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

I guess from your silence that things aren't so good. I hope they're improving.
Thinking of you AR1, take care of yourself,
Waz

Hi my dear Waz,

Well you are beginning to know me!!. things were abysmally dreary, and then a dear new friend called Frenchbean - who lives in Scotland, wrote and asked me if I would like to talk about it - and suddenly whoosh, it came out. I feel much better now, and really have had a great deal of support from all my friends - as I know you also gave me.

she has given me the courage to do a few crazy things. I was upset because my granddaughter has had both a piercing and a tattoo done. she is only just 18 and when I think of that lovely skin which is now scarred - as I thought - I was really upset. anyway, I have been persuaded that it is not such a bad thing, and I am now planning where I shall put my tattoo!!. That should set the local wags laughing to think of the seventyfive year old haveing a tattoo. they will be finally convinced that I have lost my marbles!!.

Anyway it is something to look forward to particularly as I apparently have a very good aseptic tattoo surgery at Maidstone which is near me!!.

So dear Waz, I shall let you know if and when the great event takes place. In the meantime I am excited about the bulbs coming upa already in my garden. We have really not yet had a winter.

I send you lots of good wishes

Also Ran1

Hi Waz,

Where art thou?

A very happy New Year to you - and may it bring you everything you wish for yourself. and much much more.

Are you scottish dancing tonight?

With affection

AR1

Hi Waz,

Where art thou?

A very happy New Year to you - and may it bring you everything you wish for yourself. and much much more.

Are you scottish dancing tonight?

With affection

AR1

New Year resolution for Waz

Not to forget Also Ran !

Or are you lost?

In the Underguide??

Not lost but swamped in backlog. That what happens after only being at home to sleep during the Christmas/New year holiday followed by an attack of the silences.

Thankyou for a New Year Resolution I won't have any trouble keeping!

I wish I had danced the New Year in - I was round at my parents and just my mother and I saw 2004 in, my father having gone to bed. But it was very civilised, and when I drove home through the village I was greeted by a shower of low flying fireworks. I decided not to take it personally. Wasn't it horrible weatherwise - the village bonfire got cancelled.

So, you're planning a tattoo then??

I've been reading your New Year thread, but haven't time to catch up with the backlog there tonight. It moves so fast. Did you know your journal was on the frontpage yesterday under 'five busiest conversations'?!

Waz (catching up)

At last!! AtLast""


I've heard from Waz


At Last!!

What a lovely message my dear Waz,

So sorry you waz (feeble joke!!) fireworked at low range by some silly villagers.

I think I saw the New Year in in Sydney and some other place, but I was in the land of Nod when THE time came round to Merrie old England, and so cannot contribute to the debate as to whether Big Ben chimed the hour or whether it was a recording. The problems people have - it is mind-bogglind.

My daphne plant - which I bought for a song at a sale, appears to have delicious buds and hopefully one of them is a flower bud. That was one of the first plants I ever smelt in England when I was staying at Hawkstone Hall. I went for a walk around the ground,. saw this little treasure, and was nearly bowled over by the perfume. I do hope that my lilies of the valley decide to flower this year. I must try and get the Management Committee to put a railing up the steps so that I can go and smell them.

Go well, and Oh incidentally thank you for telling me about the front page note. I wonder what on earth I had said!!. Oh well, (shrugs shoulders metaphorically) perhaps someone will tell me!!.

Warm greetings,

Also Ran 1

Tattoo under consideration.
Needs a lot of thought and planning.
It is permanent and according to my friend Pandora, they GROW.
WOW!!

Hi Waz,

I cannot even find you in the Underguide!!.

I hope you are not working too hard.

Keep well,

Also Ran 1

Hi, sorry, I seem to have been busy all week but without much to show for it. Underguiding has been mostly reading. Did you see this weekend's pieces? They were good ones. One was RAFwing's. A pity she's not here these days.

