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

When I lived in Elsecar it was a 2-up 2-down miners' terrace, with an outside loo (one indoors too) in a tiny back yard. So I rented an allotment at the bottom of the road from the Council to grow my own veg and fruit. The anger I incurred was incredible!

The older allotment holders were lovely - they helped me out and gave me lots of great advice and would share their thermos of tea with me. But the younger ones told me that they went to the allotment to get away from women and barely spoke to me And as for the wives They decided the reason I was at the allotments was to try to lure their husbands into my bed

As a result I became known by a few as "That 'hoar at number 89"

I picked my gardening times carefully

outside bogs, oh the memories of a cold winter's night as a kid, taking a bucket of water co's the tank had frozen up

typical mentality of terraced housing women

I'm always missing here on Friday's, it's my Buffalo Lodge night

Buffalo Lodge? Is that a Man thing?

yepworldwide

http://www.raob.org/

Like the Masons then?

we say we are the poor man's Mason'sthey talk in £100's and we talk in 100pence

I've always been a bit suspicious of the 'closed shops' like the Masons. It strikes me it's boys playing at secret societies and having a great deal of (sometimes nasty) fun in the process, and justifying it by doing charitable works.

Do you have rolled-up trouser-legs as buffaloes? Please don't tell me you have horns <silly.

the amount of folk who ask are we like you see the Flintstones on TVthere are signs and passwords needed at times
There is a female version of the Buffalo's and they are called "The Glades"

Every Friday night? Do you have a heap of projects and people you're supporting - and are they all in and around your town?

I gotta go, Prof. The garden jobs won't get done if I sit here glued to the 'pooter. I'm in the midst of the best year yet for my veggie patch, which means daily huge harvests and the subsequent task of preserving all that I can't eat. To be honest, that's most of it The rest of the day is pretty much taken up with all of that....

And setting aside to write to Mum as well. She's 89, very ill, very sad, very bored and wants to die. I write a proper letter each week, which gives her a few minutes of enjoyment every Friday when the staff at her care home deliver it to her and then return an hour later for a coffee and to hear the latest from New Zealand

see you later love and sweet dreams when your time comes round

due to finances of everyone in our lodge, we are sort of struggling to survive, half of the members are way knocking onand the youth of today, don't have interest in things like us, so no new blood coming in and this is happening all over the country

we are called a minor lodge and there is a monthly lodge, that is the sort of foreman for all the lodges in the area, we feed sub's to them which then pass along to Grand Lodge (head honcho)

Hi Prof. This is a really crap situation we're in here in Canterbury. I feel very peculiar... part in shock still, part in denial, part teary, part relieved I don't live in Chchch itself. I'm sure a lot of this is due to exhaustion: sleep was very difficult last night with tension, my heart going like the clappers and 10 or so aftershocks rattling through.

I have spent the last hour thinking about moving back to Britain... which is something I never thought I'd even consider. Perhaps it's simply the shock still - and the fact that my wonderful close family live over there. Thank god for phones.

I'll burble a bit more about this tomorrow... I'm too tired right now to make much sense. Yes... shock and tiredness are kicking in...

Thank you for providing this pressure valve. Who knew it would be this useful?


Fb

I'm always here for a friend