Every time we travel by National Express we vow never to do it again. Only, we do it so infrequently it always seems like a good budget option (cheap transport equals more beer money during the trip type logic). Well, let’s remember this journey for next time we book. Or more importantly, let’s remember the people – it made even me feel positively ladylike:
Travelling from London Victoria to Leeds (over 4› hours) on a hot day, in a bus/coach with broken air conditioning, grease-smeared windows, next to the overly-stenching toilet unit, with the pleasure of another young couple sitting behind us. The girl was very pregnant so must’ve felt a need to stretch her legs – she kept going in to the stenching toilet unit for a cigarette every 20 mins or so (smoking being banned on National Express coaches) to give the air an extra putrid flavour. How pleasant our sandwiches tasted. Didn’t seem to help her bronchitic rattling chest either.
There seemed to be a really vile smell of sweaty feet but I couldn’t quite place it, and anyway, it was over-ridden by the dominant rotten odour of wind that the girl kept blasting over (no, I hadn’t packed egg sarnies and a flask of sulphur water). She spent a large part of the journey talking on her mobile phone, becoming more and more unintelligible the more her consumption of superbrew increased. Just as we were approaching Leeds I noticed her bare feet were stretched out between my head-rest and the window. Just to the rear of my face. Mystery of the sweaty feet solved.