Off we went, evidently having missed one Chester bus but we happily waited for the next, scheduled for half-an-hour later. By the time we accepted that this bus was never going to materialise, we resigned ourselves to waiting for the next one. Finally, we settled down to the enjoyable journey through the western towns and villages of the Wirral peninsula until, when just beyond Neston, the driver yelled, “No brakes!”
I thought his driving had been getting a little hairy. Fortunately, he stopped the vehicle safely then radioed for help. Another bus would come for us all, he said. So we waited. And we waited.
One little old lady loudly grumbled about her missed appointment. No doubt this was inconvenient to her, but rather less so than crashing upside-down into a ditch, surely! Not to be consoled, she declared she was going to write to the council about it. Perhaps they might consider passing a bylaw making it illegal for busses to break down? Ah, I shouldn’t tease….
The bus grew hotter and hotter as we sat there for an hour, then hubby turned to me and said, “I’m hungry. Let’s walk back to Neston and find food.”
Once again we wandered on our way, and entered the first pub we came to. Did they do food? The barmaid told us, “If you come back on Saturday we do sandwiches.”
A five day wait seemed a tad excessive so we tried elsewhere, the Greenland Fisheries, to be precise, where we enjoyed a simple but thoroughly satisfying cod, chips and peas in a cosy and congenial atmosphere. Some people might wonder at any connection between Greenland and our sunny corner of Cheshire, but oodles of time ago there used to be a thriving port at nearby Parkgate. Now, of course, the harbour is marshland, famous for birdlife and infamous for mosquitoes.
Popular science insists that the harbour silted up quite naturally, but if you wish to learn what really happened to prevent the tidal River Dee from returning to port, you’ll have to read my A Wirral Otherkin Trilogy (which is under consideration by a publisher at the moment.)
It was to Parkgate that we strolled next, enjoying the scenery and quaint houses, and the heady fragrances of flowering magnolias which thrive in Wirral’s sunny microclimate. We sat on the low sandstone harbour wall, and poor hubby gazed mournfully at the world famous ice-cream shop and cursed his dairy allergy.
So, having ambled along the busy promenade, we arrived at the bus stop where we checked the time-table. Yup, we’d just missed one bus, and had an hour to wait. Oh well, the view across the marsh to Wales is enjoyable on a sunny day, no? *chuckles*
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