The Bus Trip From Hell and Back ...

So its time to use your imagination a little ...

You finish work at 15h40, your last class on your last day at work was not your favourite class but it was ok, all the same. You finish at the school that you have thoroughly enjoyed being at and you sadly bid farewell to some really close workmates.

Arriving at your house you decide that you should really be packing your bags and house in order to ensure that you can catch the bus in time to ensure you get back to France to see your baby boy, Harry. A nana nap is more inviting for a half hour then will tackle the packign issue...SUCCESSFUL

Imagine equally that the town you are going to attempt to leave, London, is covered in a fog so thick that all domestic planes have been grounded for 2 days out of Heathrow Airport, the busiest in Europe, where a plane lands every 30 seconds. Only international planes were allowed to land and take off when the fog cleared in patches.

Imagine arriving at the bus terminal to catch a coach to Paris to oly be greeted at 20h30 by a line that would normally equal to that at an airport, but only one ticket window open to check passports and issue passes. Imagine your mood when you reach the ticket check point at 22h15 when your bus should have left at 22h00! Not in a happy place, I tell you.

Imagine, at 22h45 the bus finally taking off, and you start chatting to the poor lady squeezeed into the chair next to you, who had 3 bottles of white wine for the ride, then rethink, who is the 'poor' one? Arrivng at the turn off for the M20 to take you to the port of Dover to take the Ferry, one is already late enough to have missed the final Ferry so the driver announced in his best French that we will be taking the Eurotunnel train, which is kinda of cool, because I have never been on it. Only to arrive at the M20 turn off to find out that its bloked because of a huge fetality, the bus driver then tries for the next hour to find an alternative route to the town where the train departs from.

He back tracks, follows signs through towns, around towns back thruogh roads that have never seen a vehicle bigger than a scooter. He then takes us up the road where it is well indicated to the train terminal but he refuses to listen to us, as a consequence 4 minutes up the road, he decides that perhaps the passengers were right and so he decides to do a 3 point turn on a country rad in a 40 foot coach... Inteligent move, hey? So he decides he cant quite succeed in the manoeuvre that he wanted to do, so he continued driving up the road but on the RIGHT HAND SIDE of the road.

Headlights are seen in the distance, we wait for him to correct his driving, the headlights are coming closer, closer, closer, we yell at him to go on the Ledt hand side of the road, he doesnt listen, not in French nor English, the car coming towards us is forced to go off the road and into a ditch. Finally he manages to do a 3 point turn, taking half a tree with the coach. He slows down to look at the car, doesnt stop, doesnt apologise, then just keeps driving to the round about we'd been around 3 times, then to the appropriate turn off to the train.

Due to his operations, we missed the train and the next one was in 2 hours time, 3h38 in the morning. This gave enough time for the full security and customs officers to empty the bus and go through everything, interview everyone, search luggage etc. I told the police about what had happened just incase there was a complaint or the car was still in the ditch!

To end the story of course, the driver of the coach, he went in the exit of the bus terminal, and thats the end of the story ... arriving some 3 hours late.

**END TRANSMISSION**