (as you can see it above), we waited, and waited as a little traffic jam formed on either side of it until finally I decided I had waited long enough and told the driver I would hop off and go and see what was going on, when I got up there a small group of local residents had begun to gather around it (having come out to discover why quite so many car horns were suddenly blaring out in their quiet little road) and it quickly became apparent that there was no driver in it! Evidently what had happened was that the handbrake had either *partially* failed, or wasn't applied properly enough to counteract gravity and it had bumped itself down into the road (completely blocking it) and then (miraculously) managed to reapply itself *just* before it struck the two cars parked on the opposite side of the road...I spoke to the residents, they said they knew who the owner was, but they had tried and there was no answer from their door...a little frustrated I tried to push the car (on my own) but the handbrake (of course) was now firmly wedged on...the bus driver tried in vain to reverse up the road (more cars and buses kept on arriving behind us), some of the residents announced the police had been called, but despite much false hope (sirens in the distance that then just faded away) no rescue arrived. Eventually nurses due for start of their shifts at the hospital were forced to give up and start walking the rest of the way and then, when I had almost decided that I was going to have to do the same a bloke appeared next to me, as I was giving another desperate shove to the back of the vehicle and announced that you can trick a handbrake into disengaging (momentarily) by bumping the back of the car up and down, we did this, and lo and behold, it moved - just a little bit - at this two other people from the crowd, heartened by our minor success, came and joined in, and so, with much bumping and huffing and shoving, we managed to get the car back up onto the drive, calling out (fairly urgently) for bricks (before it rolled back and ran us all over) which duly appeared from the garden of a lady from over the road...the bus driver was extremely grateful (having done absolutely nothing to help) and I got a few smiles and waves from the remaining couple of passengers when I got back on board, but of course everyone we picked back up along the way had no idea of my role in their rescue, so I had to content myself with modesty (and only being half an hour later than usual)...

A Little Adventure...

So on Sunday, Thomas and I got kicked out of the house by Flyingpops (for simplicity reasons due to extensive cleaning requirements) and decided to pop over to Horsham to see Nanny and Granddad (And "Cat!", And "Dog!", as Thomas pointed out)...

In what should have been a relatively simple exercise - we set off for our exciting adventure, well - just as soon as we had finished watching the F1, anyway - (Thomas practically running out to the pram, ten minutes too early, when he was offered the prospect of seeing a train - reacting like we had just had to explain to him that Santa Claus didn't really exist and he was going to have to sleep in the shed from now on when we asked him to come back inside for just "one minute", requiring we both wrestle him back into the house, fending off flying limbs and Toddler language that would have been unprintable, even had it been comprehensible)...

It all went a bit downhill from there...

First, we discovered that the next available train to Horsham from the train station that we could easily walk to (naturally) was at 6am the following day, so we shrugged and pushed our way to the hospital to try and catch a bus (which was 22 minutes late, and almost completely full by the time it finally wobbled around the roundabout)...then we learned that the fare had gone up by 10 pence so we didn't have the correct change (which was greeted with very little enthusiasm by the designated driver), despite this, Thomas clutched my ticket (apparently for dear life) as I desperately tried to stop his pram falling over while we screeched around the corners nervously singing "The Wheels on the Bus", during which Thomas continuously frowned with ill concealed concern at the peculiar and precarious position in which I had apparently decided to place him (which admittedly bore very little resemblance to the words coming out of my mouth)...

More by luck than anything else, we arrived, slightly ruffled, in Redhill and spent 10 minutes standing behind an elderly gentleman who clearly didn't know how to use the ticket machine (but was trying very hard anyway) he finally gave up, after several rejected offers of help, and walked straight through the open barriers without one (which he could have just done in the first place) we followed suit (with our long-awaited ticket) and then realised that it was going to be impossible to get up to the correct platform from that direction due to the enormous quantity of stairs...so we went back the way we came, crossed back across the road and puffed half way up Redstone Hill to the other entrance, banging noisily on the locked gate to Platform three for five minutes until a sleepy guard appeared to let us in...

We spent a very happy twenty minutes waiting for our first (and as it happened, only) train, Thomas pointing and shrieking as all the trains we didn't want zoomed merrily past, saying "Train, Useful!" - which, in my experience (at least) they often aren't, however Rev. W. Awdry (and his son, Christopher) appear to have already successfully convinced Thomas otherwise...I'll leave Southern Trains to complete his education on the matter when he is older...

