Home Sweet Home

I love this woman.

I do not know her name and have never said more than hello to her but she has brought much fun to my bus rides to work when I work my week of lates.

We get on at the same stop in Westhoughton and she gets off about two-thirds into my trip.

From what I can tell she does not speak a lot of English and appears to work at an Italian restaurant in Horwich because when she gets off the bus she always walks toward it.

When the Data Controller was on the bus a few weeks ago he tried to ask her where she was going and for what reason and she could not really answer back.

She makes me laugh because in the 20 minutes we are on the bus together she probably moves seats around 5 times. She loves being toward the front and slowly makes her way up when people leave the bus.

I have also noticed that when she leaves the bus she takes around 20 of the free newspapers that they have up front.

I didn't want to freak her out by taking out my camera so I took this with my mobile phone. But I really wanted to get a picture of her because I think this will be my last bus ride into work. I am going to start practising my UK driving skills tomorrow and for the next time I am on a late I think I am going to start taking Andy into work in the morning and then driving myself in later.

Wish me luck with the driving!

I took this while waiting for my bus today. When I walked out of the house (which is only about a block from the bus stop) it looked like a really bright sunny day.

As I sat down waiting this dark cloud seemed to appear out of nowhere. You can still see the bright blue sky toward the bottom just in front. It was very odd.

When the bus came we all headed on our way and then it started hailing for about 3 minutes and then stopped and appeared all sunny again.

I am starting to get really excited about my upcoming time off from work. Our last day is this Thursday the 9th of April and we do not have to be back until Tuesday the 21st of April. That is 11 days off in a row... exciting times! 11 days off for the price of 4 vacation days! Since this is Easter weekend that is 4 days off, then next week would have been my Saturday week which means I have a day off in lieu and then a friend at work is working my Saturday because I worked his last week. Can't beat it!

We have managed to plan some cool things to do during part of the time and then there are also going to be some just lay back and relax days which are much needed!

So today when I got on the bus there was a GMPTE Employee standing by the door. Once the four of us that got on took a seat he started to make his way around to each of us. His nifty little maroon sweater said "Data Controller". Here is how our conversation went:

Him: Where are you riding to today?
Me: Blackrod.
Him: Is this for work, shopping, school or something else?
Me: Work.
Him: Did you purchase a single ticket or return?
Me: Single.
Him: Did you pay £2.50?
Me: No it was £3.20.
Him: £3.20? That is pretty expensive.
Me: Yeah I know.
Him: Okay, thank you.

I am curious as to why a GMPTE employee would make a comment that my bus ticket was too expensive. I just find this odd.

On my week of lates I normally buy a week pass for £15.50 (which only saves me .50) but this week Andy was off on Monday so he drove me in. So I figured since I would only be taking the bus for 4 days I would just buy a single ticket each day. It has always been £3.20 one-way.

Yes I know this is expensive but should a transportation employee really make a comment about it?

Then when I was standing up to get off at my stop our conversation continued:

Him: Where are you from?
Me: The United States, from Illinois.
Him: What brought you to the UK?
Me: My husband and I have been living in the US for eight years and he finally got home sick.

Then my most hated question in the World came up...

Him: Why would you ever want to move to the UK?

*ugh* I hate getting asked this all of the time!

Then to make it worse after work at around 9:30pm Andy and I ran into the Co-Op to pick up some stuff for the weekend and the check-out lady picked up on my accent and asked the exact same thing. "Why would you ever want to live here?". *double ugh*

I always answer this question the same. I smile and say "I love it here".

This week is my 1:30pm - 9:30pm shift (details here) which means that I take the bus part of the way into work. Well I was sat at the bus stop today and when I saw bus #615 coming my way I was SO very excited. It was a double decker! YAY!

I see a few of them drive by from time to time but have not had one on my route, until today. I was like a little child. I showed the driver my week pass and made my way up the stairs to the top level. Too be honest I had to wait to snap the above picture because I already felt like too much of a tourist to be this excited about riding on the top of the bus... so I waited until there was nobody else around so that I could get a good picture.

Very exciting times!

Tomorrow if it is a double decker again I am going to go to the top and try to sit a bit closer to the front. Today there were a couple kids there so I could not... darn kids! There is this massive hill that we have to go up at one point and I swear I thought the bus was not going to make it today. I have not noticed this issue before so it must only be the double decker that has the problem. So if I get lucky enough to ride on one tomorrow again I am going to try to record going up the hill so that you guys can see how hard it churns to try to make it up.

Andy and I were able to get two tickets to the FA Cup replay set for next Wednesday at Goodison Park. Woo Hoo!

So as you can see they are £39 each so a little bit higher then a normal match but boy is it going to be fun. Since Everton and Liverpool are from the same area there has always been a rivalry there and when they play each other it is called the 'Merseyside Derby' (and don't call it a der-by it is pronounced dar-by... if you say der-by you will get teased like I did at work). I have not yet been to a derby match so I am very excited! This will be the third time these two have played each other in two weeks. It has been crazy.

Not much else is going on... I feel much better today and have not been really dizzy. There was a moment on the bus (this week are my 1:30 - 9:30 shifts) where I felt a little faint but I think that is only because it was close to around 110 degrees on the bus. I am not joking. I know it is cold outside but they would probably save a lot on petrol if they did not try to keep it so warm.