I'm well, though feeling unjustifiably out of sorts after a visit to the eye doc this morning. I thought it would be a five minute consultation and then off to wait weeks/months for a clinic appointment. Instead of which he decided to remove the cyst he found there and then! It was no worse than a dentist's filling but I tensed up so much I now ache in all sorts of places and have had a headache ever since! I'll be fine tomorrow, apart from having to go to work.

And to think you're voluntarily going for a tattoo ! They grow ??!! Are you sure Pandora's not winding you up?

Daphne's are nice, my mother has one at the top of her drive. Do you have any witchhazel? The colours of the ones we saw at the garden centre were beautiful. I got my father one two years ago but have never been sure if he liked it. Then last week he said how good it was! If he'd said a month earlier I'd have got him another one, different colour, for Christmas. Now it's on the list for next year.

Hope you're well, K too. And the lillies of the valley.
Speak more soon,
Waz

Hi Waz,

Good to hear from you. Sorry to hear about the cyst in your eye. I must have been very painful.

I must get some witchhazel. This morning I bought a magnolia stellatia and a weeping pussywillow at the market. also some lavender, some primulas and a lovely cymbidium.

I don't think that Pan was winding me up. Poor lamb she is not at all well. Do drop hger a line if you can.

I never manage to find the Underguide. I keep looking. I shall try and find RAF Wing's contribution. It was sad for h2g2 to lose her.

Sincerely,

Also Ran 1

Hi AR1,
I've just posted to the thread you have for Pan. Will she be able to read the messages there? I hope she's doing ok. She's a one in a million.

The Underguide's not very obvious, except at the weekend when there's a link to it at the bottom of the h2g2 front page. You can get to it by typing C1233 in the address bar in place of the lest section that starts with an F, an A or a U when you're on h2g2. Or by clicking on the link to 'the Universe' which should show in small print somewhere on every h2g2 page, then 'the World of h2g2'. Or there's a link from my space.

Last weekends entries aren't listed in the archive yet though. So RAFwing's is here A2181052 and the other which you might like, on submarine combat (it's not what it sounds like) is at A2198496.
And this A2132623, is one from Christmas which I'm sure you'll like.
Plants at the market are so tempting. I always wanted a Magnolia. I remember where we stayed in Kent there was one, not the staellata kind, growing up the wall. You could open the window and look down into the flowers. Magic. Did you have moonflowers in SA? Used to lie under those in the dark .

Which reminds me, I have a reply to make to Willem after getting his carrion plants mixed up with carniverous ones. But I need my tea first.

Take care, and I'll watch on your thread for Pan for any news.
Waz

My dear Waz, sorry I have not looked at this thread for a while - in fact have not been on the computer for a while - trying to fix up respite care for K. - and basiclaly for me as well.

WHERE are you off to. I have just read your message saying you are going into the snow for a while. Oh dear. I have begged and pleasded for you to take me with you!!. It soundsn very mysterious and exciting.

I send you message for a safe journey.

Also Ran1

Hi, if you read the other thread first you're now sitting on the back of the sledge .

Actually, it was just a shopping trip in the snow. But our local weather man had been going on and on about the polar lows - all for what was it? A day and a half of proper winter weather!

I am thinking of a much more exciting trip - that's on the other thread too.

How is it going with the respite care? I hope that works out. Will it a one off or a regular arrangement?
Waz

Hi dear Waz,

I do not know how I missed your reply. I went to your home page and you seem to be doing so much work on the Undrguide.

I was very amazed today to find all sorts of postings about which I hknew nothing. How do they get onto one's page. It seems to be about the Palestinian/Israeli question. It is interesting, but quite honestly I feel as if I had had my fill i my life with the problems in south Africa!!.

I wonder how your other holiday is coming on.? Pan has got your messages. she is really being so brave. she fell and broke her elbow. she really has so much guts.

No future about respite. It seems that the law says that a parent has to evict their child before the state will find any accommodation for them, That is something I shall never do. I shall try and change the law first!!. So that is the project which I must now approach.

Keep well

Also ran1.

I repied to you back then on two different threads sayng much the same thing so no problem in not catching this one!

