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

it was cold and wet this weekend, so all the anxiousness which we suffered before last weekend was still better than if we had chosen this weekend.

Thanks for writing it up.

What a fantastic meet it was.

It's been fun reading reports of the meet from all the different viewpoints. Everybody seems to agree, though, that we got the right mix of culture, walking, relaxing and talking, and more than our fair share of good weather.

When I first went to a meet, in December 2000, I joked that in 20 years' time we'd be able to boast that we'd been to the first meet 20 years before. We're halfway there! (The others who were at that meet have now, unfortunately, disappeared from hootoo. I still have contact with one of them by e-mail, though)

The first meet I went to was the 'summer' meet in 2004. We had better weather at the winter meet one and a half years later.

Yes, it was for all concerned.

Wish I was still there. I had a great, but short time, and really look forward to the next. Just I wasn't more mobile!

The weekend went too ... And thanks to all who organised it, and attended, considering the travel problems prior!

Why can't a Hootoo long weekend holiday, spread over four days, be arranged? Please???

Then we'd have a chance to chat to everybody, and enjoy each others' company, without , and do relaxed, casual sight-seeing as well???

?

MMF

But just think of the cat-herding involved in trying to get people together for the same three or four days!

Sounds like you all had a great time! Thanks for the write-up.

If the parallel NI meet had been today, it turns out we would have been able to play with crossbows and longbows at the castle. Perhaps it's best that we went last week instead.

With the young involved in the German Meet, I'm more than to be herded!!!

MMF

I'm so sorry that I yak so much - it's nerves, you know.

Great report, Gnomon. Thanks for writing it up (the Gruesome Twosome absolutely can't believe there is no Spaghetti ice in the UK or Ireland - I think that#s putting them off going back to visit my parents)

Sho, I meant what I said about you talking - I wasn't being sarcastic.

El, my elder daughter, thinks that Spaghettie Eis sounds like the
most disgusting thing she's ever heard of. She doesn't like the idea of sweet things masquerading as savoury.

(but it is a nervous tic of mine)

you need a potato ricer, some squirty cream and some mushed up strawberries. Then your daughter can try it for herself. (actually, I can't stand the stuff - but I thought of you all yesterday as #2 Gruesome tucked into a portion of it)

Well, at least everybody now has an idea of what it looks like since we have the photo. I didn't know it wasn't known in the UK. I must have missed that bit of the conversation.

(Am I the only one who keeps reading "we pickled the right date"? )

Sweet masquerading as savoury -- well, the disguise doesn't hold water for very long

at our local Eis Café they have a whole menu of spaghetti eis dishes - one looks terribly much like carbonara and I could neer bring myself to even taste it when #1 ordered it.

They really do ice cream in a big way there, don't they? If I go for ice cream here, I'd have maybe ten flavours to choose from. In some places in Germany, fifty or more would be par for the course!

True. When I went to have an icecream the Friday before the meet, I had trouble to choose from the huge variety of flavours offered.

But After Eight flavour or anything minty is practically taboo here.

Anything green is what can only be translated as woodruff - a yucky green sirup made of what is probably a passable herb when used properly. (Waldmeister is the German name - you may know it if you've drunk beer Berlin style - they add the green sirup to it and call it a "Berliner Weisse")

That's a favourite for wobbly jelly too. And it appears in The Tin Drum, I was told

I love mint ice cream, and I have never had trouble buying it. I don't think it's green though. Pistachio ice cream is green.

What about that abominiation Blaue Engel? Truly disgusting.