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

I turned my phone of at 9.30 last night as I already had two HNY texts and although that makes me a grumpy cow, I didn't want to be woken up constantly.

I was sleeping on the sofa as I had three extra dogs here, and didn't know how they'd react. As it happens, there were a few stray bangs (heh) but nothing until midnight when there were about 30 mins of banging. Hard to sleep with all that going on.

It was more difficult to sleep through the Chihuahua whining cos he had a tummy upset and had to go outside twice. Also more difficult to sleep through Fred and his space helmet trying unsuccessfully not to slide about on the sleeping bag, and then deciding to sleep on the arm so I couldn't stretch out. When I woke up at one point he was sleeping next to the arm and my legs were leaning on him. He makes a great cushion! Also difficult to sleep through was Beauty panting and pacing around at 6am cos she also wants to go outside.

So I was slightly grumpy when I went outside to defrost the van ready for a mid morning walk and the back door wouldn't unlock.

When I turned my phone on again there were more messages on it, which I've grumpily not responded to - one of them I don't even know who it was.

Now I'm going to have some lunch before going back out to work. One dog goes home today, one tomorrow, then one Sunday. More dogs joining the dog walks from Monday I think - about 3 want to start in January, and I just don't have the room. I have the perhaps enviable position of picking the dogs I like best. I'm probably going to chose the oldest. Young dogs are a pain in the backside when you get a few together. They just want to play and won't pay any attention to me. Old farts please!

Oh, and thanks for any texts I got, and have a lovely new year's day to everyone!

I was too busy having a snowball fight to bother about my phone anyway. My sis got annoyed as she had to phone a few times but what's she gonna do, eh?

Went to bed at 10.30pm with my usual nightcap (big slug of malt Scotch - Glenfarclas on this occasion), a plate of bread and cheese (medium cheddar, since you ask) and a book (The Player of Games by Iain M. Banks). Asleep by 11.30 and slept through whatever fireworks might have been set off by the natives at midnight.

I woke up bright and early on Friday morning and caught the 8am bus to work. It was so peaceful Except for the two bums at the bus stop across the road who were already getting drunk

It's nice when it's so quiet out there. I thoroughly enjoyed opening my back door on xmas and NY day and *not* being able to hear the A12. :0D

We lived a couple of miles from the Eastern Avenue when I was a kid. I'd be outside early in the morning and you could always hear that distant roar of the city that's mostly traffic noise. My Dad used to say that it's people going to work. I recall a couple of episodes of Budgie where it was added to the background sound effects when Budgie and Hazel were talking to each other late at night with the windows open. I find it quite comforting and relaxing, as long as it's far enough in the background.

I live 1/3 of a mile from where it's a bridge over a local road, which I think makes it louder. It's more intrusive than when I lived 1/10th of a mile from the railway line. I stopped hearing the trains, I've never stopped hearing the traffic. It's so much louder now than when I moved in, 11 years ago. Who knows what it will be like in another 10 years? At least they stamped on turning it into the M12.

Hard to know how it could get any busier even if they did

I used to drive past houses on Western Avenue, on the North Circular, on the A1 and other such roads, and wonder how they ever got any peace or could enjoy their garden.

And a year or two before I left the UK I went to a place we used to go when I was a kid - Curtismill Green just by Passingford Bridge. It's less than half a mile from the M25 now. You can still hear the birds but there's that ever-present roar of the traffic. The peacefulness has gone There are several nice country pubs around there which must also have lost their quietude.

A lot of the houses on the North Circular are boarded up, so I wonder if when people sell up and move out they either can't get a buyer, or the govt are buying them so they can knock them down and make them commercial.

But the A12 still has lots of lived in houses through Romford. I couldn't do it.