With both parish clergy on holiday, I was drafted in to celebrate two Eucharists this morning, one at St Luke's for ten people followed by another at St Catherine's for half a dozen. Clare again needed the car for an appointment, so I was obliged to walk between churches with hardly enough time to arrive punctually. Thankfully, an 11 bus came along as I came close to a stop, saving me five minutes, and it deposited me at a stop close to the 61 bus route. I got lucky a second time as another bus turned up as I was approaching a second stop. This brief journey saved me a few minutes more and got me to the church with ten minutes to spare.
After the second service, I walked over to Cathedral Road and took another bus into town to visit the National Express ticket office to book a coach seat to visit my sister June in London tomorrow. Here my luck ran out. There was only room on the much too early 5.30am coach. Every coach thereafter until 2.30pm was full, as it's such a busy time of year. I'd left it too late, and had to abandon my plan for the time being. Sure I could have booked on the internet when I first thought of it, but I hate the National Express website, which always tries my patience. As I'm in town so often, it's no problem to pop into the office and get a real ticket. Things are changing however.
On August 1st, the coach station closes for the redevelopment of Central Square and is relocating in Sophia Gardens, half the distance from home for me. There will doubtless be chaos for a while, as many buses, especially to the east side of town will have their terminuses relocated. A new service has been recently introduced linking the far west and far east of the city directly, and passing through the centre, though not run by Cardiff Bus but by another company NAT. The new service started in May this year, and is already proving popular, according to a bus driver I talked to. This must make a big difference to those who'd otherwise have to travel into the central area, wait and change buses.
The coming months of demolition and reconstruction of part of the city centre will be an opportunity for me to add to my photographic record of the redevelopment phase of 2006-2009. Already in the three months while I was away in Spain, the new office block to the west of Central Square grew from a four storey skeleton to a nine storey building, and the Admiral building, just behind the Saint David Shopping Centre finally opened and is now occupied by a couple of thousand staff. Interesting times indeed.
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