After nearly two months of crazy commuting, Jaymeson is now taking public transport to school. J's school is approximately 20 minutes south of our home. W and N's school is about 7 minutes west of our home. We would drop J off first, as he could go to the school's library before school opened. I was doing some pretty major driving-leaving for the school run at 7:50, and getting home after 9am. Solid driving. And repeating it all in reverse at the end of the day. Not to mention the amount of petrol I was consuming and paying for.
This is why I was quite upset when I found out you had to pay for audio books at the libraries here (they call them "talking books"). When you're driving all around the countryside, it's nice to be able to put a children's audio book on once in awhile, or even for me to be able to listen to an adult book when there are no kids in the car. Lucky for me, we are here in the 21st century. My local techie (J), got me set up with audible (from Amazon-an audio books club), and I can play my audiobooks over my car speakers from my iphone. Very happy.
Because there are so many schools, most of them are neighborhood or village schools, and the majority of kids are walked to school. Many come home to eat lunch. There are no yellow school buses. I have seen one, and one only. (Heck, I've seen a mom pick her kid up from W/N's school on a horse-twice now.) For high schools, which there are fewer of, kids again walk, or ride public transport, or are driven to school (kids don't get their license to drive until 18 here, so kids don't drive themselves to school). Otherwise, there are coach buses chartered, and a small sign is put on the rear window to indicate that it is carrying kids. Kinda like those baby-on-board signs they used to have. The parents' association at J's school have worked with a few bus companies, and there are coaches that travel to/from J's school from Wales and other areas, but, unfortunately, not any area near where we are living.
We looked into all kinds of transport options. Most public buses had J doing a change or 2 of buses downtown, on different lines (so 2 or more different tickets to purchase). Finally, school must've contacted one of the bus companies, and now the Dee Bee comes to J's school. There is one bus that runs this particular route in the am, and once in the pm. Picks him up right at his school, and takes him right to the bus stop, which is approx 7 minutes east of our home. It sure beats all of the driving I was doing, and has halved my petrol budget.
The Dee Bee is a public transport bus, so it makes several stops, and stops at Kings' on school days only. It is bright yellow and black with a bee on it. The River Dee is the river that runs through Chester, so that's where the Dee comes in. Not sure about the whole bee thing, except its perhaps good for advertising? (Reminds me of Tatoo, saying, "da plane, da plane!". Dee Bee, Dee Bee!
J buys a special Kings' student pass, which is good for one week. It costs 6 pound, so about $9.60. So it is pricey this way too, but I still think we'll come out ahead compared to paying for petrol. And I'll reduce the wear/tear on my car. Also, although I am a SAHM, my time is worth something too. J rides the bus every morning, but I still need to pick him up on Wed and Thur evenings. (Wed is chess, Thur basketball.) And did I mention J got a phone out of the deal? So really unsure if we are coming out ahead, but you can't put a price on sanity, now can you? All of the kids here have phones-I'm assuming to contact parents as to when to pick them up? We saw no need, until we put him on a public transport bus. You just never know. When you're picking him up, all the kids are in front of school texting each other. CRAZY! J was quite pleased with this development, as he'd been begging for one since school began.
We leave home ~7:40 (keep in mind schools start at 9am), drop J off at the bus stop. As mentioned earlier, the bus stop is east of our home, and W/N's school is west of our home. So we essentially go right past our house to take W/N to school, but rather than unloading and reloading (remember, I said my time was worth something; so is my patience and tolerance level!), we drive right to W/N school, and get there approx 8:10. And we sit in the car and take turns doing our flashcards, and doing our guided reading for the day. At least we have a start on the evening's activities. Although we are actually leaving earlier then we did when I drove J to school, at least we are saving gas, and getting a head start on homework activities.
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