Yes, today was the duty from hell day again. It comes round far to often. But to be absolutely honest it wasn’t too bad today because the worst aspect of it, the passengers, were well down on the usual numbers. Whilst 95% of the users are car park users who ride for free we do pick some people up in town for other town stops, here’s an exchange I had with one such passenger :-

Passenger: “Railway Station” (note no please)
Me: Tap, tap on the ticket machine “80 pence, please”
Passeger: “I’ve got a pass”
Me: What type of pass? I need to see it”.
Passenger: “It’s an OAP pass”. No movement made to extract it from wherever it is.
Me: “Unless I’m able to see it I’m afraid I’ll have to charge you”
Passenger: “I’ll sit down and look for it”

Aaaargh. Nurse, nurse bring my medication please!

I’ve rung the Police 3 times today, on the number they left in the answering machine message …. all I get is “you are in a queue and will be answered as soon as possible”. “As soon as possible” wasn’t early enough for me and I had to give up when my break was over so, after a total of about 20 minutes being in a queue, I never did get them. Tomorrow is Saturday which judging by their lack of anything so far probably means the Hampshire Constabulary are closed for the weekend and will open again on Monday morning!

To continue the moan why does a local Constabulary like Hampshire not have a geographic telephone number? They leave 0845 numbers which to me and I’m sure many others are premium rate numbers. Premium rate in the sense that they cost from a mobile when geographic numbers are included in inclusive minutes. Premium rate in that many landline packages include free UK geographic calls off peak etc. If I were cynical I’d believe that placing calls in a queue was no more than an income generator from shared revenue which users of 0845 numbers can get.

Essy treated me to a restaurant lunch today because it was Valentine’s day. I managed to get a parking space right outside even though the place was on a very busy road with many shops either side of the place. As we ate lunch, at 13:30, my seat was facing the window and I watched in horror as a hooded piece of scum smashed the drivers door window on my car and reached inside! We were both outside in seconds, along with local shopkeepers, and he was off before he could get anything out of the car. I went back into the restaurant to ask them to call the Police and when I went back outside Essy was missing! She’d chased the little bastard determined to do him an injury! But a skinny young hoodie out ran her :-( The Police said they’d call back, after 30 minutes they hadn’t so I rang again, they said again they’d ring back but before they did the little bastard come into view again so I called again … “we’ll call you back”. Then a WPC walked by the restaurant – hurray. I rushed out to her but she was on the way to something or other and would “let control know” and that was all she could do. This evening at 19:10 the Police left a message on my answering machine (we were out) calling us back as promised 6 hours later!! I’ve not rung them back yet and wonder whether there is any point in doing so?

I think I’m going soft in the head. This morning a young guy got on in Southampton full of apologies because he’d just realised he’d booked to go to Oxford yesterday instead of today – his return was for later today. Normally it’s a ‘no, no’ to travel the next day but somehow I felt that the guy was telling the truth, further compounded by the big bouquet he was carrying for his girlfriend. I let him on :-)

We arrived home from our holiday late on Sunday evening and Monday morning I had 95 duty which is Winchester – London – Brighton – London – Winchester. As I drove up the M3 in all the Monday morning traffic I maintained the calm, relaxed feeling our holiday had left me with. There was then a queue on the M4 but that didn’t bother me ‘once I reach the bus lane all will be fine’ I thought. I’d not done 200 metres in the bus lane and was accelerating past crawling cars and lorries when a cretinous pillock of a black cab driver pulled out of the second motorway lane and into the bus lane in front of me. Over the entire length of the bus lane he never exceed 35 mph! By the time we got to the end of the bus lane I couldn’t see the back of the line of buses lined up behind me. He managed to undo all the good feelings it had taken a week to generate in just a few miles. Yes, he’s got the right to use the lane but why use it if you don’t want to travel more than a couple of miles per hour quicker than the non-bus lanes?

Today we had breakfast in Santa Cruz where at 10:00 the temperature was 22 degrees and very pleasant. After breakfast we headed uphill for an 18 mile drive to this place.

These rocks are the highest point on La Palma and are a little under 8,000 feet above sea level. As we neared the top of the mountain it began to snow! We got out of the car to take pictures of one another at the summit but still being in shorts and T shirts we didn’t hang around for long. We drove back to sea level before lunch and were again comfortable in shorts and T shirts :-)