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

Yup, they don't half make a racket do foxes. I used to have them living in the scrubby bank just outside a flat I lived in in Swindon. Now I live countryside like I don't hear them. (Sheep, cows, owls, blackbirds, collared doves). There's a somewhat demented and moronic noise that a bird can make, collared doves.

Hosepipe bans and drought orders. Not good. Then again I live in an area that doesn't use underground water storage. The rock here is impermeable and so they just built a few dams accross the valley where I live and trap the water that way. Last time I looked they're full. They also make a nice easy to spot marker for home when looking at satelite pictures of the UK.

[quickie post to let you all know I'm still here ]

Problem: yowling foxes.



Solution: Lion dung pellets.


I kid you not...



Mam's still here:

*dust*polish*hoover*



*cook*clean*scrub*

I agree about the collared doves - and stupid pidgeons (don't know if they are the same type as the diseased sky-rats in London, they look bigger and healthier, but that might just be the fresh air) crashing into things constantly or doing it on the window sills.

Am just sorting out some pictures of the new garden, will post a linky in a minute...

The things that look like bigger and healthier pidgeons are probably wood pidgeons, Kelli.

I suspected as much but was never sure - bloody silly birds anyway.

Some pictures here:
http://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/kellih2g2/album?.dir=4fe5re2&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a

They were just taken with my camera, so the plum slate doesn't look as plum as in real life, but you get the idea. The bay trees were the ones I had decorated at my wedding, am relieved to get them in the ground now, and out of the pots where I would no doubt have killed them...

The bed under the bay window also has a wedding present (Wedding Day rose) planted in it - as this has white flowers I decided that everything else in the bed should have while flowers too. The bed at the edge of the garden, and the one up the side need to be planted up - will hunt for plant ideas when I go to Chelsea a week on friday - think there will be lots of pinks and purples to compliment the slate.

If you can't make out the tree terribly well it is Malus Royal Beauty.

[MTG{KEA}]

Morning all.

Kelli, that makes a great difference. I like the design. It's dramatic without being overly so. And I adore the idea of the white gardens near the house. They'll be gorgeous against the brick.

Ooh, pretty white flowers. Thanks for the glimpses of you rgarden, Kelli. Garden envy now. S weeded our nasty little tarmac yard at the weekend and frankly it looked prettier avec weeds. Also, the rosemary has some ghastly little spider-mite infestation - they are biting the leaves and sucking out the chlorophyll so each leaf is mottled with tiny yellow dots. Only cure, hosing the poor plant down under the tap every day until all the nasty little whatsits cease and desist and drown.

I am actually doing housework today. I am the slightly slutty sort who just leaves it all (except the dishes. Not THAT slutty) until it looks really depressing and then has a fairly horrible day cleaning and tidying and hoovering and then the flat looks immaculate for, ooh, two days? and the cycle begins again. I have however spent the last half hour drinking coffee and grading my knitting needles by size, leaving the kitchen half-hoovered. Procrastinating? Me? Easily distracted? Why would you think... oh. I'm in here, aren't I? Chattering. Conspicuously NOT cleaning the kitchen. The problem with cleaning the kitchen is that I have to tidy the Untidy Heap that has taken over the kitchen table and to be frank I am a bit scared of the Untidy Heap. I don't know what's under there. I think it growled at me this morning.

I await further Ant updates with concern and crossed fingers.

And it's good to see the Owl back.

Did I miss anything? I'm sure I've missed something.

*meanders back out towards the backlog. It is quite clear that she is procrastinating harder than ever, and the kitchen is going to stay Untidily Heaped for the forseeable future*

Awoke to heavy fog, which is just burning off.

Yes, doves -- we have the white-wing sort here -- are monotonous. I think a flock of grackles makes a worse noise, but for sheer racket there is nothing like one mockingbird. It is like having an opera singer in the next room.

Kelli, that is shaping up to be one nice garden.

And the opera singer I had in mind was the Queen of the Night from the Magic Flute.

Thanks - most importantly, it has no grass to be mown

*hears tartaronne from the next room and closes the fridge guiltily*

It's shaping up to be another hot one--91F/33C. Not my cup of at all.

<>

I feel your pain, Lentilla. Now feel mine. I work with TWO of these critters. And one of them...*sigh*...loves to discuss her physical health with anyone who meets her eye. I know more about this woman's colon than anyone ever should.

*Gives SE The LÒÓK *

Very nice front garden, kelli. The radishes must surely be somewhere else?

*Goes to look at her own mm thin radishes*

Very light rain here for a couple of days. But put a spade in the soil, and it is all dry. At least my sandy bit of garden.

Noisy blighters, foxes. It wouldn't be so bad if they sounded like they were enjoying their lewd activities - but they don't.

Ag, I have several Growling Heaps. I wonder if hitting them with a big stick would be beneficial.
Come to think of it - could the lab downstairs design and make a Big Stick which could be vigorously applied to Growling Heaps in order to make the most urgent things com to the top of the heap and the rest of the pile behave itself.
Could also be used for taming to-do-lists?

for the garden, Kelli - well worth all that hard work.
There's a famous White Garden at Sissinghurst, I think.

If you go to the foot of this page, there's a lot of planting suggestions for different seasons....
http://www.homesandgardens.com/gardens/plants/summer/article.php

An email slipped through my spam ak-ak and rather beguiled me. It says, "and wet see bridgewater ! cone may arcade but eliminate or becalm and exhibition be helen some arianism not cohesive but liveth a lollipop , elsinore it's descendant a swag some gerund it asymmetry may chicano ! downing see tuesday it's coates may plummet try resemble or jump an agenda but astoria in bedraggle in hypocrite or dale , pronounce see cutback it enclave , carefree on commensurable be kangaroo may atomic in edible it actaeon the contrariwise in forth a irrational not fairfax some closeup or ignite try playwright Naw."

I have an ancient little DOS app called Babble that generates better stuff than that.

Lots of hard work, Kelli, very well done.



I've just had an email from the Italics telling me that the reason a post of mine has been pulled is that it includes the word "queer". Since it is a quote from Peter Tatchell's website, it is hardly being used in a homophobic context. There might be copyright issues, but not ones of homophobia.

I'm really depressed about this, because (1) I do know that the Italics are the least homophobic people on the planet and (2) I have no other way of self-identifying. I self-identify as "queer" because no other description fits the rather odd place I sit on in the sexuality belle-curve.

I don't want to rant and rave and threaten to leave h2g2, because we all know what happens when people do that. They cannot resist the place.

I hate feeling disempowered.

*sigh*

Ben
Queer as folk - no - queerer than that.

How come the post you've just made doesn't fail then, Ben? It's all beyond me.

Some good news, I think. I've had a response to one of my applications. It says they're in the process of drawing up a shortlist and then invites me to apply for the same job but at a different institution - as if they haven't decided where to base the appointee. I think they may make several similar but geographically distributed appointments and then make one of them team leader. Hmmm. Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

I'm currently supposed to be holding an online tutorial with a student but they haven't turned up . And another student has just emailed me - in week 16 of the course - to say that he's never been able to access his file storage area and therefore cannot upload his coursework .

>> How come the post you've just made doesn't fail then, Ben? It's all beyond me.

Me too. I've sent a polite email to the Italics, but I suspect that they are feeling so much under attack at the moment that they'll just reflexively say "we have spoken".

The thing is, that this is something which makes me want to walk away from h2g2. Walking away from "greater" h2g2 is easy enough. But you guys are my friends.....

Ach well. Worse things happen at sea.

Good luck with the job interview, Amy.

B