Buses take energy

About once every four to six weeks I feel like I've saved up enough energy to undertake an activity more demanding than my usual routine. This always, without fail, ends in another crash - but I go anyway. Yesterday I took the bus into Sliema, a 25-minute bus ride from here. There is actually a printed schedule for this service, posted up at the bus stop. I arrived ten minutes early, because you never know your luck. The bus came ten minutes late. I sat next to my neighbour, an American who lives in Paris and is working here for the summer at the Mediterraneo Marine Park which the bus passes on the coast road towards Sliema. He and two other park employees rang the bell for their stop. The driver, ignoring the bell, rattled past and only slowed down several hundred yards later. The three young people were not amused, but didn't waste their time complaining.

Two hours on, well into the heat of the day, my shopping done and visits concluded, I headed for the bus stop at the Sliema Ferries, only to see the bus I was hoping to catch pulling away - on time, of course! The next bus was due in twenty minutes. It never showed. The scheduled bus after that finally came along ten minutes late. The driver must have done his training in a dodgem car and I seriously wondered if we'd make it back to Qawra without hitting another vehicle.

My brain was fried for the rest of the day. For hours I gazed stupidly and unproductively at the computer screen instead of taking a proper rest. For dinner I ate half a packet of corn cakes with butter instead of eating a sensible salad. When I went out to drag in my unwilling cat from the garden I almost got into a fight with a neighbour because I had difficulty explaining that I had not done what she thought I had done... and now I'll begin saving up my energy for the next escape from my prison with a view in six weeks' time.


Maltese bus - photo taken by a friend visiting in January.