"They're not wired up straight," said the farmer, leaning over the bonnet of his Land Rover and surveying the scene. There was a concertinaed car embedded into a farm gate. The car was barely recognisable and had suffered terminal damage. The wall on the other side of the road was no more. Slabs of stone and clods of earth were strewn all over the road. The driver was standing on the verge earnestly speaking into his mobile phone.
"The good news is that wall which was falling down already will be rebuilt. The lucky bugger who owns it will get a new wall on the insurance." The farmer grinned.
It had been a poor morning. The mist, fog and usual Cumbrian rain had made the roads greasy. The car must have been doing one hell of a speed as it came over the redundant railway bridge and one can only imagine the driver's horror when he lost control and realised he was about to crash, He was blessed to survive without a scratch.
It was not a shock. Over the last few months I had seen this particular vehicle bombing along over the fells. He had often overtaken my bus, demonstrating feelings of untold rage and pent up agression, having turned the corner and found me and my bus trundling along. The cheek of it. Fookin' 'ell. No bloody bus is going to get in my way. And so they had to try anything to get past at the earliest opportunity.
"Aye," said a local lady at the depot. "Me husband is the same. I can feel him putting the foot down and cursing under his breath."
The clouds lifted when another driver decided to change the subject and proffer some of his home grown bus driverly philosophy:
"How long's a piece of string?"
When he was faced with a string of blank looks and inane suggestions, he went on:
"It's twice the length of half of it."
The ensuing silence was predictable.
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