The Road Home: Mud is Thicker than Water

Saturday:

I was on High Street doing a little Christmas shopping. The bus depot is on one end of High Street, and Canterbury West is on the other. As I was closer to the train station, I thought I'd try to catch the 2:05 train home. I booked it to the station with my bags and a backpack loaded with 2 jugs of milk and a 2-litre of Shandy (like sweet, nonalcoholic beer--it's actually good, I promise). I got to the station, asked for a ticket to Chilham, only to find that the train wasn't coming until 3:35. I didn't feel like walking all the way back to the bus, so I waited. A 3:35, the train to Ashford came, which doesn't stop at Chilham. The worker sort of shooed me onto the train with a quick "change at Ashford!"

I waved to Chilham as I passed, then got off in Ashford. I asked when the next train to Chilham would be. No one knew!!! I asked 5 workers! I thought those bright yellow vests somehow endowed the wearer with train knowledge. Apparently not. Since our big snow storm, the trains have all been wonky. Anyway, after waiting in the cold (pity me!) I finally got a train home 3 hours after I started. That was the longest 9-minute train ride ever.

Today:

Again, by myself. At 1:30, I left school, hoping to catch the 2:10 bus to Chilham (had enough of trains). I got to the bus station around 2:00 and walked straight into the Chilham line. On the bus I went, and I climbed up to my favorite spot in the front of the second deck. I pulled out my notebook and began to work on some writing. An hour later, we pulled into the bus depot. The Canterbury bus depot. That's right, on the wrong bus. So I ran into Marks and Spencer's, warmed up, then headed back to try again. At the 652 Chilham bus, I asked the driver if he was going to Chilham. Yup. And I believed him. In Chartham, the village next to us, I was suddenly the only one on the bus. Dear Reader, can you guess where this is going? Driverman informs me that this bus doesn't go to Chilham--he's going back to Canterbury. I guess he thought I said Chartham. I didn't. So I decided to just get off in Chartham and walk home. I took a footpath I had seen from the bus (and by footpath I mean a sign saying footpath pointing to a boundless field of mud. By this time it was getting dark and foggy withall. And cold. So I trekked through the fields in the direction of home, finally meeting up with a footpath I know. This footpath goes through the woods. In the dark. If you know me, or have ever been told a fairy tale, or are a sane person, you know that dark woods are scary. And because I was being chased by a pack of wolves (ok, it was a pack of foxes. and it was just one fox.) I decided to leave the path and head back to the field o' mud. It was very Jane Eyre, I feel. Wandering and slogging through the sticky mud in the fog. Long story long, I finally got home around 5:00. Longest 30-minute bus ride ever.

...I really did see a fox.