Yesterday I was brave. I caught the bus and train into the city with the girls and skipped K’s usual afternoon nap. You should have seen the pram, loaded to the hilt underneath with supplies for the day with the addition of a little pram skateboard for K to stand on while I push. It resembled a road train really! Our bus stop if opposite our house so after rushing to get ready I was pleased to see that we actually made it in time when the bus came up over the hill. My smile faded though when I realised that we had an ‘old’ style bus for the first part of our journey. In the past this would not have been a problem at all but with my mini road train loaded up and with little L securely sitting in the middle of it I wondered how on earth I was going to get this thing on the bus.
The driver just looked at me and said ‘sorry, its an old bus, you’ll be right won’t you’ followed by ‘theres another bus soon’. I told him that I was not going to wait for another bus, after all its not my fault that they decided on this particular day to use this particular bus and I needed to get going (try explaining to a 3 yr old who is looking forward to the bus and train trip why we are now going back over the road into our house to wait for the next one). He then said ‘well you’ll have to get in the back door then’ so I paid my fare and wheeled up to the back, the driver didn’t move out of his seat and yelled ‘you’ll be right won’t you’ once again. I was amazed at him, the back entrance to the bus was the same as the front, three tall steps. How did he think I was going to get up there. He came down to the door and said can you get it up the steps? Amazed at his lack of helpfulness and willingness to leave us in the cold wind I just looked at him and said ‘no, can you lift the end up?’. He looked at me and said ‘I’m not supposed to do this’ to which I said ‘well I’ve paid my fare and its not my fault this is an old bus and I’m getting on it’ so he came down and picked up the end of the pram (it wasn’t that heavy and I’d taken off the skateboard) and ‘helped’ me on the bus. Without waiting for us to sit properly or get the pram in a reasonably safe position he took off and the pram nearly toppled over. Crazy bus driver!!!!
Anyway, I had to try to hold K back from falling out of her seat and hold the pram as he sped around the streets (yes he was now in a hurry as I’d made him late). I was determined not to let this spoil our day but it wasn’t a good start. I was happy that Michael was able to pick us up at the return part of our journey so I only needed to go on the train.
I also need to say, that as I realise that in the past Mums had to just take their kids out of the pram and fold it up to take on the bus with them (or even have the driver hang the stroller on the back of the bus!) and now days you can wheel it on and they have a little ramp that comes out for you. I know we have it great compared to the past BUT my gripe is more that if I knew this would happen (like was expected in the past) I would have been prepared, instead I was prepared for the newer bus and transperth was not prepared for Mums with modern prams. If the driver was more helpful and acted less as if I was annoying him by being there I would not have been so dumbfounded.
Our day was good in the end, wandered the shops, had lunch with Poppa and then went to the Museum. I found some great inspiration there in the butterfly section, I just can’t wait to get some sketches going for some paintings I have in mind. Here’s some photos from our day out:
L waiting for the bus
K looking at the dinosoar
K hugging the world
K and an elk
Beautiful butterflies
