I do so wish my brain would function right

Should there be any doubts whatsoever why this blog’s named the way it is then this little tale will lay them to rest. Though I suspect it could quite legitimately be named “Adventures of Two Idiots”!

It all started last week, when mate and I came to the conclusion (it certainly took us long enough) that maybe Bedford’s getting a wee bit stale for us pic-wise. Maybe. Too many photo jaunts, not enough stuff to keep us amused. Perhaps we need to give ourselves a break from it for a little while. Seek out new vistas type thing.

So we sort of agreed that, weather permitting, the following week we’d try venturing a bit further afield. Hop on a bus and travel to one of the neighbouring towns or villages. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Yeah. Right.

That was last week. So, the day finally arrives and me, up bright and early, checks the weather forecast online. Then fire off a quick email to mate to see if he’s up and about yet. So that we can tie up last-minute arrangements… like where and when to meet, where we’re going to head for etc. So far so good.

Er… no.

Email sent I sit there, drumming fingers on desk, waiting for a response. Dammit. He’s late for the time we’d agreed to both be online. Typical! Absolutely typical. Doesn’t bode well. Doesn’t bode well at all. Don’t want to get too involved in anything computer-related in case I have to make a quick departure. Just continue drumming fingers on desk then. And waiting. Waiting. W a i t i n g . . .

Half hour or so later a reply from scumbag drifts lazily into the mailbox, so we switch to “chat mode” to… er… chat.
First time I’d used that “chat” thingie in my webmail. Quite handy really. And doesn’t appear to have all those stupid extra features that other instant messengers have… and confuse the hell out of me. Seems it was the first time he’d used it as well. So I had to do a bit more waiting while he sussed out details like… where the gizmo actually lurks.

Not that I’m impatient or anything. But come on, there’s a limit to everything.

Ok. Details sorted so I head off into town. Slightly early, but no matter cos I can always grab a quick coffee whilst waiting for him. And that’s what I do of course. In a little coffee shop I tend to use when I’m on my own that has all sorts of attractions… that I somehow seem to have forgotten to mention to mate. Good!

Unfortunately, he’s now found out about them. Damn!

He finally turns up (I knew he was on the way cos I’d seen him walking whilst I was on the bus coming in… tempted to make a rude gesture to him but guessed he wouldn’t see it; oblivious of most things he is) and the first thing to be done is sort out a bit of shopping. He, for example, needs a new pair of sunglasses. Cos it’s really really sunny. And he’s lost his last pair. Probably joined all the other things he’s lost over the years… and there have been many of them.

Most recently, so I’ve discovered, is relatives. Long lost relatives (his words!). I ask you, who the hell loses relatives? Damn careless I call it. As it happens though, his experience reminds me that I really do need to ditch Facebook… just in case any of my relatives should find me. Can’t be having that happen… wot with me being the black sheep an’ all.

Anyway, back to the tale… I’m thinking we’ll need to get ourselves some provisions. Some sandwiches maybe, and bottles of drink perhaps.

Nothing particularly difficult about any of that. Except this is us. You just wouldn’t believe how long two people can stand on the street debating the merits of getting the sunglasses or the refreshments first. It’s just… well, what can I say?

Finally settle for sunglasses first so off we toddle into a nearby “Superdrug”. I already have a pair of course, a very nice super-duper pair. Expensive too. So I don’t need any. Ahem.

Mate, after much faffing around (damn, he’s so fussy) finally settles on a pair and, just about to head to the checkout, it occurs to me that it’d be a kind of funny thing to do… bit of a giggle sort of… if we had matching sunglasses. Cos the pair he’s picked up are actually quite smart. And cheap. Ish. And my existing ones do tend to be a tad loose-fitting (I have to tweak the arms periodically to stop them falling off whenever I bend down!).

Mate of course insists I’m copying him. Well, he would, wouldn’t he? Load of nonsense obviously. It’s just a bit of a laugh. But whatever.
And anyway, if we’re gonna talk about who’s copying who, what about the backpacks then? Eh? Eh? Who had theirs first? Me, that’s who. And who then went and bought an identical one? Even had the shop order it in for him specially. Him, that’s who! So there.

