I was right to be concerned when I saw the driver sitting ready to leave when we arrived with a bare 5 minutes to spare to catch my bus to Auckland. He rudely told a woman she should 'go and sit down because I am leaving' as I entered the bus, she just wanted to give someone just outside the bus her keys. She reminded him we had another 3 minutes to go, he wasn't fazed, I sat in the first free seat and we were on our way. I sat and pondered, it had been, well, one of those nights.
Where it came from we don't know and Molly was looking innocent, but there was a rat in our bedroom in the middle of the night. Did she bring it in for our breakfast? or as a plaything? offering for the house? who knows, she usually brings them in dead but this one was well and truly alive. Maybe it just wanted to join our happy family and came in on its own. What to do? We went back to sleep leaving Molly on guard, after all it was way smaller than the rats I shared a room with in an hotel in Pakistan and there were two of them, and Kent objected to the idea that he may jump out of bed and attend to it like any good kiwi male. It was under the dresser, not likely to come out with Molly there, made for a slightly unsettled night though. That and knowing you have to get up for an early bus and although you have set three alarms you don't trust any of them so wake every couple of hours to check the time.
Up, throw a few last minute things in the pack, eat, drink, down to the car, late, to the bus, leap out when realising the bus is leaving and realise I have left my purse at home...
So to pondering... can I manage without my purse, well in actual fact not my purse but my phone. This is what our lives have come down to, held hostage by our communicators. I figured that as long as my son remembered the time he was to pick me up and didn't worry if he didn't hear from me before then I would be ok and the rest of the weekend would be manageable. And so I settled down to enjoy the trip north.
Imagine my surprise then as the bus was leaving Cambridge I spotted a familiar figure riding a familiar bike pulling into a gas station as we passed. How the hell did he get there? More to the point how did he get there so fast? A few rapid calculations - he took me to the bus in the car, the bus left Rotorua at the same time as he left heading home, he is now here, on his bike - I'm amazed. When the bus stopped for its 20 minute rest/break in Hamilton I walked out to the road to see him ride in. He hadn't seen the bus pass him in Cambridge and was still riding like fury, whipping into the parking lot and leaping off the bike to make a beeline to nearby buses. He turned as soon as I called out even though he still had his helmet on and it was a busy bus station, I marvel at that too.
We sat to have coffee while the bus loaded it's passengers and I learnt that my white knight had gone home, taken the time to look up the buses route, stopping points and break time at Hamilton, before changing into his bike gear, getting the bike out of the garage and heading off. Lucky neither of us saw any speed patrols on the route. Lucky too that he had to refuel at Cambridge or he would have flown on to Hamilton and got there before us and not even known. We had been on a side road in Cambridge picking up passengers when he passed us.
Isn't he lovely tho! :) Lovely day for a ride too!
