Last post I got into how we need to plan our movements a bit more in our car-free-dom because of needing to coincide with transport (i.e. most likely buses and trains). Things happen – strange weather again!! We always find it amusing that if there is some challenging weather and things get disrupted on the news in the UK they don’t go on about the limitless number of inevitable disruptions to car travelling, it is remarkably that we need to fixate on the headline that ‘some trains got delayed’!

We have taken a lot of trains in the UK and I can’t deny we have had some delays, perhaps even the occasional cancellation. However, even with our oddly marketised, incredibly over-complicated and woefully under-invested in train system (that is aside from the money pit of the HS2 vanity project!) it has kind of works for us pretty OK most of the time. We get to where we intended most of the time, and often at the expected time! We’ve clearly been lucky enough to avoid one of those train ‘ordeals‘ (sorry if you haven’t) that also travel so quickly into the headlines.

I digress – I started on a thread about missing the bus with this post. As I mentioned before we get the bus out of Sheffield, the city where we live, to go walking in the Peak District a fair amount. In doing so you are in the hands of a few bus routes and associated bus companies (we have spent quite a few hours staring at maps to try to get a grip on the main bus routes). The buses are once an hour, at best, and so it does open up the question of: What happens if the bus does not show?

We had the bus no show situation a few weeks back. If you are in the middle of nowhere then it could be a real problem. But as with the last post you do need to have a back up plan as it can happen, and if you are with kids they are not so good at working with your uncertain response to their question: Will we ever get home? So you do need to think about back up options, particularly in the winter when you could freeze yourself waiting.

So the bus didn’t come, but where we finished our walk (the beauty of public transport being that you can do point-to-point walks as you don’t have to reunite with your demandingly expectant automobile) we sussed out that there were other bus routes, even a possible train option, and most importantly a decent cafe. We did swear a bit, and get upset but then we could go and have a hot drink and cake in the cafe and it was fine – you might even say the serendipity added to the experience! And, when you get back home there is not really going to be any time to cook so it has to be chips from the local chip shop – what is not to like!

It’s not ideal the no show bus scenario. I did email the company and several weeks later got an email back, which was a bit underwhelming, although they did say ‘sorry’. It was due to them having ‘issues with available buses due to safety critical defects’ – which I suppose in itself is a bit concerning! Anyway the no show can happen (we’ve even made some spectacular misreadings of bus timetables!) so I am just saying be ready for it as even with all the social media, bus tracking, smart-apping and whatever else in the world you have access to (unless you are so remote you have no phone signal!) they can’t magic up a replacement bus, as far as I am aware!