A blast from the past (London)

Yesterday, I went to Totteridge and  Whetstone (second last stop at the northern end of the Northern line, in Zone 4) with my student Sharon because she suddenly had a call (even before we started the lesson) from her daughter's school, saying the daughter had nits, so could Sharon go and pick her up and take her home (so as not to pass it on to the other kids).  

I said I'd go with her, so that we could at least do some Chinese on the journey.  After she dropped me off at Totteridge Tube station, I decided to jump on the bus as the weather suddenly cleared up and it was a nice sunny day, and I had no teaching until 5pm.  Also, I love bus (/train) journeys.  

It turned out to be a treat: the whole place really felt rustic, with big houses and lots of ponds by the road, all private, really like being in a village.  I took the bus to the end of the bus route, which was Edgware, from where I was going to take another bus to a big supermarket to get some sesame oil and soya sauce for Sharon.

As I sat at the Edgware bus station waiting for the onward bus to the supermarket, something went "Ping!" in my head:  

"I've been here before.  It was at night, when someone gave me a lift from somewhere, and dropped me off here to catch a bus home."  

Can't remember who it was, can't remember where we'd come from (probably somewhere outside London), nor when, but the visual image of the bus station at night, with its bright lights and its layout, came to my brain screen most vividly.  

As the bus drove out of the station onto the main road and I looked back, it was indeed as I'd seen it those many years ago when we approached it in this person's car.

Funny how memory works.

(London, 2018)

You know you're getting old when… : 04 (London)

...your old (in age and in length of friendship) friend Valerio says (talking about a friend of his falling in love and getting into silly situations because of it):

QUOTE he is close to 60... I don't think the episodes you mentioned happened to you at his age... UNQUOTE

I note that Valerio used the past tense ("happenED to you at his age"), which is a clue, for anyone who might not know my age, to my being older than 60.  Haha.

Late-night bus journey home (London)

My old friend and the most avid reader of my blogs, Valerio, said after hearing about my “Food from heaven” adventure (blog of the same name):  “Here’s another good point of your job: your commuting to and from the pub seems to provide a lot of material for stories…”

Indeed.

When I first transferred to the Wood Green branch of the pub, I’d just pull my jumper over my work top after the closing shift, and get on the night bus — first the N29 to Manor House, then the N253 for the last two stops to my house.

On one of the N253 journeys, I noticed the driver looking fairly intently at me as I was getting on, even turning round in his seat and craning his neck at the next stop when I went and stood just out of his direct line of vision.  This freaked me out a bit, thinking he probably fancied me.  

I’d been approached before by men on buses and at bus stops, striking up a casual conversation, starting with asking if I was going home from work, then moving on to whether I wanted to go for a cup of coffee or a walk in the park, but they’d all been earlier: around 9/10pm, a sunny late afternoon for the-walk-in-the-park one.

This level of interest at 3am by the bus driver was a bit too intense for my comfort.  After I disembarked, I dawdled around the bus stop, waiting for the bus to move off, as my house is by the main road, only ten yards from the bus stop, so I didn’t want the driver to see where I lived.  He, on his part, wouldn’t drive off immediately either.  And so, there we were:  each idling at the bus stop, in a kind of a stalemate for a while.  This only confirmed my initial judgement of him.  He’s persistent, I thought, and making his interest very obvious.

The next time, it was a different driver.  This one actually asked, also turning round in his seat and craning his neck, “Where are you going?”  What a strange question!  Why did he want to know?  What’s the matter with all these male drivers, I thought.

Another post-shift night, as I was waiting for the night bus at 3am, I happened to look down and noticed that because I hadn’t taken off my work apron — which had a big pocket in front and into which I often stuff spare paper napkins for wiping up greasy spills — I looked about eight months pregnant.

Penny dropped:  those bus drivers were probably wondering what this heavily pregnant woman was doing, being out and about at 3am.  And an Oriental woman at that too, which is unusual, as Oriental woman don’t go gadding about at 3am.  

Also, because it was a different driver each time, they hadn’t seen that I was still eight months pregnant three months later.

I now make sure to remove my work apron when I finish my closing shift.  No more staring from the drivers after that.

(London, 2016)

Update 031218:  Another penny's just dropped.  The drivers might've been worried that I might end up giving birth on their bus, hence the level of interest!

* See also "Catching the last Tube train" and "How to expedite matters"

Sanity-challenging conversations: 10 (London)

Six customers, who’ve been coming now and again, turned up tonight: three are the social workers for the other three.  The female social worker said, as I walked past their table, “Can you take orders for our food.”  It was not a question — she was asking me to take their food orders.  I said, “I’m afraid you’ll have to go to the bar, or order through the app on your phone.  I don't take orders for food.”  She said, “Oh no, I don’t do the phone app thing.”  I said, “Then you’ll have to do it at the bar.  I only deliver food, we don’t take orders at the table.”  She said, “I know.”  Huh?!?

