To Glastonbury

I don’t cope well when well laid plans go awry, when straightforward and simple plans go awry.  

I had arrived early at London Victoria to get on a coach for Glastonbury.  I was going to an event run by an Australian shamanic midwife whom I had done some work with before.  

I was longing for the familiar and the restorative.

As I stood amidst the other waiting passengers at the gate for my bus, a man dressed in a suit stood in front of the gate, cheerfully answering questions from passing passengers.  I thought to myself, he must really enjoy his work as he greeted each person with much enthusiasm and attention.

My bus was leaving at 8 and I was waiting for some sort of instruction to board the bus.  As the sign at the gate ticked over from 8.00 to 8.01 am, the sign for my bus disappeared and on came the sign for the next one departing at 8.30.  Alarmed, I went to the man in the suit and asked where the bus to Glastonbury was.  He turned away from me and told me he did not work there.  He then turned to another passenger who had come up behind me and told him “I work here, for you” and proceeded to answer his question.  It was a surreal moment and I still cannot explain two days later what had happened that morning.  I turned to a woman who was standing nearby wearing the yellow fluorescent vest of the coach station staff, and as I was about to ask her, the man in the suit told me she doesn’t work there either.  He then told me to go and see a woman who was standing amongst the buses in the bus parking area, which technically was off limits to the public.  I went up to her and inquired after my bus and she told me I had just missed it.  She didn’t really want to know about me and sent me in search of an office next to gate 11.  I found a small shed where a man was just entering and I explained my predicament.  He too didn’t want to know and told me to wait as he had only just arrived.

He closed the door on me.  

I had planned my trip so that I would have half a day to explore Glastonbury, the next day to spend at the Chalice Well where the event was being held; and I was booked on a bus back to London the following morning, at 6.50 am.  And from memory there were only two services to Glastonbury, the 8am and one much later in the day.  

The man in the shed finally emerged as he rolled open his shuttered window and asked me how he could help me.  I had just told him what my problem was.  So I explained again, holding my tongue, that I had been waiting for this bus for more than 20 minutes and somehow it had left without me.  He told me the others had managed to get on the bus (only 2 passengers) and so it wasn’t the coach company’s fault.  I had never said it was anybody’s fault.  By this time, I was feeling myself falling into a spiral of despondency and helplessness, and there was now a queue of people waiting behind me.  The man told me to step aside because he had to help the others while he waited for his computer to start working.  

After serving a half a dozen customers, he finally turned to me and told me there were three services that afternoon, 4.30, 5.00 and 6.00 pm, all arriving at 10 pm.  He couldn’t give me a refund and I had to make a choice.  As I was still trying to come to terms with what had happened, I was struggling to make a decision so he just went ahead and booked the 6pm.  I then asked him how I could avoid missing this bus seeing there had been no announcement or indication of where and when to board the bus.  He ignored my question and told me I should be satisfied he had fixed my problem.  

So what was I to do for the next nine hours?  For various reasons it didn’t make sense to return to where I was staying so I went to the tourist office and asked where the nearest museum was, which is where I spent the rest of the day.  At least, it was free, there were toilets, places to eat and beautiful things to see.  

I made my way back to the coach station at 5 pm determined to get on that bus.  I would make myself known and demand to be shown the bus.  The man in the suit was nowhere to be found.  I entered the area of the buses and found a staff member and asked where my bus was. He told me it had not arrived and to go back to the waiting room.  I told him how the 8am bus had left without me and that I wasn’t going to let that happen again.  

So I returned and sat at the gate and found a couple of old ladies waiting for the same bus.  They were returning home after travelling since 9am on multiple buses and this was their last leg, lasting 4 hours.  What a way to travel.... This time, there were announcements and last calls for all the buses that were departing.  Was this the same place I had been earlier in the day?  For whatever reason, circumstances had conspired against me to get on the 8am service.  

I finally boarded the very full bus, found a seat and promptly fell asleep with sheer relief that I was now on my way.

When I awoke, the light was the light of a summer evening, in the in between of day and night.  And I had been transformed to another world, the world of villages with names like Nimlet, where my eyes beheld fields and valleys of green and the yellow of the rapeseed.  

This was what I had come for.