At Gatwick Airport the train absolutely filled up with French people, who all appeared to need the toilet (which we, of course, were blocking with the pushchair), but at least that stopped me managing to change Thomas' nappy in the tiny cubical (I was terribly sad not to be able to avail myself of that opportunity, as you can imagine) and then we disembarked at Three Bridges, only requiring the assistance of three foreigners not to tip Thomas down between the train and the platform, as we hopped lightly out...after we had both calmed down (with the help of a box of sultanas), Thomas politely exclaimed "Bye bye train, bye bye peoples", and gave them all a little wave...

Finding, to my very great relief, after peering down a very long flight of rather dark stairs, that Three Bridges many platforms are accessible via elevator (thanks to a kindly guard), we then discovered (to some, not inconsiderable, dismay) that the reason 40 men in high visibility jackets were standing around supervising one person with a laser spirit level (up above us), was that our onward journey to Horsham was not to be by another train, but by a replacement bus service...to this piece of news, Thomas promptly fell fast asleep, my phone battery died and I spent the rest of the 40 minute journey wishing I had brought any book with me other than "My First Animal Words" (which Thomas hadn't even glanced at)...

It probably would have been easier to QWOP into Mordor (I'll let you Google it)...Lunch was delicious though... ;)

New London Bus unveiled!

...and if you ask me it looks pretty ninja!

Redhill bus station - Patterns of Squares

Believe it or not I actually saw something I liked about Redhill bus station the other day (while I was sat around awaiting transportation)...the clever arrangement of white dots on the various glass surfaces means that from certain angles they line up into neat little perspective enhancing patterns...for some reason that pleased me (or the borderline autistic bit of me anyway) a very great deal...someone definitely put the 3D preview mode on their shiny CAD machine to good use... ;)

I'll go back into the corner of my padded room now...

Grafitti on the 435 Bus

Spotted this on the 435 the other night on the way home from Redhill...nothing odd you may think, a bit of grafitti on the bus - quite the usual number of individuals seem to be "gay", oddly named people are still routinely announcing that they are "4" other oddly named people and colourful meaningless scribbles that wouldn't look out of place in a 3 year old's colouring book are all perfectly in place just as normal...so what did I spot that made me smile?

In a medium that lends itself (on occasion) to acts of considerable creativity, and is as flexible as any artists pad, what form of expression is starting to appear that I (for one) have never seen before?

It's (most oddly) those used in the *extremely* inflexible creative medium (in a graphical sense) - the text editor - yes, people are using marker pens to grafitti simple ASCII text character representations of images...

<3 - a heart
(y) - as in choose (y) or (n), confirming the gayness as the correct option chosen
=] - an alternative smiley face

The mind boggles...  :S

Redhill Bus Station - Display

Wow...look! They have managed to get the display that shows when the next bus is due (partially) working! It's only been missing/down or sitting in "test mode" for four and a half months and all of a sudden, here we show it displaying when the next three 435's are due, none of the other buses of course, but at least the 435 is one of the ones I am interested in...the only thing that confuses me, however, is that it was working absolutely perfectly before they tore down the old structure...so quite why they couldn't just carefully unplug it, smash the old building down and build the new one and then carefully plug it back in again (until any replacement system was ready) is a bit of a mystery...? Anyway, just pleased that there is a little progress towards making my journey home a tad easier...of course, if this new system is going to be a real-time accurate indication of where buses actually are (rather than just when they are "due") then I take it all back...the wait will have been worth every minute! We shall see... ;)

Redhill Bus Station Finished

Well, I must have missed the grand re-opening by the Queen, but it looks like (only slightly delayed - why am I not surprised?) Redhill bus station has come back to life, this incarnation however (much like Tom Baker's transformation into a celery-wearing Peter Davison in Dr Who), is a comparatively bland affair...


- all grey and chrome, still, with the work-persons recent departure at least the signs (for the time being) are pointing in the correct directions... ;)

...oh and I am *very* pleased not to have to run down the road to miss my bus every day any longer...I now have a comfortable 5 minute wait...thank heavens...

A picture of the old (and much more interesting) bus station can be found here...