Anyway, sunglasses paid for, we head for the exit. Mate leaves first, walking into the door.
Yep, that’s right. Not through the doorway. Into the door. The glass door, that just happened to be closed.

Ho hum. The day’s definitely not looking very promising. Not for him at least. Me, I’m having a whale of a time. Chortling at his stupidity, and giggling at the idiocy of our matching sunglasses… which of course we’re both now wearing.

Head for the bus station then, and check out when the bus leaves for Ampthill.
Cos that’s where we’d decided to go. Went there in September of last year as well in fact, and so impressed were we that we’d promised ourselves a return visit.

So much left to explore. This occasion we had in mind to spend the time in Ampthill Park. And I remembered that, by a strange coincidence, it was the very day that we went to Ampthill last year that mate bought his other sunglasses… the pair he’s now lost. So we spend a bit of time speculating whether he’s gonna buy sunglasses every time we go to Ampthill… cos there’s bound to be future visits, and its pretty much guaranteed he’ll lose this pair as well.

So there we are, at the correct bus stop (miraculously) and there’s mate, checking the timetable. Cos I’m useless at stuff like that. Never understand the damn things.
Informs me the bus is due at 11.26 (I think it was) which is not long away, so time for a quick fag.

There we are then, as I say, waiting at the right bus stop. And the designated time is almost upon us. But where’s the bus? Sure, there is a bus waiting at the relevant bus stop, but it can’t be ours, can it? Cos it says Toddington on its destination board, not Ampthill. And we want the one for Ampthill.

It’s the right sort of bus though. A double-decker, like we journeyed on last time. Not a single-decker, like the majority are. But it can’t be ours cos its marked Toddington. So we wait.

11.26 (or whatever it was) arrives, and this double-decker bus marked Toddington pulls out. We stand and watch it pull out, quite complacently. Still waiting for ours see… the one that’ll be marked Ampthill.

Give it another few minutes. No bus. Have another fag. No bus. Hmm. Looks as though the bus is late. Mate checks the timetable again, just to be sure he hadn’t made a mistake. Nope. The bus is definitely late.

“You don’t think”, sez I, “that bus that pulled out was ours do you? After all, it was a double-decker. And it was waiting at the right stop.”
We wouldn’t just stand there and watch the bus we want pull away without us, would we? No. We’re not that stupid, surely? Are we?

But slowly, the awful ugly horrible truth begins to nibble away at my thoughts.

Now I really do need to explain something here. I know, I absolutely know, that buses departing Bedford for Toddington invariably travel through Ampthill. They could go another way of course, like along the motorway, but they don’t. They go through Ampthill. I know this. Have known it for years in fact.
And buses that are going to Toddington (through Ampthill be it noted, where they will undoubtedly stop for passengers for Ampthill to alight) may well have marked on their destination board “Toddington”.

Like what that double-decker bus that left some minutes ago, that was waiting at our bus stop, that we stood and calmly watched leave whilst waiting for our bus, had marked on its destination board.

Oops.

Best see what time the next bus leaves then. Which mate does. Again. And it seems there’s time, twenty minutes or so, to go and sit down somewhere. Maybe eat our snacks and have another fag. So we do. And all the while there’s me, keeping an eye on the time. Cos we don’t want to miss the second bus as well, do we?

Quite amazing really then, with me checking my watch every couple of minutes, how we still manage to arrive back at the bus stop two or three minutes late. Oops. And there’s no bus there.

“Don’t think we’ve missed it do you?” ask I. We hadn’t… but we nearly did. Cos this one wasn’t a double-decker. And it wasn’t waiting at the right stop anyway. It was only thanks to the driver shouting out where he was going that we spotted it!

