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

Have been a bit under the weather of late but feeling better but, taking it all slow slow slow and rest.

Beautiful day at last...warm, humid with gentle breeze. The weather suits my present needs.

Took walk earlier up to fishmongers and got prawns and cockles, then deli for orange sorbet...down to butchers for new season lamb chops for sunday...will have with new potatoes. I finally can eat again and have to put on weight...so I'm not holding back.

Collapsed back in flat and gulped delicious cold orange juice. Oh yeah and I stopped earlier at flower shop and treated myself to some wonderful creamy yellow fresias. The kitchen is now heady with their scent.

Stripey appeared, off to the bedroom and stretched out for a long snooze on the duvet. She'd been banned in late winter for coming in in the middle of the night and dispatching fur balls...then birds were nesting...but she's back again now as happy as ever...as if she'd never been away. Still have no idea where her main home is.

Wimbledon on low....it's summer and today I feel happy.

Stripey and fresias:-

http://www.flickr.com/photos/81510019@N08/

Beautiful cat and flowers, thanks for sharing. I hope you take care of yourself and recover quickly. We've missed hearing from you.

Over the past few weeks the foxes have been busy ripping into and dismantling my rather pretentiously named tent in the garden - The Hurricane. They don't want the damn thing in their territory.

I agree. Took the shreds down today and chucked in dustbin.

Naughty foxes. What were you doing with a tent - sleeping al la fresco? I wish we had some foxes around here, but I'm sure our sqirrels are relieved that we don't. I think they are pretty animals but then we don't keep poultry either.

It is hot over here triple digit Fahrenheit temps over one hundred degrees and it is pretty nasty outside. Britain is much milder for it being sofar north --just hope that the Gulf Stream doesn't stray too far or you need to spend a lot more money to heat yourselves in the winter.

I'd never call foxes pretty if you meant them. Mysterious, alluring and intelligence to die for...yes. I love 'em. The mating screech of the vixen in mid winter...the warbly barks of the cubs in spring, gradually getting more throaty. Great big ears and a massive low slung tail we call a brush. I've seen them rooting around every little nook and cranny sniffing out food and digging up stuff. And cockily waltzing to the pond for a drink.

It's not my garden..it's theres. They hated that tent from the start. First night they bit through most of the guy lines.

They are big in our folklore..and I've always thought the Hunt was more about something than just protecting farm animals. There's something primeval about it.

And now they are taking over our cities They attacked the area set aside for Olympic athletes to train for shooting a few miles from here.

Do you know the ancient Greek saying, 'The hedgehog knows one big thing, but the fox knows many small things'?

Hope you cool off soon. We've barely had a summer here. So much rain, but it was needed.

Argh! Just checked forecast and it is 100 degrees at least until Wednesday with not much rain possibility either. This is really creepy, it usually never gets to triple digits here in North Carolina.

And this was the first time in three years that there wasn't a drought here in the summer.

Hey Effers, Peckham looks like a pretty cool place:


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-18552441


You are lucky to be living in such an interesting community. And they are lucky to have you as a resident.

Thank you Elektra.

It was funny watching that film. The women running the 'Persian' shop is very Romantic about it, and that shop is full of the most amazing things. It's a shame they didn't show Rye Lane though in the heart, which is a mass of shops selling fruit, veg, fish etc from all the countries where immigrants have come from, also there are markets.

Peckham is a little jewell. It is a mosaic like many communities in London. It has its very dark side like the very rough housing states where drug dealers and gangs are rife...but it has..things like an amazing sprawling old Victorian cemetry which has gone wild and is now managed, and a haven for wildlife. One tree hill, a wooded hill where when you get to the top, an amazing view of London is to be had. But number one good thing are the people.

It is a very good hearted place..quite ordinary really. People take you for what you are as a person...most don't care if you are a bit eccentric or different. I feel right at home

I'm very lucky in the particular part I live in. Just down the road from the huge Peckham Rye...an ancient piece of common land which is now a park and where Blake had his first vision. If I go in one direction its almost like a Kentish village with green grocers, butchers, bakery, fish monger etc; in the other the shop run by Turkish Cypriots and Kurds full of stuff from the Mediterranean.