Redhill Bus station upgrade 435/100

What a pain...Redhill bus station is *closed*, and instead of grouping all the stops sensibly along Marketfield way, the bus company, in it's wisdom, have littered them all over town, which means for me (a pretty average London commuter), we have a bit of a problem.

If I leave the office on time, enjoy the crush across town from Canary Wharf on the tube (takes about 20 minutes) to a major London railway station (London Bridge in my case) run and jump onto the first train I can (around 1800hrs+) I usually get into Redhill in just enough time to dash across the road and make the 435 at 1835hrs (assuming it hasn't left early, as it often does) if it's running a bit late, so much the better...

Annoyingly (believe it or not) 1835hrs is also the time that is deemed by Metrobus to be the sensible moment to *end* peak services (despite the crowds of people standing at the bus station, and despite the fact that this is the earliest possible time a London Commuter can *get* back to Redhill from London), the 430/435 service stops (for 55 minutes) and then an hourly service starts (running at twenty past the hour). Not *normally* a problem, as I can just pick up the 100 bus at 1900hrs (still a 25 minute wait, and I have to walk for 15 extra minutes at the other end) but not the end of the world, and if I'm *really* lucky a stray 430 or 435 will trundle up seriously late (as happens occasionally)...

This puts me in the unhappy position of loosing any luxury of choice, loosing any chance of catching a lucky late runner, and loosing any chance of catching my normal bus, as the bus stop for the 430\435 is now all the way up Princess way. As if to rub my nose in the resultant Metrobus mess, each day I *now* emerge from the railway station (if the bus is on time) to watch it sitting in the traffic jam by the roundabout (it's out of the question to open the doors and let me on, of course)...the 100 stop is way down in Marketfield way, roughly ten minutes walk from the 430\435 stop (and on the other side of the extremely busy road)...

My only solution? To walk all the way to the stop up the Brighton road, where the 100, the 430 and the 435 manage to co-habit perfectly successfully. I just wonder, if this is the happy case at *that* stop, why on *earth* can't they manage to do so at one of the prior spots (i.e. actually *in* Redhill town centre) within sprinting distance of the station?

Pointless idiocy. No wonder most people run for the Reigate *train* and the queue at the taxi rank has doubled.

The bus station is going to be closed until May. I'm expecting something absolutely incredible to materialise.

Werdafckawi?

Heh, spotted this on the weekend (sorry about the picture, it was shot from the window of the car) scrawled on the front and side of a tour bus (on the back was an enormous "NZ" in white paint)...so some very lost Kiwis were obviously doing *something* at Redhill Aerodrome... ;)

435 bus into Redhill

So this morning, Flyingpops going in late again, I had to get on the bus, I set off a tiny bit early (better safe than sorry), not realising that it was raining before I stepped out without my coat and lacking an umbrella, walked (a little chilly and wet therefore) to the bus stop, where I waited (rather longer than I needed)...as I stood there, getting progressively more damp, I couldn't help but overhear the conversation that was taking place between a couple of the regulars, "Smoking lady" and "Wife of glasses bloke"...
Smoking lady - "Oh its awful"
Wife of glasses bloke - "He always keeps 'em talking at the hospital, don't he?"
Smoking lady "Right until the very second"
Wife of glasses bloke - "Yeah, he won't let them go until the very moment, always makes us late into Redhill"
Smoking lady - "And what for? Who does he think he is anyway?"
Wife of glasses bloke- "He thinks he some sort of inspector, but he's nothing!"
(Glasses bloke steps in here) - "Jobsworth, that's what we calls 'em!"
Smoking lady - "Oy, watch out, here he comes!"

I know who they are talking about, the chap that runs the enquiries office at Redhill bus station, and at this exact moment, he appears, walking around the corner into Bushfield drive, dressed as if he just stepped out of the dry cleaners (as always), and joins the queue. Slightly embarrassed innocent conversation about last night's TV takes place, oh and venom directed at the likes of me "there's always more people on the bus in the rain" (apparently) until the familiar blue and yellow livery swings into view in the distance...I get on, pay for my ticket and go and sit up at the back (getting my favorite seat, ah...)...

When we get to the hospital I peer up from my book to see what "The Inspector" is going to do. Will the ladies be right? I check on my mobile and we are indeed about 90 seconds early..."The Inspector" checks his watch and then looks up and spots that the line of cones (those that protect the racing line the bus follows from being blocked by illegal parking) have been slightly moved overnight, he considers for a second and then can't help himself but hop off the bus to run over and line them up neatly again. The seconds tick by...

