Bus Journey

One man talks to another. 1st man has a big bag that he keeps pressing against my bottom in an entirely accidental but totally annoying way because it is bigger and more unwieldy than he can manage. He's talking to a man in a very manoeuverable wheelchair who looks like he's recovering from eye-lift surgery. His eye lids are gently bruised - yellow and palest mauve rather than darkly purple and there are stitches in arhces over his eyebrows. They're chatting about how easy it is to ride the bus in a wheelchair. Eye-lift man is saying mostly the buses are very good - particularly the bendy ones like this one. Bagman then asks what he used to do. He used to be a banker working in the city until he was made redundant 13 years ago.

Eye-lift man gets off by Stoke Newington. Bag man leans over to chat to a woman. I decide he isn't out of control of his bag, he just doesn't have a concept of personal space. He makes the woman converse with him by asking lots of questions. She's slightly trapped in the corner and obliges only because she can't really do anything else. She gets off at Stamford Hill, glad to get away.

I look out of the window - a carload of lovelies (small yellow susuki with 5 girls dressed in shiny spangled sequined dresses, hair piled up or tong curled) crosses the lights and attempts a U-turn that isn't sharp enough and ends up 3-point turning on the high road. They zoom off after holding up a line of cars.