Monday 23 May 2011

Thar She Blows And The Bus Struggled On

'A great wind is blowing and that either gives you imagination or a headache,' said Catherine The Great, as quoted in the book Daughters Of Eve (Gamaliel Bradford 1930). Today there was a great wind blowing over the north of England. It gave the children plenty of imagination. All I got was one big headache.

It started earlier in the day with an articulated truck being unable to climb the hill through the middle of town, due to the greasy and rain sodden road. As a result the traffic came to a grinding halt in all directions. Angry locals impatiently blew their horns. But there was nothing that could be done. It was quite nice having a breather, while the truck driver considered what to do next.

Later in the day the wind got up. It blew hard. So hard that it was hard to control the bus over the hilltops. The doors were blown in and turning a corner, it felt like the wheels were up in the air and I was about to flip over.

The children were struggling against the wind. The wheelie bins were flying along the ground narrowly missing them, some were seeking sanctuary inside a telephone box. They came over to the bus as soon as they could. When they boarded a boy shoved an open book under my nose.

'Look at this, will you. Look at this,' he said. 'We've just had to sit through an afternoon lesson about ...PUBERTY. Imagine the humiliation'

Sure enough, in the book he rammed close to my eyes, there were diagrams, similar to those I remember from my own biology lessons, when I was at school. He threw the book out of the door. The gale force wind carried it over the hedge and up into the sky. And ... that was that.

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