The bus driver takes one look in his mirror, smiles (Wile E. Coyote-style) and puts his foot down, zooming off! I look back, just catching "The Inspector"'s open mouth as he is bending down to pick up a cone...I must admit I nearly joined the ladies in laughing out loud... ;)

To be fair though, as well as being a *confirmed* "jobsworth" (to quote glasses bloke), "The Inspector" is rather public spirited, I've seen him picking up rubbish on the estate, and he does voluntary work at the hospital from time to time - however, if you don't want to be my "post de jour" "Mr Inspector", next time I am standing in Redhill hands clasped in begging posture for the bus driver to open the door (while still at the bus stop), don't tell him to ignore me and then smile...my sympathy has boundaries... ;)

Don't judge a book by it's cover...

A number of weeks ago, I was getting on the bus (on my way home), and was a little...well, let me explain - it was the end of a long day, my knee was throbbing from the repeated strain of all the stairs on the commute (combined with my recent injury) it had been a busy, stressful time in the office, the train had been packed out, it was hot, I'd had to run to actually get on the bus before it pulled away (had to wildly wave to the driver, who had kindly stopped), had managed to drop my change fumbling in my bag as I bounded up the step...anyway, you get the idea (just a bit of a crappy day)...so when I peered, hopefully, up to the emergency exit seat (where the good leg room is) and there was a hoodie sat in it, my heart didn't exactly sink, I just sort of thought "Well that's about right"...he was also playing shit rave music loudly from the crackly speakerphone he was clutching (again, "about right") his face was a mask of indifference.

So anyway, peering around, I noted (with *some* dismay now) that the rest of the bus (leg room seats) were also occupied, so (not wishing to stand) I walked up to the back of the bus and crammed myself sideways into a no legroom seat, stuck in my headphones (so I didn't have to listen to the painful, tinny, indistinguishable racket coming from just behind me), grabbed on for dear life (as the drivers on my route seem to all think they are Lewis Hamilton), and off we went...(for 20 minutes of roller-coaster action)...

No more than one stop later, I felt a tap on my shoulder, I looked round - it was the hoodie - I probably frowned, and removed one of my ear buds - "'scuse me, do you wanna swap seats mate? Bit more leg room here"...

Faith in Human Nature +1

Volksworld Show 2007

So the Volkswagen season has arrived again! Woo Hoo! The first date in the calendar is the Volksworld Show (which takes place at Sandown Park), pics of the last two shows can be found here and here (if you are interested, of course)...

However, things (once again) didn't go easy, in fact, pretty far in the exact opposite direction actually...the "Curse of Colin" (as it is becoming known) struck again, and this time, it was personal!

First off, we stopped in Reigate to get a bit of cash out (had a shopping list for the autojumble), Flyingpops parked next to the tiny Pizza Hut and I hopped out and walked jovially up the road, humming to myself, around the corner, popped the card into the Barclays cash machine, grabbed the money and the print out, came around the corner again (tucking it away into wallet) and noted, casually, that Flyingpops was no longer sat in her seat, but in the back of the bus, not only talking to someone on her mobile, but also waving at a passing VW Beetle ("Aw", I thought...)...but as the occupants of the Beetle passed me by, I spotted, with no little amount of alarm, that they were all looking back at Colin and were in a heated debate, pointing in that direction - my narrowed eyes flicked back down the road and I *immediately* (less than a heart beat) broke into a world record beating sprint as a car swerved round Colin, driver gesticulating rudely...

It was rolling down the f*cking hill...!!!!

Flyingpops was none the wiser, I could see her, poking around in the boot, still talking on her mobile - everything went into slow motion, I could see Colin gradually getting faster and faster, more cars clocking what was happening and swerving out of the way every second - I ran into the road, wildly waving my hands to warn oncoming drivers we had a problem (God only knows what they must have thought I was doing)...and what felt like an eternity later, I managed to grab hold of the passenger door, screamed something unintelligible (probably) at Flyingpops and used all my strength to try and slow poor Colin down before we really did hit something...

She calmly continued her telephone conversation, but did hurry up to the drivers section and stamp on the break (luckily before I was stuck by anything, my adrenalin fuelled strength failed or Colin was bruised)...*phew*!

