Petulance

Yesterday all my troubles did not seem so far away, yesterday for some reason everything sucked. I left work at about 6 and went to the gym, that was fine but when I left I really didn’t fancy the journey home. The idea that my evening had to be curtailed just so I could travel back home so I could get there in time to go to sleep so I could get up and ridiculous o’clock in the morning in order to travel back again put me in a foul mood. I went to the newly discovered big Tescos to get some food; this put me in an even worse mood. There was lots of food, lots of really nice food and it struck me how simple like used to be when all I had to do was go home and get food out of a cupboard and cook it. Now it was going to be about 9.30 by the time I got back to the woods, this would mean it would be 10ish before I had sorted myself out and got a decent fire going so I would not get to eat until late. I was tired, very tired, mostly due to a series of misadventures with alarm clocks and my deciding that self inflating mattresses are for girls. They keep you nicely insulated from the ground those mattresses I can tell you. Anyway I bought a scotch egg, a pie, some juice, a loaf of bread, some hummus, some coleslaw and a can of nourishment; I am fed up of eating that lot and not only am I bored of eating that stuff it costs way more than cooking for myself as well. Then I got on to thinking about money, people often say to me “you must be saving a fortune”, I spend more on food now than I ever spent on rent. I spend most of my time eating, all this life outdoors, shivering and carrying heavy bags about all day uses up a lot of energy.

I stomped off to catch the bus, it’s a half an hour walk from the supermarket and by the time I got there I was in a good mood again, very tired though as swimming was taking its toll on top of my already being tired. I was the first person at the bus stop but more people arrived over the next 20 minutes and I ended up chatting to a couple of fellow travellers. A bus arrived with “Sorry Full” written on the front. I was beginning to get properly annoyed again, it was now 8:30, at this rate I would not be home until 10:00. Another 15 minutes and a few more people in the queue later and another bus arrived; it was quite full so I was glad to be at the front of the queue. There was still space in the luggage rack so I would not have to loose my place in the line by going to put my rucksack in the boot, this was good I wanted to get a decent seat so I could rest.
“That’s too big, it’ll have to go in the back” said the driver. I told him that it wasn’t too big and that it would fit in the rack.
“That’ll have to go in the back please”
“It fits, it was in there yesterday”
“That’ll have to go in the back please”
“It fits in there everyday”
“That’ll have to go in the back please”
“every day for months”
“That’ll have to go in the back please”
I swore quite loudly as I went to the boot, put my pack in, lost my place and ended up squeezing behind a seat that was so reclined it was almost horizontal.

I spent the journey alternating between fuming and feeling bad for having sworn quite so loudly. By the time I got back I was far too tired to walk all the way back to my usual spot, I could hardly keep my eyes open so I made my way to the closest bit of woodland and got my sleeping bag and bivi bag out getting in and promptly found myself wide awake and quite unable to sleep for the next two hours.

In the morning I thought I would take a gamble on catching the 7:15 bus to work, being closer to the bus stop than early this meant I could play the pressing snooze button game until 7. I tried a new way of packing my rucksack, it didn’t work so it was 7.08 by the time I got to the road it was 7:11 and the bus was leaving. This meant I would be late for work, I would have to wait until 7:45, I swore some more and muttered to myself. Every other time I have caught the 7:15 it has left at 7:20 I muttered the whole way to the bus stop and arrived just after 3 others who seemed quite unperturbed by having just missed the so called 7 so called 15. It turns out that there is no 7:15 but there is a 7:10 and a 7:20. Happy again I forgave the Oxford Tube for everything, once again felt bad for having sworn about them so much and got on with the journey to work. It got light on the way to work, the grey sky and leafless trees lifted my mood.

Had a breakfast of hummus and bread whilst Yolanda berated me for eating so much and for eating hummus which apparently isn’t breakfast but a mid morning snack. Considered adding tippex thinners to her coffee.