International Party Near The Moat

You may think that by his silence that the Accidental Bus Driver has been lazy. Au contraire. He has been running about like a blue arsed fly.

I have just returned from an international wedding in a village hall in North Northumberland. Well, I haven't been to the wedding, but I drove the wedding guests, a group of Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian, Luxembourgian, Mauritian and even a couple from the Isle Of Wight.

It was an odd feeling to be in a place which was only a few miles from where Raoul Moat had killed himself the day before. I found my mind wandering as I watched the bride and groom left the wedding at Midnight, through a throng of laughing and happy people waving sparklers, without a care in the world. How delicate life was, I thought. Happiness and sadness so close to each other.

That was enough psychoanalysis of the world. A very un-bus driverly way to behave. So I returned to the real world, turned on the radio and tuned in to the late night chat show, full of drunken experts telling Northumbria Police how they should have done their job.

Usually wedding jobs are boring. The bus driver drops them and then waits until the prescribed pick up time in the wee hours. Usually they find all sorts of excuses to delay and extend their departure time. Usually the final straw is when they are all on the bus except for Joe who has passed out under the rhododendron bush. Bus drivers loath these jobs.

But this wedding party was different. Perhaps because they were a strong christian group. Perhaps because they were from all parts of the world. They left when they said they would leave. And what's more they were stone cold sober.