I think it took about ten minutes before my pulse returned to normal...and when it did, I replayed the whole thing in my mind (in wild eyed silence), but with Mr Bean, or "One foot in the grave" canned laughter accompanying our every move...honestly, you couldn't make it up any better than that, and you would think that's all anyone deserved for one day...but, dear reader, we aren't at the end of this sorry tale... :(

We got over to Flyingpops' folks, gathered her mum with her T25 (so it was now "Colin and Co." I guess) and headed back-road way to Esher, didn't get a shot, but a number of their bins in the town centre said "Please keep Cambridge Tidy", which I thought was a little odd)...Anyway, got to Sandown park (without further incident), weather was even starting to look promising (nothing like as good as on the last two outings, but hey) -


- I cooked us some nice breakfast (did toast and filter coffee for Flyingpops and her mum and I had Earl Grey with a nice dry cure bacon sarnie) -

- we finished eating, got all our stuff together, started locking up the buses, Flyingpops' mum went to close her side door, and as she did so, the back window just literally fell to bits!!! Glass showering all over the place! WTF??

So, while she got on the phone to her insurance people, Flyingpops and I got creative with a plastic bag and some gaffer tape (as it was threatening to rain) -

- and then had to leave her with the buses awaiting the promised window crew's arrival...so we had a little walk around, spotted these Beetle jelly moulds and cake cutters -

- had a nose around the show and shine (best of the year at Volksworld usually ;) -

- and the auto jumble -

- oh, spotted these hilarious stickers playing on the old classic EMPI "Caution, Do not lower the window at speeds in excess of 120 M.P.H.", should have bought the cooker one really... ;)

- A few more sights follow -










- Oh and check this out, a new drag racing flat-4, in the style of a massively lowered bus! Back view -

- and front view -

- can't wait to see what it can do down the strip at Bug Jam!!! ;) Bought some new hub caps for Colin (as we only had two, and they were both plastic and broken) -

- and here they are in situ, I think I need to get the wire brush out and pain the wheels though, they look a bit stange at the moment, so shiny against the rust... ;)

We got back and Flyingpops (finding the glass hadn't been fixed yet) went into one of her "episodes" that one day will perhaps result in a compulsory anger management course, and verbally assassinated a large number of weekend call centre staff, who will no doubt go home and commit suicide (well, the bad ones, anyway), and it finally appeared that there was no way that bit of glass was going to be fixed today. So, I volunteered to guard camp (watched a movie on the Shinco, no worries) while they did a tour of the stuff inside, then we found some tarp in the back of Flyingpops' mum's bus, and wedged that in for the drive home...

Not a day that went quite as expected... ;)

Anyway, loads more pics here on my flickr stream (if you like this kind of thing)... :)

Update - a bit of Gickr action for you -

Science versus Nature

Spotted just up the Caledonian Road the other day, a really rather "out of the ordinary" (position-wise) poster site ad for one of our competitors...made even more amusingly strange with the addition of the blue mushroom motif (lovingly daubed by one of the local Islington spray artists) in respect...

One would have to take a minute or two, to question the motive of the ad planner that decided on this particular spot, the rest of the local audience probably being quite as appreciative of the subject matter as the mushroom commentator... ;)

DIY - Welding new step into T25 Camper van

Today we had our welding appointment at the RANS household, arranged with Vodqueen and Al to fix where the step on the drivers side has rusted away (rather badly, as you can see, so badly, in fact that we have spent all the time up until now clambering in and out of the van by the passenger door) -

- lacking tools (as well as the skills and knowledge) we yielded to Al's expert assistance, who used a hammer to remove all the rusty bits, then clipped some plate to the perfect shape -

- which I helped to hold in place (as/when necessary) -

- while Al welded it into place (took just over an hour in the end, including filling the little holes)-

- had a few little fires in the coating of the underside as we went along, but they weren't anywhere near the fuel lines/tank, so we just blew them out once the metal cooled down (bit scary though!) -

- and here we see the weld finished -

- then just a lick of white Hammerite and the mat went back into place, perfect!

You might also notice the pink patch just below the throttle pedal, this was another little hole, but just below it was the speedo cable, so we couldn't weld anywhere near it, so the pink stuff was a glass fibre mixture which plugged that perfectly (after brushing vigorously with a wire brush to clean it up... ;)