Finally get to our destination. Finally find our way into Ampthill Park (we’re not too hot on finding places; either of us). Though we almost stumbled into a kids’ playground by mistake. Can’t be doing that. It just doesn’t look right. Two dodgy geezers with cameras and matching sunglasses suddenly appearing out of the trees bordering a kids’ playground. Where kids are playing. Little kids. Yep. Definitely not right. So we hastily skirt playground (discreetly holding cameras down by side and hoping no-one spots us) and head off toward where we’re supposed to be.

Which turns out to be at the top of a hill overlooking the Bedfordshire landscape.

The top of a hill that, on the side we were now facing, had quite a steep descent into a sort of deep valley. That I had to persuade mate wasn’t just a large ditch that he could kick me into, much as he was itching to.

The view should have been quite picturesque… but somehow it wasn’t. Not to us. Didn’t really inspire us. Nevertheless we fired off a few shots, more of a token effort really, but basically just sort of slobbed around enjoying the sunshine. And unsuccessfully hunting for stuff that we could shoot close up. The flowers and stuff were no use cos the breeze kept moving them.
I found a discarded wrapper or two but nothing of a scale to warrant getting over-excited about. Not what you’d call real, significant, litter. A bit different to Bedford’s park areas.

However, there was a little compensation for the non-inspirational nature of the view. Cos nearby were a bunch of kids larking around. Big kids this time, so that’s ok.

When they spotted us taking our pics and generally making idiots of ourselves (like laying down facing downhill for some of the shots… a position that feels really strange) they sort of edged a bit closer, and larked around even more, and started taking pics of each other with their point’n'shoots and mobile phones and stuff.

Hmm. Quite clear to me what was required, so I shamble across in my normal “dodgy photographer” and somewhat tramp-like shamble and ask if they’d like me to take their pic for them… all together sort of.

This is what’s known as “photographer’s instinct” I guess. This nose for sussing out when a pic’s required. And having an eye on grabbing some extra pics for meself as well of course, just so I can illustrate the blog post that will inevitably be written. Er… that’d be this blog post as it happens.

All I know is, if I were a kid and some dodgy looking photographer bloke approached me and offered to take my pic I’d pretty soon tell him where he could shove his camera. Or run away as fast as I could. Or both.

Anyway, as it happens my instincts were right on the button and the kids were all immediately up for it, instantly lining themselves up to pose for the pic with no prompting from me whatsoever. Can’t imagine why. It’s not as though I’m a particularly friendly or sociable sort of bloke. But real fun kids they were. A nice bunch.

A half-dozen or so shots later we exchange emails so I can send the pics on to them, whereupon mate and I plough on into the depths of the park, for a few more uninspiring shots. So much of it was just far too “busy” for any decent pics. The park was a bit disappointing in that sense.

And now it’s time for lunch. Back into Ampthill itself then, and reacquaint ourselves with a little coffee shop we’d visited on a previous occasion.
But this time, what with it being so sunny an’ all, we plonked ourselves outside, Continental fashion, to watch the world go by whilst we partook of our nourishment. Pleasant it was too. We could easily have sat there all day had mate not needed to get back to Bedford.

So that just about wrapped things up for us. Not a long visit, and not many pics to show for it. But enjoyable enough. And no doubt we’ll be returning again, at some point. Cos there’s still loads to explore.

Back into Bedford then. And of course back to The Bear where we chill out for a while before mate starts his shift.

And finally I wend my way home. To an evening of pic-processing.

But the day didn’t end there. Or rather, the repercussions of the day. Not for me at least.

Cos one of the tasks I’d set myself was to pay a particular bill whilst I was in town. A bill that really did need paying. So what do I discover when I get back home? Only that I’d forgotten all about it! Oh bloody hell! That means another otherwise totally unnecessary trip into town the following day. Damn and blast!

I do so wish my brain would occasionally, just occasionally, function right.

[Edit 26.06.2010 - Mate's rather distorted version, unfairly casting me in the role of some dodgy lying old git, is here. And here. Yep... he's made a right meal of it and split in into two parts. Just showing off if you ask me.]