Bus travel thoughts...

I was sitting on the bus on the way home from work trying to get the radio to work on my phone when I started to think about how much time I actually spend on this bus. Well I worked it out...maths has never been my strong point which I know is a terrible thing to say as a woman at the moment (just ask Helen Mirren) but I don't believe my lack of maths skills has anything to do with my gender! I managed to figure this out...1 hour a day there, 1 hour back...2 hours a day...so far so good...5 days a week, that's 10 hours a week! I spend 10 hours a week sitting on a bus staring into space, that's ridiculous! That is so much time and time is so precious there must be something better that I can do than try to get Radio 4 to tune in properly.

It is the only time of the day when I am entirely on my own without anyone making demands on me or surrounded by anything that needs to be done...thankfully the washing up cannot follow me onto the bus! I used to drive but now have the luxury of handing the responsibility for watching the road onto someone else whilst I just sit and watch the world go by. I still miss my car when it's raining and the bus is late but generally I'm grateful to the bus driver for taking that pressure off me.

I still think that 10 hours a week is an unbelievable amount of time though just to be getting from A to B...there are so many of us that do it and plenty that do many hours more. My poor brother once flew all the way to India for a meeting, he never even got out of the airport, they had a lovely conference room right there apparently...now that is some commute! 

I want to find someway of using the time more constructively...I can't read or write though because it just makes me feel sick. I used to be able to when I was young, I would never have been able to put up with the numerous trips up north to family if I hadn't been able to lose myself in Enid Blyton on the way. The ability to do that must have been lost in the same place that I seem to have found the fear of heights and closed in spaces. I used to be fine at the top of a big wheel at the fair, but a few years ago (whilst my lovely friends killed themselves laughing) I had to literally crawl back down from the tower in Gaudi's Sagrada Familia quaking with fear...it took a few glasses of wine to get over that one. Perhaps I can train myself back to a point where I can bare to read or write whilst moving, I hope I can or I'll have to get better at knitting...