As it turned out, all the weirdos were lying in wait for full moon week before lurching out of the woodwork to talk to me. I thought we’d gotten away lightly last week. Perhaps they don’t venture south of the river.
Whatever, they certainly latched onto me this week, virtually every time I found myself waiting for buses.
On Tuesday afternoon, on my way back from work, I had just missed a bus and with time in hand before the next week I was quietly reading my book, listening to music (The Airborne Toxic Event, if you’re interested) and enjoying the sunshine. A man asked me if the Harlow bus had gone (yes), we briefly chatted about the weather (nice) and then he left me alone. This is my preferred method of conducting a bus stop conversation. Mere moments later a man in a raincoat sidled up to me and started expounding on his idea that London Transport should build a multistorey car park with a new station underneath it so that the Epping Ongar Railway could have the the old station and run trains to Epping*, and the Central Line could run into the new station and there would still be places to park. Three times he told me this, despite my initial polite but noncommittal nods, the fact that my earbuds were still in and I was trying to emanate ‘GO AWAY’ vibes. And then he informed me that he was wearing a raincoat because even though it was sunny it was going to rain, whipped out his phone and proceeded to show me his radar map to prove it. At this point it must have sunk in that I really, really wasn’t interested and he wandered off. Harlow bus man said he thought I knew him and by the time he realised I didn’t and might need rescue it was too late.
Moments later, having failed to find anyone else to talk at, he circled back towards me and I went and hid behind someone else. I’m not even sorry.
Wednesday morning – again, earbuds in place and this time trying to do my Duolingo lessons – a woman on the bus stop in the village finished a phone call and decided that as I was the only other person on the stop that it would be fine to tell me all her woes (of which there were many, principally caused by her unhelpful brother and sister-in-law and possibly the people not fitting her new double glazing). I did not want to hear her woes. I have seen her around the village, usually accompanied by her woeful-looking husband, but have never spoken to her before and she isn’t even the type of person who says good morning to the other people on the bus stop on a normal day. This is a state of affairs I would have been happy to see continue. What if she now continues to speak to me whenever she sees me? Fortunately the bus was very busy when it arrived and she found another person to tell all her woes to.
The man who approached me as I was waiting for the #4 bus from Archway back to the office later that morning got short shrift from me, I can tell you.
*Actually this is not a bad plan. But still.
Things making me happy this week:
- A new haircut
- Studio Ghibli characters on signage at Whitechapel Station
- A great afternoon with the London East Teacher Training Alliance cohort – always one of my favourite visits (been doing these for well over 10 years now!). This year I took along the wonderful story teller Olivia Armstrong and the Coat of Many Pockets, and we explored sequential illustration and sensory story telling inspired by Quentin Blake’s Angelica Sprocket’s Pockets. Warm, joyful, energising – ‘I didn’t look at the time once, I can’t believe it went so fast’.
- Friends (always, but one pair went above and beyond last Sunday morning)
- The library reservation service
- Seeing not one but four Dakotas flying over the village, before a visit to Duxford next weekend and then a trip to Normandy for a parachute drop on the D-Day anniversary
This week marks the start of a summer of popping up at various festivals and street parties in Islington, armed with an illustrator and making our presence felt in the borough as we start the journey towards opening. So exciting!
See you next week,
Kirsty x
What I’ve been reading
Stalking the Angel/Lullaby Town/Freefall/Sunset Express – Robert Crais
Necropolis – Catharine Arnold
What Kirsty did next 