‘You are late man, you missed the bus.’ This is a common statement made by people to justify that if we are not on time me will miss the happening. But in the last couple of days I with three of my friends (Riku, May and Pink) experienced something completely dramatic which proved that you can miss the bus even if you are well ahead of time.
It all started on this Monday as we planned to visit the isles of Arran for cycling along the shores on a sunny day. The biggest concern to start with was that, everybody reaches the station on time to catch the train (which was supposed to leave at 8.34 A.M.). To our greatest astonishment, all four of us were at Glasgow central station by 8:20. Well ahead of the time. We moved up to platform 12 from where the train was scheduled to leave for Ardrossan Harbour. So we were all standing in front of the train on platform 12, waiting for the gates to open and allow us in. Meanwhile, Riku narrated his past experience, where he along with a couple of friends was to go to the same place and missed the train by a whisker and thus had to catch the other one which stops a couple of stations ahead of our destination and then they took a cab from there to the harbour. While we were busy laughing out on the silly mistake of him and his friends, all of a sudden he stops and points towards this moving train right behind the one we were waiting to enter and exclaims the tragic words “why does the sign on the train say Ardrossan Harbour?”. We thought he was kidding us but no….. it actually did, though being well ahead of time we had missed the train!! As they say ‘History repeated itself’ and we had to catch the other train to Ardrossan beach, waiting right across on platform 11 (as if it was positioned knowing exactly what was to happen).
Well we got down at Ardrossan Beach at about 9:26 and were still on time to catch the ferry which was to leave at 9:45. We rushed to the cab, and asked the driver to zoom in to the harbour so that we can catch the scheduled ferry. While blazing down the road, there it was, a bright ‘red light’ at the signal, but we stopped for barely a few seconds as it turned green, now the car in front could not start until the signal turned red again. No big deal, you can’t blame the driver, it’s a machine, can break down (arrrrrrggghhhh). Anyway the signal turned green again and we moved ahead. We reached the harbour exactly at 9:45, only to hear a rude man saying “you have missed it, wait for the next one.” No! not again, within a timespan of about 2 hours, this was the second time we missed out on the vessel even being on time. Then suddenly a voice from behind says “alright open the gates, let them in “. ‘Yes!’ We exclaimed in joy and went on board as every passenger gazed at us ready to pounce.
Now things looked good as we thought luck was on our side and from therein nothing should go wrong (maybe we were too early to reach to such a conclusion). So were landed at Brodick, and as ‘Planed’, hired the bikes to go about the Island. We were to cycle for about 30 Kms which according to our captain (riku) was uphill in the start while ‘eventually’ we shall be going downhill which would be a lot of fun. Almost midway, we were to stop at the Whiting Bay to take a dip in the ocean and freshen up. ‘As per the plan’ we should be done with all of it by 6.30 P.M., return the bikes and there after catch the last ferry which leaves at 7:20. Sounds good but knowing how things were shaping up since morning, ‘Plan’ was something we were rather scared of. Somehow we reached Whiting Bay at 5:30 and had an hour at the beach from where we planned to take a bus to the harbour. At 6:20 we were done with the refreshing beach party and were all set at the bus stop. The bus arrives on time, the door opens, ready to embrace us but then a person who happens to be sitting on the driving seat says, “No bikes on the bus” (what? are you out of your mind? where do leave these then, you junky bloody a*****e). He gives a damn, shuts the door and leaves. Now what? The next bus is at 7:00, even if we get on that we shall never be on time – fantastic !! it happened all over again, we are on time, but we miss the bus.
We get on the next bus leaving the bikes behind, hoping against hope that the ferry would be a half an hour late (I don’t think that was unreasonable on our part? : p). But we reach the harbour to find out that we have missed the last ferry by quite a distance. Disgusted as we stood outside the harbour, God’s Own Angel or should I say Pink’s ‘My man’ walks out of the ticketing office and guess what his name was – John ‘Devine’. We tell him the problem and looking at our pitiful faces, he enchants, ‘not an issue, come down tomorrow anytime and I shall validate your tickets (which were same day return) so that you can use them tomorrow as well”
Nevertheless, ‘we still had not had enough’. So we were to stay there for yet another day and explore more. (No, not even in our dreams were we going for another cycling round) We hired a car and went on the exploration. Well not to describe the journey which was rather fabulous, lets come down to the topic. So we were to return the car at 5:30 and catch the second last ferry this time at 6:00 (giving ourselves an option to catch the last one if we miss this). As usual we were way ahead of time and unusually, this time the ferry was late by about half an hour (if only this happened yesterday). Finally we get on board and move to Ardrossan harbour to catch the train at 8:30. We were at the harbour at 7:30 well ahead again, so we thought “no point wasting time sitting at the station lets go grab a pint each” (brave hearts, one must say). While having this pint we suddenly realise it’s well about time and the train was already there on the platform. This brought us to the perfect end of the trip as we ran for our lives to get on to the train before we could miss yet another one.
All I can say is, being punctual is good, but doesn’t mean that you will certainly get what you are there for. But yeah was fun and adventurous, looking forward to yet another similar trip where ‘history would repeat itself’.
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