Down in the mud

Since I didn't have my camera with me, I couldn't take any photos. This is a little bus I saw in Florence a few years ago.

I had to do a trip the other day with a bunch of teachers who went to a protest ralley. I was not the only one. There were about 100 coaches there and most of them were parked on a road that circled a large area with some grass and trees. Well, that's what it looked like anyway! In reality it was grass that covered mud and quite deep at that.

I let my people off the coach and they were able to walk across the path, however the coach driver behind me was a bit blonde on the inside and let them out straight into the mud. They walked it off in the end, but still. But when the people all came back, some weren't too happy about talking the long circular road between all those buses with their engines running. Some decided to cross the mud! Which was asking for trouble and a whole bunch of people (did I mention it was a circular road?) looking on in case something went wrong.

Which of course was exactly what happened. Within seconds everybody had stopped moving towards their coaches and was looking at this woman (from the coach behind me) who had sunk up to her knees into the mud, had lost a shoe and had then fallen over. You could hear the laughter all the way along. It was brilliant to watch! She made it back to her coach, nice and dirty (although I doubt the driver agreed with that) and in the end everybody was on board of the coaches again.

The first coaches started moving off and then I spotted a coach that was stood there, but not really the way it was supposed to. It was tilting towards me (albeit on the other side of the circular road)! And of course everybody saw that as well (well, I had to take the microphone and tell my passengers didn't I?). The driver had decided he didn't want to wait for all the coaches to leave before him and reversed. Unfortunately he reversed into the mud and with the added weight of a wheelchair ramp engine in the back of his coach, he had sunk. The thing was though, he was still sinking and the doors couldn't open anymore!! However, due to the wheelchair ramp he also had an extra door, even if it was about two meters high up (but lowering by the minute). While we were driving off, the passengers of that coach were being helped down into the mud!