The science of timekeeping
Living in Scotland’s rural Highlands plays havoc with any plans or arrangments you may have. Timekeeping becomes a near impossible ambition purely due to the ridiculously high quantity of potential variables set to put you off course.
The worst offender of all of these is the bus, my beautiful commute is littered with trepidation, chancing-it and consternation purely due to the journey up to and including either the number 17 or the 19. The notorious buses that drive on the loch side are famed for their blatent lack of regard for standard public transport rules. Not only do they arrive and depart at will no matter time or plans they also refuse to stop at the clearly placed shelters, even with frantic arm waving and the purposely selected brightly coloured coat that has been donned. This sporadic, whimsical and down right bottom clenching ‘method’ leaves you relieved to pay the randomly selected - between £1.20 and £7.80- price chosen by the driver.
Most people think you are exaggerating, how would you ever hold down a job if you had no reliable method of getting in to the big city? But a certain number of controls have been put in place to ensure you make it to work almost on time:
For a17:15 start you leave the house at 15:25 and begin purposefully marching down the hill to try to catch the bus scheduled for 16:04 this is normally an effort in vain as due to getting tangled in barbed wire, falling multiple times on black ice, or, finding your path obstructed witb a mission impossible style lattice of fallen trees, you have been set back 20 minutes minimum.
Once you do make it down the hill you wait at the busy roadside not daring to retreat into the safety of the bus shelter incase of said bus driving past you. You must wait an unestimateable period of time for the battered 17 to come into sight. Fearing it has already been, praying it will stop if not and ignoring the frequent splatters on your pristine uniform from the wake of speeding cars.
As often as not the bus will drive past you. This leaves you with two options, hedge your bets and hope a willing, friendly local drives past or call a taxi firm and try to explain your location and predicament in such a way that they believe you are not pranking them, and will definitely still be stranded when the car arrives-wherever it is you said you were.
If all goes perfectly to plan you can arrive at your destination at 16:15 ; if you have a nightmare day you’ll be stumbling into work with grit spattered shirt and torn tights at 18:00 indignant to the disgruntled reception and adamantly proud you made it in at all.