h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've had problems with my vision almost all my life, from episodic blindness, at its worst allowing a only a very painful blinding white ganzfield if I dared open my eyes, to 20/25 at my most recent exam in June for macular degeneration related to my type 2 diabetes, representing a dramatic improvement since I started treatment for the problem.

One of the most useful things I've found for the problems with eyesight is bilberry jam.

They used to provide tbat to RAF pilots during WW II to improve their night vision for night bombing missions.




There are a number of health food products in the form of pills.

I don't use any of them, especially if marked 'standardized', which means active components reduced below naturally occurring levels and/or chemical!y modified.

Instead, I use an organic bilberry jam.

I'm sorry about your vision problems ITIWBS, and yours Dmitri, and I'm glad treatment helped.


I think the function of the token was to open the section of line the train had cleared to another train. Clearly, you can't have two trains on one section of single track line.

That makes sense.

Evening all!

It's been sooo busy around here! while I've been on the beach trying to avoid jellyfish and earnest chaps in sunhats.



Now, let me check these postings!

Punxsutawney? Interesting name. Are we talking a town here? So what's the origin of the name I wonder? The sutawney bit could be of Indian origin, but not sure if there'd be an x in it. Where did that x come from?

That's some journey, I can somehow imagine changing at Williamsport for Elmira, in fact I'm there already. How can I imagine places I've never seen before? Writers take me there, that's why. heheh.

I love the lone taxi driver who smoked cigars. I wonder what happened to her? What was her life, her destiny.

I know, my Dad would do things like that also, and I never could say 'I want to do it my own way' because he was so kind, bless him.

Ahhh I'm well away now. I can see the sun rising while I travel through the Delaware Water Gap, even though I don't know what the Delaware Water Gap is. To me it's become this magical place in my imagination already.

Ah yes, bus lag, just thinking about it makes me go woozy.



Changing postings here.

Hullo mvp? Your son takes the night bus from Glasgow to London Vic and back? I wonder how many hours that is?

I love planning journeys that I'm never going to take. I'm one of these people who reads bus and train timetables, just for fun, without any intention of making the journey.

Oh dear. I know.



Ah yes, train journeys. You should make a book of poems about your train journeys. Magic description this is! I love the detail of the big metal token, and the way the landscape changes.

I never feel travel sick on trains, whereas on a bus or coach I do sometimes. I wonder why? Perhaps the motion of a train is easier on the constitution.



Back in a min

So, Mister D, you've been in Dubois.

I just checked the website for the Day Spa with the accent on the I! heheh. mmmm looks amazing. The Day Spa Du Bois. I love it.

Anway, more important, the miracle! Don't blink, yes, think of Doctor Who I'll remember that next time someone says don't blink , and yes!! that's amazing!! Hah! You can see again!



So happy for you!

Hey ITI, that's amazing about the bilberry jam. Does it stave off the sight problems, or lessen the intensity?

So you've had the sight problems for most of your life? It must have been scary in childhood, the episodic blindness, when you didn't know what was happening?

The episodic blindness was scary when it was at its height, so severe that I learned to navigate in traffic (on foot) blind, and even learned to echolate like a bat (not very unusual with the totally blind) though for human beings the lower limit of resolution is aound 4 or 5 cm rather than less than a millimeter as for a bat.

The problem had to do with the eyes during the late pre-teen growth spurt growing faster than the intraocular orbits could adjust to conform to them in a series of fits and starts.

I've only known three kids who had a worse time of it than I did when going through that period.

I continued very myopic till the end of my teens, then vision leveled off at 20/20 20/15 from ~21 - ~42 and I started getting farsighted in my forties.

Then with onset of type 2 diabetes, my blood pressure began to vary erratically and my vision to deteriorate, till, at its worst, I could see well enough to thread a screwdriver into the socket on the end of a screw or tell a flat tip from a cross tip screw by sight, had to do it by touch.

I was already on a watch list for type 2 diabetes and on medication to control my blood pressure when I ended up in the hospital with diabetic crises with complications twice in the latter half of 2012.

Blood pressure improved immediately when I got started on anti-diabetic medication and visual problems more slowly.




On bilberry jam (the bilberry is a very close relative of the blue-berry), I think the issue is purely nutritional.

Bilberry jam can slow and even to some extent reverse the senescent changes in eyesight that begin in the middle forties and is safe, harmless and helpful for anyone of any age, barring the occasional case of allergy.

5th sentence, 'could' is supposed to be "couldn't".

Does it give you a different attitude to life, going through your teens with episodic blindness ITIWBS? I can imagine it might.

CC, I think I've heard of Punxsutawney. Isn't that where Phil the groundhog lives, who's supposed to come out and foretell whether it's spring or not? Apparently, he bit the Mayor this time.

