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

It's scenic and it's restful. It's somewhere villagers can stand and community-network as they used to around the village pump. It's a tourist attraction, a postcard opportunity and if you add ducks, tadpoles and sail boats, will occupy the kids for minutes on end.

Ash Parva has a pond, with ducks. Ash Magna is Magna, magna than Parva at least; it's about time it had its own water feature. It used to, there used to be a drovers pond just across the road. Well now it has one again. As of yesterday it has a brook. It wells up gently from under a paving slab by my front door, serenely oozes through the new water meadow, slips under the fence and trickles through the pebbles on nextdoor's drive to the road where it meanders to the middle and ripples down neatly in pretty semicircular waves before sweeping across the tarmac and flowing into the Whitchurch Rd delta.

Should I be phoning the Council to put up a 'Ford' sign?

Sounds like a job for a G9-21 and a G9-22 combination.

Dot No 562 to the price of those.

The community-network bit is working already and exploration of the new spring has determined the need for a dot no 551.1.

Further additions to the To Do list: ring solicitor about fishing rights, there's nothing in the deeds about them.

Sorting out overnight water features was not what was planned for today.

we have a village idiot

I envy you your ability to see the wondrous aspect of these domestic calamities, though not the calamities themselves.

A workmate caught up in our floods did say, though, that there was something quite uplifting in his kids' pride about having had water halfway up their staircase.

You're not four yourself, by any chance?

What calamity? I'm looking into the bottled water business now. And to find a nice local Saxon Saint to name the well in front of the front door after.


Actually, calamity status determination is now on hold, awaiting a visitation from Severn Trent and further community investigation.

Please don't say you've tasted it.

Listen carefully. Call an ambulance immediately.

Are we talking about a spring or an artesian well or what? Sorry, but my mind is firing at half speed lately.

Of course I didn't taste it - it had toads in it. Swimming very happily. Almost gleefully.

If it's alright for toads I think that's sufficient.

Hyp, the source, after much community, (postman, double-glazing salesman and his apprentice, various neighbours), discussion is become a mystery. The most obvious cause was a broken supply pipe - mine. But the supply in the house is ok.

Severn Trent's appointment isn't until next Thursday.

Did you know that if a cat licks a wet toad or carries one about it will cause to make terrible faces and foam at the mouth?

If it was summer you could charge a wading fee.

There was a cat. Walked along the fence. It looked at the submerged grass, then looked up at me looking down at it from the upstair window with a distinct 'What the ...?' expression.

He's not having my toads.

The cat wouldn't have had it for long. The toad seems to always win. Now lizards are another matter. You must keep your lizards away from cats.

Why aren't your toads hibernating? Was it washed to the surface by the water?

I hadn't thought about it, but you're right. They should have been hibernating. They were young and lively.

Very smooth skinned and slim for toads.

It's rejuvenating water - that's it! Saxon Saint Something of Ash's elixir of Youth.




And now I've just found this http://www.bbc.co.uk/shropshire/history/2003/06/st_winefride.shtml St Winefride. Winefride meaning 'blessed stream' in Welsh.

There you go.

I'm off to dream of riches...

I'll start working on the brochures.

I'm not sure I understand this yet. The nearest pond I've got access to is only big enough for toy sailboats, a few goldfish and guppies, the leopard toads and the cocoa - mocha frogs. ...Mind you the latter are happy enough given a bucket of standing water.

Please allow me to introduce the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices: Part 2

http://www.mainroads.qld.gov.au/web/AttachStore.nsf/allobjects/Manual%20of%20Uniform%20Traffic%20Control%20Devices%20-%20Part%202%20Traffic%20Control/$file/MUTCD_Part2_TrafficControl.pdf

page 115 and 116 if you have the patience of Job.

p52 ! It's almost art.

I thought to begin with the upside-down writing was the Oz edition, but looking more carefully, it's obviously the 'turn the page round and round' map reading technique.