Christmas by Night Bus

Categories: uncategorized

Tags: london

Date: 26 December 2006 04:17:40

I'm in north London over Christmas to see my Mum who is down from the North staying in my brother's house near Holloway. Its only about ten miles from where we live in Lewisham, maybe less, but on Christmas Day it might as well be a hundred, so we're staying here for a few days. I arrived here on Saturday evening, had a sandwich, did too much shopping, and waited and waited for my daughter to turn up. And waited and waited until she got here just after midnight.

A few minutes later she mentioned she had blistered her hand touching one of the pans on the cooker. She assumed that I must have cooked something in it and left it there hot. (Actually I'd washed it and heated it up to dry it quickly but that's another story) So, I asked, its turned off now isn't it. You did check the gas to make sure the hob wasn't alight?

No, she never thought of that.

Now no-one could leave it there. Could I go to bed, go to church on Sunday morning, not knowing for sure if we'd left the cooker on? not possible. If only because of the responsibility to the people who live upstairs.

So a four-hour round trip by night. Out to the street, run for a 91 bus, get ll hot and wish I was wearing less coat, it stops at King's Cross instead of Trafalgar Square, walk over to see a 73 coming, take that to Tottenham Court Road, where the stops are all messed up by Centre Point, get a 29 to Trafalgar Square, wait for an N21 to Lewisham, then find that the gas ring is of course off. Quick look round the flat, pick up a rosary (I think I'll need one of my blood pressure rises much more) and the phone recharger which she - safe and warm back in Holloway and drinking GIN and tonic - had asked me to fetch (Even though, writing this two days later, she instantly mislaid it when I gave it to her and was then cross with me for not knowing where she put it. AND I have nearly but not quite finished the Very Big Book I was reading on he bus so I can't leave it but need to take it back which is irritating.

Night buses show a fascinatingly different side of London life. If you like watching wrecked clubbers and grumy night-shoft workers who'd rther be in bed. Like I would. Or at least I'd like to have the choice

So back out at something like 02:20, miss an N21, wait for the next bus, decide to try to get a bus from London Bridge area to cut of having to go into the West End and back out again, wait in fog at the top end of the bridge while another N21 and an N47 go past (I should have just got in them in retrospect) foolishly get on a 149 that goes to Stoke Newington but doesn't cross the route of the 91 anywhere (Why didn't I take my AtoZ? Why is there no direct bus from London Bridge to King's Cross?) so end up walking though Stoke Newington at 04;00 in order to wait for nearly half an hour opposite a snooker hall on Manor Road for the N106 to Finsbury park (I could have probably walked it) and then walk up Stroud Green Road and back to my brother's. Getting there, and pouring myself a good stiff GIN (first drink of the evening) at something like 04:40.

I was only two minutes late to church on Sunday morning.