Punxsutawney is Lenape for 'town of the mosquitoes'. Elektra's people have a way with words...

And yeah, that's where Phil comes from, who bit the mayor. And Bill Murray the actor in 'Ground Hog Day'.

We have a pet ground hog now. He lives under the neighbour's shed, and ventures into our yard when he thinks we're not looking.

We don't care anymore - not since we sprayed all the valuable foliage with deer repellent to keep out that biker gang of deer who come foraging at night...they're leaving our apple tree and tomato plants alone now...

The repellent is safe, and simply smells bad to deer, bunnies, and that ground hog.

Actually the episodic blindness was a late pre-adolescent problem.

Though I was still very nearsighted I had little trouble with actual blindness after entered my teens.

For the most part, I didn't let on and for the most part pulled it off successfully.

It did make a lasting impact on my body language, sometimes a bit like that of Stevie Wonder, if I'm not thinking of it, directing my ears at the action rather than my eyes.

Hmm, thanks ITI, I really have a sense of how it is for you to live with this situation. That's interesting about how it affected your body language, about directing the ears at the action, rather than the eyes.

Cor honestly, the human body. And yet, it's amazing how we adapt, often against the odds.



I hear news of groundhogs.

Back in minute.

I'm learning things this morning. . Good for a Monday.

Just been checking up about The Lenape. and Punxsutawney Phil. This is major learning.

I've never been formally introduced to an actual groundhog. Or even informally. . They are kind of a like a ground squirrel then? Would they eat one's lettuce crop and other leafage, if one had a crop of lettuces and other leafage?

The biker gang of deer are all wearing leathers and bandanas, of course. heheh. I can see them. Sort of.

RIP Cilla Black.

I can't believe that Cilla is gone. A national treasure indeed. Was Cilla known in the States, or was she a very British celebrity? Cilla Black, wonderful lady from Liverpool, a household name from the 60s, at the forefront of the Merseyside pop scene, friend of the Beatles.

And our neighbours had their old basset hound put down yesterday, we're very sad about that also, for a year we've been waking to the sound of his low and comforting bark.

Ah, the transience of all life, I know, but wah. .

Sorry to hear about that basset hound. They are indeed endearing creatures.

I'm afraid we've never heard of Cilla Black. Sounds like a wonderful person.

A ground hog is considerably larger than a squirrel - but moves surprisingly fast for its bulk. It's a big, cuddly-looking rodent. I keep trying to photograph the one in our yard, but he runs away. Aha - the ever-helpful net says they average 12 pounds, two feet long, which is about right. Elektra calls him a 'big weasel'...

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://woodstream.scene7.com/is/image/woodstream/hh-animals-groundhog-6%3F%24ProductPgLarge2%24&imgrefurl=http://www.havahart.com/groundhog-facts&h=450&w=450&tbnid=g7Pw6Pbl1RdRqM:&tbnh=186&tbnw=186&usg=__Pu_lq5FVFSEDrFuZWaBh179SH6U=&docid=XTBE6a0K8j9H7M&itg=1

We've also got one of these visiting our yard:

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://www.audubon.org/sites/default/files/Baltimore_Oriole_s52-11-018_l_0.jpg&imgrefurl=https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/baltimore-oriole&h=820&w=1024&tbnid=J0pgVMlf30VQBM:&tbnh=160&tbnw=200&usg=__U9-_oJjS8rchtbaWyV108hCKIPw=&docid=_WcDvneccVb5EM&itg=1

The Baltimore Oriole won't hurt anything in the yard, but the groundhog might be naughty and eat green stuff in the garden. So we spray the stuff we want to keep with a harmless chemical that deer, bunnies, and ground hogs don't like the smell of.

They are, of course, welcome to the entire acreage of sweet clover and tasty wildflowers out there, which they fully enjoy. While we get the tiny blueberry crop - and so far, two bell peppers and a really small cucumber.

We don't get Baltimore Orioles but, in France, we get Golden Orioles. http://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/discoverandlearn/birdguide/name/g/goldenoriole/ I've not seen more than a glimpse of one but we often hear their fluty song.

I've been wondering about Create's challenge for August: Games people play. Surely I can think of something to write? Well, I could write about games at school, at which I was hopeless. The worst incident was the time someone threw a netball at me so hard that, when I tried to catch it, I ended up with a dislocated finger.

But can't I come up with something more positive? The story that came to mind was the time we built an igloo in our garden. Not a game, perhaps, more of a construction project. Does that count?

Oh, sure that counts! Personally, I think a lot of things can count as 'games people play', even social strategies. But I want to know about this igloo now.

And that's a beautiful bird. Wow.

Locally, we get the Bullock's Oriole.

Observation, they tend congregate in flowering trees, flowering in Oriole's season, with flowers matching their own colors.

Heh-heh, that's clever of them.