Well, I might mention prams, but it's not actually about them.
Ok. I don't drive, get the bus quite a lot. There's a woman who gets on the bus at a very large supermarket which is about 20 minutes before I have to get off the bus. She is a very, very large lady (this is relevant, I promise - I'm not exactly a skinny girl myself). She seems to know all the bus drivers, and when she gets on the bus she stands right at the front, by the driver's cabin, leans on the front railing on the front window and chats to them. She gets off after me, not sure how much further on.
It makes me a bit cross that she chats loudly to them for the journey, I'd rather the bus driver was concentrating on the road, and there is a sign that says 'don't stand forward of this point and distract the driver', or something to that effect, but if the bus driver chooses to chat to her then there's not much to be done about it.
There are two actual problems. One is that it's really quite difficult to get on and off the bus past her, and I can't see why the drivers don't tell her to move. I'm often travelling with baby DD, but I've always got her in a sling so it's not too difficult for me but I feel sorry for those with pushchairs/shopping trollies who have to negotiate around her. She's often got lots of bags of shopping with her although if there's space she does put them in the luggage rack. If there isn't space they are just at her feet.
The other problem is that now that it's dark early in the evening, it's really hard to see where the bus stop is out of the (usually quite grubby) windows. I live in a smallish, not terribly well lit village so you have to be on the ball to press the bell at the right point. If I missed my stop it would mean travelling on to the next village and then a 50 minute wait for the bus back, or a 45 minute walk in the dark along a busy road with no pavement. So I don't fancy that. Obviously the front window is nice and clean, so I (and I imagine others) look out the front to see where we are. Problem is, if she is there, she really is so very large that it's very hard to see out of the window. That sounds awful, I'm not trying to make a comment on her being a big lady, it just genuinely is difficult to see where we are.
I have inwardly seethed about this for 18 months, since we moved to the village. It's worse again now because of the clocks going back and it being dark earlier.
My question is - would I BU to write a letter of complaint to the bus company? And if I did, what on earth would I say? I don't want to get the bus drivers into trouble, they're all really nice...
Apologies for the long and frankly quite petty rant. But I wonder if IABU? Or is this something you would be annoyed by?