A few days ago Fran and I headed into town together. We were both in a cheerful, relaxed mood and chatted happily as we waited for the bus to come.

We saw it coming and stuck out our hands to signal to the driver. Smiling broadly he acknowledged us, and gestured that he was going to stop a bit further on where there was a good space for the ramp. We waited patiently for him to lower the it for us, knowing that this can take a minute or two.

The stop’s one where drivers change over so there are often a few staff about, and after a few seconds one of them shouted across to us aggressively, ‘Don’t just stand there waiting, go and tell the driver!’ Fran told him the driver already knew we were there, but the response she got was, ‘You just expect us to see you.’ The driver called out to his colleague to say that he did know we were there, but got no reply. A moment later the ramp came down and we got on.

Fran had been behind me until then but when we were safely on the bus I could see from her face that she was furious – Frangry. I know this look well – I often see it when we’re in a cab together and driver’s listening to awful talk radio. A happy Fran gets in at the start of the journey, and a visibly annoyed one gets out at the end of it.

When we were on the bus, she said she was fuming because the man’s tone had been so rude and aggressive. She was of course right and it’d really annoyed me too. We chatted about it briefly and then moved onto other subjects and soon she was back to her normal laid-back self.