Round and round the merry-go-round ;)

*sigh*

It was one of those shifts again, last night!

First off, Parliament Square. They're resurfacing and adding what appears to be Shell SureGrip to the road surface as well. As a result, they'd closed off lanes in all directions, on all approaches.

The traffic was, as you'd expect, even in very late evening, a bloody nightmare.

It took fifteen minutes to crawl round Parliament Square northbound, to find that the Whitehall exit was closed off.

Joy.

Instead, we had to go along Bridge Street, turn onto Embankment, and then up Horseguards Avenue and onto Whitehall instead. Anyone who's driven that rout in heavy traffic will tell you: It adds another ten to twenty minutes onto your journey. Include the 15 minutes around the merry-go-round that was parliament Square, and you'll get the correct impression that I was well late.

So, it was into the stand in central London, spin the blinds, scribble madly onto the log card, check the bus for sleepers (more later), and off we go again.

South bound was a tad better - the traffic was moving more quickly, and the delays were manageable, meaning I only had to toe it for half the trip, not the remainder of the trip. Still, it kept the punters happy, as I wasn't having to "drag the road" and crawl along at 20-25mph for a change :)

Mid-duty, and getting to the southern end of the route for my meal (supposedly lunch, this at four in the morning!) break, the heavens decided to open up. Writ large.

One solid ten minute deluge of stair rods, cats, dogs, and any other notional live creatures dropped from altitude (yeuch, what a messy thought!) later, the road was as slick as, well, you supply the simile ;)

Just as well it was a Thursday night in the outer suburbs - the roads were extremely empty, helped me to keep to time at the reduced speed due to the slightly slippery road surface :)

Then, later, we got the last trip down south... and a sleeper, who really needed to be charged room and maybe even half board...? You decide if he needed to pay £48 for the bed *evil grin* - the photo was taken off the CCTV monitor - I've sanitised it to cover his face and preserve his anonymity (ain't I nice, lol), but damn, I was chuckling at the cheeky wotsit.

Then I realised that I'd probably have to wake to poor sod up at the other end, and my grin faded. Nothing worse that being the last bus south, and a punter waking up to find that he'd have to catch three more buses to get home after falling asleep. They tend to vary in reaction on that news, some good, some bad, most grumbling like you just ate their last Rolo or something.

Not this one, though :)

He actually woke up for his stop, and got off all on his own!

Nice one, guv! Hope the crick in the neck wears off!