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

Yesterday was dry with light cloud. The forecast is for more dry weather for the rest of the weekend.

Jane, Laura, Misty, MizzE and Sheena were all at The White Lion for breakfast this morning. The plan is to be at The Fox and Goose at 12, then lunch at Moyles at 2:30. This leaves no long interval for doing anything time-consuming, such as a hike, so the hiking boots and OS map will have to stay unused.

I set off uphill in search of vantage points for a photo looking down on Hebden Bridge. There was no time to walk up to Heptonstall, so I took a few in the School Street area (a short walk up from The White Lion), where the housing appears to be fairly new buildings, though they are in the style of the old terraces of weavers' cottages. They are not "top-and-bottom" houses, but use the same idea. The bottom storey is for garages on the uphill side of a street, facing downhill. The next storey up is the ground floor of houses on the downhill side of the next street up, facing uphill. Back down in Bridge Gate I ran into a few Mustardlanders and so joined them in Brian's caff. Fitology Phil joined us, and unveiled a couple of goodies, but more about them later.

At 12 we convened in The Fox & Goose. This time we had the function room on the left (as you look in from the front door), which is much better than the bar as it is non-smoking. The paint on the walls below the dado rail is mustard-coloured. The furnishings show an admirable, if unusual, example of recycling. Among the seating are two benches which, to judge from their style, had been in pews. A board on which Simon shows some of the available brews is a hymnboard. Unfortunately, instead of the traditional pub piano, there is no church organ; it would probably have filled the pub!

There were there: Amy Bridge, Annie Cambridge (aka Annie MS), Fitology Phil, Hebe, Jane, Laura S, Misty, MizzE, Polly Tunnel, QB, Rob, Tallulah, TWriter, his father, and me. Conspicuously absent, Laura, was the Mustardland jar of Colman's mustard. (The locals must have wondered who on earth we are. Our jar of mustard would have made this clear!)

This is my third Mustardland meet, but the first at which I saw the famous Mustardland book. This was started at the first Mustardland meet that was at the Fox and Goose (which, as was pointed out, was not the first Mustardland meet ever). It has appeared at some Mustardland meets since, including Cromford and Bath, and now here. I duly made my mark.

In grateful thanks for putting up with Mustardlanders invading his pub yet again, the Fox and Goose's publican Simon was presented (by Fitology Phil) with a copy of a game Fox and Geese. Someone said "it's like solitaire". Yes, in the same way that a bicycle is like a unicycle. (OK, I know she was referring to the board. This is not the game where the fox faces 4 geese on an 8x8 board; here, the fox faces 17 geese on a 7x7 board of which a 2x2 area at each corner has been removed, as in peg solitaire.) Jane was presented with an IOU for an Ambridge Rose for organising this meet. Thank you Simon, and thank you Jane!

Now, a written text can capture /some/ of the flavour of speech, but it is at best an imperfect representation. Read Laura's ML messages on any of her pet subjects, and her enthusiasm shines through. Not even these messages, however, can prepare the reader for the phenomenon that is Laura in real life. Words and ideas gush forth at a rate of knots. So it was that Laura discussed what she'd bought on the way up. She'd gone into the shop Hatchard and Daughters. Having heard that there was a closing-down sale at this branch, and that nearly every was £2, she bought 23 of them. 1940s needlecraft and interwar schoolgirl fiction figured largely in this collection. Brazil nut, then.

How could I resist? Just before everyone else left for Moyles, I sneaked down to Hatchard. Seeing as Laura had been there, the shelves looked somewhat bare, but I picked 2 : a selection of Frank Muir and Denis Norden stories from My Word, and Mostly Harmless, the 5th Hitch-hiker book. (With So Long, the 4th, I would have the set.)

Moyles is a small high-class restaurant on the high street (this stretch of which is called New Road). It can cater for 16. Moyles's 16 places were arranged as 4 tables of 4. By this time we were 18, so Tallulah, QB and Rob went elsewhere to dine.

The dining area is slightly larger than would normally suffice for 16, because the seats are great wide bucket seats, quite the hugest I've seen in any restaurant.

These 15 of us were at Moyles (clockwise round the dining area, then clockwise round each table): Annie Cambridge, Hebe, Laura & MizzE; Amy Bridge, Hati Haystack, Polly Tunnel & Jane; Almond Aire, Misty & me; and Fitology Phil, TWriter's father, TWriter & Sheena.

