Travel nightmare & The highest cholesterol day since records began

Tonight's journey home was three hours.  The first hour was spent in the bus queue.  It was raining melting snow for most of the time.  When I joined the ones at the front had already waited over an hour.  In the hour I waited there were supposed to be three buses and there were. Two of them said "Sorry - not in service", the third failed to stop.  If he had opened the doors people would have fallen out.  The 100 service was not working.  Nothing was being done to tell the passengers what was going on, and buses were being driven around empty.  It is not good enough. The excuse that the traffic was bad will not work.  There is a service to be provided.  First and it's drivers do not have a good record of considering their customers, as the recent strikes prove.   I caught a 42 (another First bus that crosses my regular route outside of Chelmsford), and stopped at the Eagle.  I had phoned home for a lift and Liz was on her way to get me.  Various text message told me she was stuck in traffic - an accident near the Crondon Park golf club had closed the road.  Accidents will always happen, but today there seems to have been too many incidences of bad driving. (I've watched a lot of traffic).
Eventually my phone batteries gave up.  Liz phoned the pub to say she was still stuck in traffic.  I ordered some food.  I was also running short of cash, and the kind lady in the Eagle let me off the odd 50P.  The food was prepared, and I had barely eaten a mouthful when Liz arrived.  She got an extra fork, and we (mainly me) ate the rest of the food - shepherds pie (mince beef topped with mashed potato and the cheese) and some vegetables.  It was very tasty and very welcome.  It was also on the banned list.  Having cleaned the plate I took a ticket from the prize draw that was in progress and listened to the jokes as they recognised the winner.  Then we left  to sit in the traffic to get passed Crondon Park going towards home. 
We arrived home about 9pm.

Thankfully Pubs are not like Bus companies.

The pub meal was not so big, or so fatty that it alone would make today the highest cholesterol day.  Shortly after arriving at work the boss decided to buy us all breakfast.  Bacon and egg rolls - all freshly cooked from the local fish and chip shop.  I shouldn't have eaten it, but I didn't take much persuading, and I did enjoy it.

Now, how do I get my money back on a bus ticket?

Thanks to Liz for giving up her evening to rescue her father from a very cold seven mile walk.