Cracks in shelter from the storm

well shelter from whatever really.  I am lucky and bus number 1 of the day departs from the small bus station at the centre of town.  It has a roof to keep out the rain, walls windows and even sliding doors to stave off the wind.  Seats to rest on (admittedly metal ones, freezing in the winter and hot in the summer but there all the same).

Seats in bus station, gaps too.

Lights to keep the darkness at bay and enable me to read a book if I arrive early or the bus late.

It was not always the way, this space was once what passed for a multi story car park, well it had more than one level.  It never had the fame of the "Get Carter" multi, its bigger and multier counterpart in Gateshead, however it met the same fate albeit much earlier and with less notice let alone protest.  Demolished and replaced, in this case by two shops and the bus station.

Before that shelter- less, seat- less, dark  stops on opposite sides of the main road was as near to a bus station as we got.  So although it is not magnificent I appreciate the amenities it does provide.

Sadly others do not, perhaps they have no recollection of times gone past, perhaps they just have no care for themselves or others.  It is a regrettable yet regular occurrence that the glass sliding doors or the windows are broken, the glass as crazed and cracked as those who made them that way.

Vandalised automatic door

The drafts whizz in the rain bleaches and the sliding doors huff and wheeze themselves open and shut in a relentless parody of the Heat of Gold's doors, all the pleasure gone only recrimination remaining.  It makes me sad sometimes the lack of care and respect given to the advantages we have.