My steak came with salad instead of another vegetable. No sauce; I don't care if that's the fashionable or posh way to serve meat, but I still appreciate some sauce to help the morsels slip down. The choice of desserts was poor. I chose sticky toffee pudding and vanilla sauce; a delicious sauce made up for a stodgy pudding. Some had crême brulée which apparently was good.

By the time we emerged, replete, from Moyles, it was already nearly closing time for the shops.

Some of us saw Annie Cambridge off at the railway station. This station retains some wonderful old signs with their lettering in relief capitals painted white on black. If someone wanted to remake "Brief Encounter" (which used Carnforth (Lancs.)), Hebden Bridge would serve admirably for the station scenes.

Jane, ?Polly Tunnel? and I went for a stroll along the canal, westwards, along past Stubbing Holme Road.

Back to The White Lion to recharge my batteries both literally and metaphorically.

At The Fox and Goose the party was in full swing by the time I got up there. Again, we had the function room on the left.

There were there: Amy Bridge, Fitology Phil, Hati Haystack, Hebe, Jane, Laura S, Matilda Groves, Misty, MizzE, Polly Tunnel, QB, Rob, Tallulah, TWriter, his father, and me. Unfortunately absent were Bex, Jont and Lady M. Jont phoned in. So did Posh, who was accompanied at her end of the phone line by her parrot George who sang Barwick Green to us! Quite the most musical song rendition of the night!

Fitology Phil brought out two printouts of a set of three poems, one on each of the three (so far) Hebden Bridge meets. He didn't recite the poems to the assembled company (shame!) so we just passed the printouts round.

The dreaded Archers board game emerged. The box says "2-6 players aged 8 and over". We wondered what 8-year-old would be interested in The Archers. Fortunately there were more than 6 of us and nobody threatened to set up a tournament or anything so complicated as that.

Seeing as the Howerd2-based Mustardland is to close soon, we discussed the differences between Howerd2 and DNA. Under DNA, there will be no more latest messages. There will be no more posting numbers, and thus no more '000-parties. Amy calls them "noughty parties", a term I hadn't seen before, but then perhaps that's just Amy.

Laura was wearing a wide skirt with flouncy petticoats. She says that men treat her differently depending on whether she dresses and acts in a feminine or a masculine way. These men are not on the pull; indeed, some of them are happily married and on some occasions are accompanied by their wives. Laura's idea is that nobody else is allowed to flounce because, with her petticoats, we have enough flounces already. We felt that I would have to have a masculine equivalent (lace cuffs, perhaps?). Why must men be masculine, though? That's just as bad as saying women must be feminine. I will admit, though, that flouncy petticoats just aren't my style.

Eventually the Mustardland contingent dwindled to 7 survivors: Amy Bridge, Jane, Laura S, ?Polly Tunnel?, Sheena, Tallulah and me. The board game emerged again. We didn't play it (the designers expected players even weirder than us, which is saying something: the rules call for each player to do impressions of a particular Archers character and talk about agricultural subjects like the CAP). We just did the multiple-choice questions bit.

At about 2am, Simon, the publican, brought us some of the notoriously strong cider "Moonshine". We daredn't drink much of it, so we had ordered a half pint and a straw each.

Gareth, a local, joined us briefly.

Simon chucked us out at about 2:30am. (Hebden Bridge die-hards might wonder: why so early? Simon, poor him, must get up at 9am.) Tallulah put on what looked like a burqa until she aligned her head with the hole in it: it is a rather striking poncho. It is one of the items Tallulah has won on eBay from the eBay seller "blackpoolsarah". Tallulah started seeking clothes on eBay after Steph enthused, in Mustardland, about buying hippie clothes on eBay. So if ponchos become fashionable among Mustardlanders, it's due to Steph and Tallulah. Amy Bridge and ?Polly Tunnel? left for Prospect House, which is up and out of town, while we other 5 tottered down towards town to our respective beds. I managed to turn in at 2:52!

< Some had crême brulée which apparently was good. >

Good? GOOD?? The crême brulée was wonderful - amazing - to die for!!! And judging from MizzE's beatific expressing and sighs of contentment with every mouthful of the summer pudding, it was similarly delectable. Maybe you just made the wrong choice, W-L.

for 'expressing' read 'expression'

I will remember, the next time I have the opportunity to choose fruit crême brulée. (I have had crême brulée just once before, and hated it, but that was not flavoured with fruit.)

WL, I chose the raspberry creme brulee by a process of elimination i.e. it sounded like the dessert I would least dislike. I am so pleased I did as it was one of the most wonderful things I have ever tasted. I can't promise that anyone else's will be as good but certainly worth a try.

Polly