This week at work I am on the 1:30pm - 9:30pm shift. Since Andy still has to be there at 9:00am I had been trying to find the best way to get me the six miles from our house to our place of work.

Not as easy as it sounds.

Since the office is just on the other side of a different county the bus situation is a bit iffy and I would have to change. It does not sound difficult but honestly I am not yet comfortable with using the bus on my own if a change is involved. I am always afraid I will be standing at the wrong place waiting, or for that matter get off at the wrong place altogether. Since they do not make a stop at each bus stop and I am not familiar with the areas I would not really know where to get off.

Anyway... after some searching I found a bus which picks almost right outside our house and goes to this small town of Blackrod which is only about a 3 minute drive from work. I don't have to change and since the town is so small it was easy for me to know when I needed to get off.

So I get here at around 1:05pm, Andy takes his lunch at 1:00pm and drives to pick me up to take me back. Easy peasy!

Now the train was an option but it would have required me to go in the wrong direction to Bolton and then get another train into the town of work but that would have taken just over an hour as there is only one train an hour from Bolton to where I am going so the wait would have been long. Not something I wanted to do.

And since this is only going to be happening about one week out of the month I think it is a pretty good solution!

Tonight Andy and I went to see a production of A Christmas Carol in Darwen which is about a 25 minute train ride north from Bolton.

The night started with us walking down to the train station in Westhoughton to find quite a few people waiting for the train. After about 10 minutes we hear this man yelling at the top of the walkway "Bolton... Anybody going to Bolton?" Turns out the trains were not running due to failed signal lights so a bus was going around to the stops taking people into Bolton. So we loaded onto the bus and off to Bolton we went.

I had made a reservation at The Olive Press earlier that morning so we mad our way to the restaurant. The food was quite yummy and I'm sure we will make our way there again.

We then caught the train to Darwen and made our way to the theatre. The show was fun and I am glad we went. It was quite funny because I had mentioned to Andy that this will be the first production of A Christmas Carol that I have been to see where everybody will have a real English accent instead of them having to try to put one on. Then it turned out that the man playing Scrooge was Scottish. What are the chances in that...

The play got over at exactly 9:10 which was terrible because there is one train an hour back to Bolton and it just so happens to come at :10 past. So we hurried over hoping that the train was late but nope... no luck. We had to wait for an hour for the next train then once we got into Bolton it was about another 20 minute wait for the train into Westhoughton. We finally got home at around 11:30.

Today was Andy's first day of work and with that it was the first day by myself at home. I ended up staying awake after he left and then decided to venture to ASDA all on my own. I had looked online and found that a bus runs hourly from right outside my house to right in front of ASDA. So off I went.

Here is the pleasant conversation I had with my bus driver:

Driver: Where to?
Me: The Linkway Retail Park
Driver: Where?
Me: The Retail Park by Reebok Stadium
Driver: I'm sorry.. where?
Me: I am going to ASDA

Guy behind me who has a ASDA cloth shopping bag: Middlebrook

Driver: Oh okay, That is all you had to say love that will be £2.50
Me to guy behind me: Thanks

Then after a short 10 minute bus ride we drive right past Reebok Stadium, turned onto a street called 'The Linkway' and then pulled up right in front of ASDA.

What a butt munch of a bus driver.

I took the above picture because I honestly feel that they put these signs on the road for me personally. I do have to admit I am getting a lot better as I have only almost gotten ran over around 4 times. I just find it so hard to look right first, it's like taking everything you were taught about crossing the street as a child and throwing it out the window! I'll get better.

I need to get a handle on the above situation.

There is just too much coinage in this country, lets count it out together:
1 pence, 2 pence, 5 pence, 10 pence, 20 pence, 50 pence, 1 pound & 2 pound

Seriously.

It's not that it is going to be terribly hard to get used to the new money but when I am in line and there are people behind me.. I feel all eyes are on me as I try to count out the change so I end up just grabbing a 5 or 10 pound note to pay where of course in turn I get change back. *ugh*

All of the above change is currently in my wallet and this was after I used four pound coins and four 10 pence coins!

We did go to the movies/pictures/cinema (your pick) tonight and it was a lot of fun if not an adventure. : ) We got bus #1 from Westhoughton to the main Bolton bus station and then bus #2 from the main Bolton bus station to the movie theatre. When we were on bus #2 we stood up when we wanted to get off and the bus driver asked where we were going. We told him Cineworld and he told us to have a seat that there was a closer stop he could drop us... so... we sat and he drove and drove and drove... finally Andy stood back up and here is what was said:

Bus Driver: Oh Shit yeah the stop was back there, sit down and I'll take you back.

Andy: That's okay we can get off here and walk.

Bus Driver: No seriously, sit down mate. What time is your movie?

Andy: 4:00pm

Bus Driver: No worries I'll get you there in plenty of time.

So we rode the bus around the entire route and back on ourselves but this time the bus driver did let us know when to get off and we made it to the movie just in time. We sat down in our seats at exactly 4:00pm. Then we sat thru 35 minutes of commercials and previews and the movie itself started promptly at 4:35pm. I will have to remember this for future outings to the theatre.

It was raining when the movie ended but I had thought ahead and had one of my wonderful umbrellas. However I did learn a very important lesson tonight, something that I will not forget...