Having had no car thanks to my pending-MOT-oversight, I've WFH for the past few days but came into the office today as a few on-site tasks needed doing and tbh being stuck in the house / village drives me mental in the time I regularly have off; let alone piling another week onto this.
I caught the bus to Oxford which to be fair wasn't terrible - seems an extra one is laid on for commuters which misses out some of the painfully wiggly, poorly-surfaced parts of the routes to smaller villages; cutting the journey time from the village of the damned to Oxford city centre from a shade over an hour to about 45 minutes.
Mindful of not missing the only viable bus I was at the stop early; waiting in the light drizzle for it to eventually arrive seven minutes late - not a good start as time was going to be fairly tight anyway.
Thankfully there was plenty of room and I sat on one of the special seats at the front - allowing me to tuck my front bag under the seat and pull the folded Brompton in between my legs to lessen its impact / occupied space as much as possible.
In contrast to the oft-encountered road rage in the car it was novel to relax with some nice Jungle in my ears. By the time we'd reached the Banbury road I think we were running even later than we had been; hampered further by the bus stopping seemingly every 100 yards. I made the snap decision that I'd be faster on the bike from this point so I disembarked at the next stop; at around four minutes after the bus was scheduled to have reached the city centre.
As the bus pulled away I unfurled the bike and waited for the head unit to pick up the GPS signal (with foresight I should have turned it on while on the bus), and from there I smashed it into town - aided it seems by a bit of a tailwind, according to the Met office.
It wasn't long before I was past the bus as it waited to pull out from yet another stop; glancing back to see the driver grinning so I responded with a wave. I sped past the city-centre bus stop maybe 5-7 minutes after the bus should have arrived, with the vehicle in question nowhere to be seen so evidently the early exit was the right choice.
A quick stop for sausages and a reflex glance into the glow of Ben's Cookies; today one of the hotties who works in there actually facing the window rather than dilligently engrossed in cookie creation, so she got a smile
From there it was onward along the usual route down St. Aldates then up the tow path; late but making good time. Got to work about five minutes late but it's all good as I can legitimately blame the bus.
Only 4.75 miles today but covered at an uncharacteristically quick 14.7mph mean and 69% of max heart rate; so a reasonable little workout that I feel much better for