(Photo of the back our bus in the bus station at Slagelse - Denmark.)


Cousin Sheila visited from South of France for two weeks, (on way to family in Stockholm!) and I met her at Slagelse Station.

May 2015 I was due to pick up my cousin Sheila from the train coming directly from Copenhagen airport.
She had flown to Copenhagen from where she lives in the South of France.
We had given her good directions how to get to the train from the airport and I had bought her train ticket in advance, sent it to her in an email so she printed it out and took it with her before she left home.
Everything went perfectly at the airport - she found the train after a short walk and arrived on the platform in good time according to plan. She then travelled in style on the comfortable Intercity train to Slagelse and arrived precisely on time with me already there on the platform to meet her having come on the 470R bus, which runs 5 mins. walk away from our house.
We hugged and I warned her that we had probably missed the next bus 470R home to us in Slots Bjergby, but if we hurried, maybe there was a chance. Otherwise there was half an hour to the next one.
I should add, that as we had only sold the car a month ago, I was not yet an experienced public transport person! So we raced down two flights of steps from the platform, along a tunnel under the train lines, up two flights leading to the bus terminal and there in the distance I could see our bus parked but with back lights showing red, as he was about to go. (They have a 12 minute turn around.)
We hurried across the pedestrian crossing and up to the bay where it was parked and the driver had seen us running and waited for us. (I should add, that we were talking non-stop all the while!) I have a special Danish travel pass with electronic chip that the majority of bus and train travellers in Denmark use and this will allow up to two extra passengers to travel with me, (I pay of course), BUT this time the driver could not get the thing to work when he typed in the request for 1 person extra.
Twice he sent me down inside the bus to the door where you get off to click on the check-out “reader” machine and thereby enable a re-start with him yet again typing in our request and he was almost swearing under his breath with annoyance, but no way could he get it to work and add one more person! (Plus he should have left minutes ago.) So in the end, he disgustedly waved us away to take our seats, almost speechless with frustration and indicated that we would travel free, since he couldn’t get his machine to register Sheila as well.
We found seats and were talking non-stop, there was so much to catch up on and Sheila had experienced several traumas en route as firstly there was a severe electrical storm at Amsterdam airport bringing everything to a complete standstill then, when finally due to board, the captain announced that there was an electrical fault in the plane so further delays while they sorted this out! Whilst she was telling me this, I was looking out of the window which was difficult Sheila had the window seat and I the gangway, so I only could see bits and pieces.
I was getting more and more worried as I didn’t recognise where we were going. Suddenly I am looking at some fields and a main road which I realised that I had NEVER driven down before in my life! “Just a minute”, I say to Sheila, “I am going to speak to the driver as I have NO idea where we are!”!


I make my way up to him and ask “This is the 470R going to Skælskør, isn’t it?”
“No” he replied, looking worriedly at me, “this is the 420R going to Holbæk!”
(in the opposite direction - north when we wanted south!!!)

“Oh my gosh! We are on the wrong bus!!!”
I squeaked out in horror and panic, so he stopped the bus dead at the side of the road with fields of waving rape flowers as far as the eye could see, so pretty and glowing bright yellow, despite the grey clouds and rainy day, and said, trying to be helpful:
“You can get off here, if you like???”

So I thought quickly, and replied. “Oh no thanks, as we must get the next bus back again so would you please take us to the next bus stop so we can just cross over the road and be ready at the opposite bus stop?”
At which he replied in a very concerned voice: “You know, the next bus is first in an hour’s time?” Yikes!
We arrived at the next stop, got off and crossed the road for the next bus back, me in a whirl as to what to do. As we took place by the bus stop sign, all alone on this long winding main road right out in the country now with drips of rain now slowly starting to plop down and big black clouds coming our way, I could see I had to make a desperate decision: To get a taxi!
This is the ironic thing: One minute we were both travelling FREE of charge, next minute we took the most expensive form of transport – and had I known I was getting a taxi – I could have got one straight away at the bus terminal and saved all my money and hassle out to here on the Holbæk road and back – and be home by now!
I scout rapidly up and down through my very long iPhone list of contacts, as I knew I had a taxi company somewhere and finally find “Dantaxi” and ring up. A nice, understanding woman answered and I explain the whole story, (we both had a laugh over my stupid mistake), and I explain that I have no idea where we are except it was the road to Holbæk and we were not far from a side road called Oksebrovej, where there was a sign saying “Hotel” on the corner. So she got this noted and then said she knew exactly where we were on her map and she’d send a taxi to pick us up immediately.
There had barely gone 2 minutes when a Dantaxi car shot past us at full speed and I waved like mad to show it was us he was looking for and he screeched to a halt, reversed back up to us and we got in.

The driver, who looked very foreign and spoke with an accent worse than my own, asked where we wanted to go and as the conversation progressed, I realised that this was NOT the Dantaxi sent to look for us, but another man who had come past by sheer chance – an amazing co-incidence!
So I compared notes with the driver and told him he had better ring to “Headquarters” and get the “real” driver alerted, because now we did not need him any more.
So he rang up and got a “Jeanette”, who wasted precious time cross-questioning him as to whether he had completed the two last call-outs successfully and then chatting on about how she was going home in a minute and that before she went, she had one last customer for him in Slagelse - and she started giving him a long complicated address – all before he could get a word in! I could hear all this as he drove along.
All this talk delayed our driver in explaining to Jeanette about the two “stranded damsels in distress”, who were now being driven home by himself and that we did not need the original driver sent out to rescue us. Just at that moment my mobile rings and it is a very heated “John” on the phone, who says he is the driver sent to find us - and where the devil are we, he’s been up and down looking and looking....?
He was absolutely NOT pleased when I started to explain that we were safely driving home with the “wrong” Dantaxi driver and I only got part of the story told and how it wasn’t our fault as we couldn’t know it was the wrong car etc. etc. - when our driver chipped in and asked me if he could borrow my phone so HE could explain to his colleague exactly what had gone wrong (and more or less apologise) And this is the funny bit that we have been giggling and laughing over ever since... for this “John” was obviously VERY annoyed and put out having driven up and down for some time looking for us in vain, so I could hear our driver saying: “Calm down, calm down!!!” in Danish.
Then he explained to “John” that he couldn’t say "no "to taking up two desperate looking “Gypsy ladies” who were standing by the wayside with a pile of luggage and insisted on flagging him down!
Now I admit I wear sunglasses all day at the moment despite the odd dull rainy day as my distance glasses have got lost and they were all I had for a whole fortnight while the optician made the new ones and I DO have an accent to my Danish, then Sheila has a multi-colour fancy patchwork knitted jacket and woolly hat with her long hair sticking out under it plus a walk-on luggage trolley on wheels and only speaks English – but that we looked like a couple of gypsies stuck out in the Danish countryside (without our caravan!), was a completely new idea for us and we have been laughing loudly ever since!
The family came to lunch on the following Sunday and I hardly could wait to tell them the story and that their mother, mother-in-law and grandmother (and her cousin) were gypsies! They howled with laughter as well! I shall never forget this laugh and it makes me extra loyal to Dantaxi!
So it was a very eventful journey Sheila had from the South of France to our house - but with a happy ending!
All part of life’s rich pattern as they say....

(See below the two gypsies at the main station in Copenhagen on another day.)


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