I feel like I'm getting the hang of living in Stoke now! I had the funnest bus ride I've ever had in my life, and I feel like after that I have been incorporated seamlessly into the fabric of life here and all that comes along with it!
So, your mother always told you to refuse sweets handed to you, well today I ignored that in the hope of making a new friend/acquaintance! As I was on the bus this loud charismatic character stepped on and in a shouting kind of voice spoke with all but me who was on the bus and seemed to know people quite intimately. I have come across some strange characters in the few weeks that we've been here, and this was definitely one to remember.
The whole bus was his soapbox and he would speak his mind, even if that meant to insult (almost) someone else's dress sense! Anywhoo, that's not the guy that offered me the sweet, he was sitting quite quietly in the back of the bus, well towards the back, just a seat or so in front of me, but on the other side, and he handed everyone on the bus a sweet, and then looking back towards me, I saw him think about offering me a sweet too, he had a big bag from the Longton Market, and it was open today and I've seen the mound of coloured sweets and toffees that you can get there. He had a big bag of sweets that would probably last him quite a while (that is if he didn't give everyone he met one each!) And as he reached out the bag to me I smiled, said thank you and took a green sherberty one, it was lovely! But the strange thing was that my mind went back to the times that my mother had told me to never take sweets from strangers, but as an adult I suppose you can make up your own mind, and I'm still here, there was nothing poisonous in it, or any ulterior motive than that he didn't want me to feel left out!
Also another thing that made the journey fun was that I had absolutely no idea where I was going, the bus driver was driving us down what seemed to be a long ride that had little to no bus stops actually around, but people were getting on and off the bus at different intervals, with no bus stop signs about! Then he drove down a beautiful piece of countryside, you know the one I mean where the roads are narrow and trees cover the road like gorgeous arches, where at times only dull greenish grey light would be able to filter through, the roads that awake your imagination and bring you back to all the good old fairy stories that you used to hear and then as you were old enough, to read. Anyway, there were also fields on either side, and the lush deep smell of the earth being baked on a hot June day, mixed with the smell of animals doing what animals do best (to me that is the smell that reminds me most of summer holidays at the Isle of Wight where we used to stay on our friends farm, in other words, lovely!) And then we came up to a place where I recognised the name, and then I realised that this was the unknown road that went past our own road and into a place where we had not yet ventured, it was so exciting being on a bus that took me so close to our house without even realising where we were going or whereabouts in Blythe we would end up! And I got to know what was on the other side of that road that we never go down, its full of lovely little country lanes and walks and farms and glorious smells and fields and the great outdoors!
I am pretty sad aren't I, writing a blog about a road, big whoop I hear you say, but as my life has turned the corner into this little cul-de-sac juncture, these things seem more poignant, and this is the stuff that makes me happy, being in the deep countryside, knowing that it is all around you and that the air you are breathing has no chemicals, or hardly any pollution in it form fumes form cars, and the stillness is touchable, you could sit there and thoughts would fly freely into your mind with little to no coercion, and you would be able to take yourself anywhere you wished. I only wish that I had a dog or something to take for walks now, and now I understand why there have been horses riding up and down our road, because of this beautiful little piece of land right near to us. It's so freeing to think of it!
I think that in my genes I have a longing to get back to nature, or greenery or fields etc, and that when I see them something awakens inside me and it brings me to a really joyful place.
Sad I know, but I don't care!!! :)
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