Pan's quite a lady! And so are you. I wouldn't put it past you to get the law changed. Respite falls between the NHS and Social Services and they both just let it hit the floor . The Charity sector is wary because they can't get stable funding from the NHS or Local Authorities and 'Respite' is neither cute nor acute enough to attract much public donation.

The Hospice I work for provides some respite care but is careful to keep the emphasis on short term paliative intervention. Partly for funding reasons but also because that's what the people who got the place built originally had in mind. One small group of people back in eighties started a committee. Now we've almost 200 employees and more than twice as many volunteers providing ward care, day care and home care.

Amazing what people can do when they set their minds to it, isn't it?

Re the postings getting on to your page - it's either because you've subsribed to conversation forums or they're from your list of friends. Every time someone on your list makes a journal entry on their page the conversation will appear under you conversation list on your page.

I'm still planning on that holiday but haven't done anything definite about it yet. I'm still hoping to tempt my brother into going .

Must , lunch break's finished. Catch you later,
take care,
Waz

*waves to AR1 in case thread has got lost*

I saw your post about your friend losing her son. must be difficult for you as a mother as well as as her friend.
Waz

Hi my dear Waz

Yes I believe that I have lost you on the other thread. I chat to some busy people and get lost in all the different topics - many very interesting - which they discuss.

Your story of the person who started this hospice is mind-blowing. I wish I had the leadership and charisma to do this.

this week has been dreadful. On Monday Soc. Services advised me to "evict" K. so that he could be rehoused. I just looked at them in disbelief and said "Over my dead body".

Yesterday another letter arrived from the Management Committee "telling" me that the garden of K had to be cleared otherwise action would be taken. And here I am with no-one offering to take him into hospital in order to get the correct "cocktail" of medication for him so that he can live his life on as level an emotional and productive a base as possible. Sometimes I really despair and then from somewhere manage to gather up more courage. Wish I was younger though.

My own carer has been off all week so it has been a busy time.

Must

AR1

Hi Also Ran1, just dropping by to say hi, 'no see' for a while, and hope everything's well with you. And to share my sister's frog explosion with you.

How do you like frogs? Tadpoles?

I spent yesterday with my sister. She has a pond, just a small one. About 5ft across. Two weeks ago she told me it had forty frogs sitting in it, all croaking. They've gone now, where is a mystery. Now the pond is brimming with tadpoles. I estimate around ten thousand. Truly. They're still very small, just wriggling black exclamation marks. If you hear anything of plagues of frogs - you know where they've come from!

The pond's in the back. In front she has taken out the whole of the lawn and is sowing a hay meadow seed mixture. Non vigorous grasses and wild perennials mostly, and a patch of annuals like poppies and corn cockles. It will be pretty if she can make it work. The aspect of the garden isn't ideal. I can't try anything like that, my clay soil is too rich.

Hope you're well and that your garden is blooming. There isn't a prettier time of year than this.
Waz

Hi Waz,

Nice to hear from you. I am amazed aat the number of frogs in your sister's pond!!. We used to have them in the swimming pool at Borrowdale and we used to fish them out every morning and let the noon-day sun dry them out!!. Perhaps she should start breeding them for culinary use!!. I have had frog's legs and liked them.

The wild garden sounds great. Mine is very much a patio garden. I saw a beautiful programme on TV the other evening. This guy was making a garden in a long narrow piece of back yard and he really transformed it beautifully for £1,800.00. Seeing as how I spent over £200.00 on pots and plants yesterday I think that was a bargain. But I cannot find the website so that I can write and ask him where and how I can have lights put into the patio floor and the cheap spotlights which lit up the plants and made beautiful reflections on the wall. The garden was in Newcastle.

Are you doing anything exciting for Easter? Mine is going to be so quiet. Just my brother, my son and myself. Everyone else is going away. A happy Easter to you my dear and I hope you get a few good Easter eggs - preferably beautifully fossilised ones!!.

sincerely,


Also Ran1

Nothing exciting that I know of, I have a day out with friends tomorrow - don't know what we're doing though. Your local garden centre might have contacts for lights.

A fossil egg would be perfect! I hadn't even thought of it

Happy Easter AR1
Waz