Same Puddle As Last Year....And The Year Before

The return journey was equally tentative.

The puddles were deeper. The rain more torrential.

And sure enough, the flood where the bus had blown it's engine two years ago, was back again. This time only a little flood, 10 inches to a foot deep. I was going slowly as I could hear the boss's voice ringing in my ears at the thought of having to ring him to tell him that another engine had been blown up.

"Tool. Idiot. Bloody Tool. Effing Tool."

I had some help as one of the passengers, a beautician training at the local college, wanted to get off the bus, right in the middle of the flood. It was hard to know where to stop. I thought it would not go down well if I asked her to take off her shoes and socks, roll up her trouser legs and wade through the rising water. So I had to take a risk and park the bus in the middle of the road, on a blind corner with the hazard lights flashing, where there was an island of tarmac.

I opened the door and prayed there was not a local boy racer zooming around the corner on a wetland aquaplaning adventure. There wasn't. even the local boy racers don't like getting wet. The bus groaned its way through the puddle. The fan belt screeched like a Harpie.

But we made it. The good thing about a very wet day, is that the bus gets a good wash. It was going to be an early night.