My two hour journey home from Neasden today just confirmed my number one reason for hating life in this city. It is every man for himself.
So I started out at Bow Church with my 8 year old sister and 6 year old brother and boarded the 25 (bendy bus) to Mile End Station. Ask me if anyone offered them a seat. We got off at Mile End with people stepping over the small children/knocking them out of the way in order to get off the bus first, to catch the Westbound Central Line service to Oxford Circus. It took 2 stops down the line to Liverpool Street for anyone to realise we'd been standing directly in front of them and Michael and Marika falling left, right and centre everytime the train moved, for someone to reluctantly offer them a seat. Believe I took it, even though neither them actually wanted to sit. So we got off at Oxford Circus (again being barged out of the way because people were in SUCH a hurry to god knows where) and made our way over to the Bakerloo line to get to Baker Street to catch our rail replacement bus. We board the bus and have to stand towards the front (you know where the shopping holder thingy is) for some idiotic Polish dude to come and literally stand ON me, blocking my view of the children.
Through all of our trials and tribulations, we eventually made it to Neasden station, where I said my goodbyes and began my epic journey home. Now, as you can imagine, being child-less on the return journey, thingsa became a LOT harder as my 5'3 self was pushed and shoved all the way to and down every single escalator and on every single underground platform. I was pushed and shobved out of the door way of every single bus even BEFORE it had stopped at the bus stop and it made me realise that no matter how polite you are yourself, how young you are and how many limbs you have hanging off means NOTHING to a Londoner in a 'hurry'.
And this was on a weekend.