I delivered two dishes to Table 43.  The five occupants said, no, not for them.  The elderly couple next to them said it was for them.  As I put the dishes down, I said, “You’re Table 44, not 43.”  The man said, “No, it’s 43.”  I said, “It’s 44.  Have a look at the disc at the corner of the table.”  He said, “It’s 43.”  I pointed at the disc, he moved his face closer, and said, “It’s 43.”  His wife shook her head.  When I next went back to that area, the man said, “It looks like 77!”  I was quite tempted to say he should get his eyes tested.

Update a week later (241118):  Can you believe it!?!  Customer at Table 77 tonight said the food wasn’t for him.  Eventually tracked down the rightful owner — at Table 44.  He’s a man about 30 years younger than the elderly gentleman above.  Maybe the elderly gentleman from last week sent him to shore up his case?

(London, 2018)

Give someone an inch and they’ll take a yard: 1 (London)

In the last month or so, a woman in her 40s has started coming regularly to the library I spend a lot of time in myself.  She must also have noted the fact that I’m a regular myself, because one day she asked me to look after her rucksack while she went to the loo, saying, “You know me.”

A couple of weeks later, on my Saturday night pub shift, I found her sitting at one of the tables in the raised area, which is out of the direct view of the bar area.  I later discovered the significance of her choice of seating area: she is a homeless person, with a shopping luggage trolley type of contraption all loaded up with plastic bags of her belongings, sitting a bit of distance away from her — presumably so that the staff wouldn’t connect it with her and decide to make her leave the premises.  Out of pity, I didn’t draw my colleagues’ attention to this non-paying presence.  After all, it wasn’t busy at the time, and it was cold outside.

Last week, I was watching a Chinese TV period drama on YouTube on my computer at the library when she asked me to look after her Huawei Tablet.  (So, she might be homeless but she has a Huawei Tablet!)  She said she was going to the loo and would be a couple of minutes, five at the most.  I agreed.

When she came back from the loo, she asked me to mind her things for another five minutes while she nipped out for some coffee, but she was away for ten.

Yes, she openly drinks her coffee in the library, just as the other regulars (a group of Greek, Cypriot and/or Turkish old men) openly and loudly chat in a group around a big round table, treating the place like their local café.  (I have a sympathetic angle on this, as old people can get very lonely, so it’s nice that they have a social corner of their own.) I’d even occasionally found people eating a takeaway in there (ribs and chips, or something equally strong-smelling).  On more than one occasion, I’d spotted a woman in her 50s plucking the hairs on her chin with a pair of tweezers by one of the bookcases as the light there is good.  Another regular — a woman in her 70s with Parkinson’s — openly eats her sausages while doing her crossword puzzles.

This morning, the homeless woman approached me to look after her rucksack again, saying, “Can you look after my bag for two minutes?”  I hesitated, saying, “Umm, I need to leave soon, to go and teach.”  She said, “Just two minutes.”  I reluctantly said OK but stressed that I really had to leave.  She then went and spoilt it all for herself by saying, “Maybe five minutes?”

That was when I decided she couldn’t be trusted.  She had already done it to me once before, saying she’d be gone five minutes but took ten.  (No, she didn’t explain upon return why she’d been gone longer than she said she would be.)  Today, however, I had to go and teach, so I couldn’t afford to be late, especially since it’s a group of three students.  I’m a seriously responsible person:  if I’ve agreed to look after someone’s things, I don’t up and leave when I need to go, even if they don’t come back at the promised time.  She, on her part, doesn’t seem to have the same sense of responsible behaviour.

There’s a Chinese phrase for this:  得寸进尺 dé cùn jìn chǐ / “get inch enter foot” — to go on further to take a foot after getting an inch.

Aesop's "The boy who cried wolf" also comes to mind.

(London, 2018)

Food from heaven? (London)

After my closing shift last night (finishing at 2.35am), I arrived at Manor House at 3.30am to change to the bus for my house.  

There, on the pavement, was a torn paper bag, with most of the contents scattered about:  carrots, courgettes, onions, bananas, apples, pears.  I looked around.  No one about, not anywhere near the bag and its scattered contents, for me to determine the ownership.  So, I started to pick up each item.  

A young man then came along and helped me retrieve them, even from as far away as a yard from the spot.  He must’ve thought I’d dropped the bag, split it, and spilt the contents.  (Oh, split and spilt in the same sentence, fairly close to each other!  That would drive a dyslexic or spoonerism-afflicted person crazy.)  

Luckily, I hadn’t stayed for a post-shift drink at the pub, or he’d jump to another wrong conclusion: that I’d dropped the bag because I was tipsy.

So, I arrived home at 4am, with a bagful of fruit and vegetables out of nowhere.

(London, 2018)