We had riots last summer. It was ugly...but then typical Peckham the 'love walls' that sprung up afterwards were the best in Britain; we were mentioned for that on the national news.

I love this place.

Tell me a bit about your community.

Hmmm, well our community is an apartment complex located off a very busy curvy road in North Carolina. There are several large trees left on what was once the Massey homestead --there is an old cemetery on the property. Our flat is on the ground floor with a cement screen porch facing the wooded part of the property which has a creek running in it into a swampy area near the highway. There is a tarmac trail and huge electricity pylons planted beside it.

We feed the squirrels, blue jays, titmice, cardinals, grosbeaks and sparrows daily. Sometimes a murder of crows will stop by and everyone dissappears when the red hawk sails by and high in the sky effortlessly soaring are three turkey buzzards which are a type of vulture so the feeding critters don't hide from them. I suppose they live off the roadkill of the highway. They are very beautiful with about a two meter wing span. Feeding all these critters provides an exciting reality show for our moggies who watch all the activity attentively.

We speak to a few of our neighbours, the fixit guys for the apartment and the ladies in the apartment office. They are all pretty nice on the whole. We make use of the outside pool daily for the 5 months or so that it is open. There are four shopping centers withi two miles of us so we can get groceries and there is is a large shopping mall about three miles away that has the multiplex cinema we go to.

Here are some of our bird customers:

blue jays
http://www.google.com/search?num=10&hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&q=blue+jay+bird&oq=blue+jay&gs_l=img.1.2.0l10.2309.6505.0.11778.8.7.0.1.1.0.78.453.7.7.0...0.0.jGrINZsIfa0&biw=1280&bih=610&sei=kuLyT7DQEo-i8QS07fHNCQ

cardinals
http://www.google.com/search?num=10&hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&q=cardinal+bird&oq=cardinal&gs_l=img.1.1.0l10.5079.13534.0.19010.8.7.0.1.1.0.63.420.7.7.0...0.0.rg50XuzUry4&biw=1280&bih=610&sei=6eLyT-f3KIKG8QTG34DOCQ

titmouse
http://www.google.com/search?num=10&hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&q=titmouse+bird&oq=titm&gs_l=img.1.2.0l10.6607.9540.0.14704.4.4.0.0.0.0.63.251.4.4.0...0.0.PTZI386z3kg&biw=1280&bih=610&sei=HOPyT_CUNJSk8QS2u6jNCQ

red tailed hawk
http://www.google.com/search?num=10&hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&q=red+hawk+bird&oq=red+hawk&gs_l=img.1.2.0l10.3035.11397.0.14501.8.8.0.0.0.0.94.532.8.8.0...0.0.Iem2zdQBBdc&biw=1280&bih=610&sei=Y-PyT53PB42O8wTlx7jNCQ

Crikey those birds look good. I also feed birds and have seen a Sparrow hawk come down at 90mph only to be thwarted by the sparrows burrowing deep into the overgrown hedge.

Nature is wonderful isn't it, in whatever guise.

And as for people...fixit guys and ladies in appartment offices are cool. I love chatting with all sorts.

The Massey homestead and old cemetry sounds like the start of a Hollywood horror film. I love that genre of US films. Crikey I'm almost imagining a screenplay now also bringing in the pool and the malls

Please don't go there. George Romero's second film was zombies in a mall -Jake Weber was in it and they spoofed it in a Medium episode. Jake Weber ismarried to the psychic Allison in that series. I am not a fan of zombie movies and much prefer sci-fi.

Haven't heard the term 'Zombie movies'. But in general horror does it for me more than sci fi. Not very h2g2 am I?

I'm into primeval forces...there have been some great British films to do with that over the years. Really uncanny stuff and to do with the English landscape often. Something ancient. And of course there is LOTRs. Man those Nazgul are sexy...well in the book...the film castrated them IMO.

But Gollum was something brilliant.

There's loads more layers of meaning for me in a 'horror' type stuff...labels are difficult...but generally I find sci fi a bit too 'clean' and 'masculine' for my liking. Dunno if you get my meaning though.

I reckon 'Halloween' is my fave US horror film. Masterly..and especially that opening with that music and the pumpkin.
Mind you 'The Excorcist' is right up there as well for me. The well known British film critic puts it as one of his all time favourite films.

Mark Kermode