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

Though the communication felt a touch one-sided, lesson learnt. Such new-fangled devices as telephone, fax and Royal Mail will not be mentioned again, let alone used.

Next time our instructions for our account will be written in ink with a quill pen on parchment, sealed with red sealing wax, and delivered direct to the cashier's counter by a man on a horse.

Wearing a wide brimmed hat with several ostrich feathers.

And big gloves.

And big boots.

note made to allow three days for detouring mail all around Edinburgh before deliverance to the correct desk.

continued lack of response on indemnities will result in an appointment with Relate for out 'Relationship Manager'.

My goodness my very dear Waz,

All I can think of is that you are overdrawn.

do not let it worry you. I always let my bank know how lucky they are to have me as a client because they get so much interest from me!

with much affection

CME
AlsRan80

Oh, dear Waz,

I hope whatever it is, it is just frustrating and not serious. Had my own problems not so long back. It's a wonder I don't have bald patches

Websailor

Barclays owns one of the large US banks, I think, but I can't remember which one. And didn't they own half of Manhattan at one time. *sigh* Much too large and impersonal a conglomerate for me to find comfortable. I like the small-town touch when it comes to banking. I like actually knowing gthe people who work at the bank.

Just letting off at work after wasting an inordinate amount of time chasing and checking forms and answers to queries.

I like knowing the local people at the bank too, but with the bank where the local people really knew there stuff, we've been transferred to some regional group. While at the other bank we have to deal locally with people who don't know (sometimes seem not to want to know) their stuff. They're ok for personal banking but get beyond that and they're at sea.

Anyway, hopefully mostly sorted now and with no overdrawness unless Barclays find and process the forms they lost, duplicating the replacement forms hand-delivered on foot.

Lucky you dear Waz!!

Jeep well

What are tall ships?

big
CME AR80

Tall ships, Christiane http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/merseyside/3649511.stm

We had a great day, and there were thousands there but spread out along the Mersey so it was full of energy without being crowded. Good, heart-stopping, airshow with it, too.

Looks like there's going to be some in Falmouth in September, that's closer to you isn't it?http://www.falmouthtallships.co.uk/fts_ships.php

So sorry - I do hope thatI have not missed you and you aare already no needing milk!!

where is it to this time.

Spain, the Orkeneys or perhaps even Iceland. I have a French cousin who is a geologist who is going there in order to give a paper at a conference.

Hope you have a great time. I shall look up Falmouth.I loved your link - gosh from 2004. It sounds like it was marvellous spectacle. The great advantage about this flat is that I not have to move myself except my wheelchair from my study to the living room. !

Have a wonderful break my dear friend. Enjoy every minute of it.

With affection

Christiane AR80

. .

Now in need of milk again, AR80 .

I didn't realise the Falmouth tall ships were 2004 - I thought they were talking about something still to happen.

You were right with Iceland. How did you guess that?! It was wonderful/beautiful/spectacular/elemental. And had so many birds who didn't know Man ruled the Earth and who thought they had a say! We were told off by whimbrels, beeped at by golden plover and threatened and screeched at by godwits, arctic terns and arctic skuas. The last reminded me of Tolkein's Nazgul.

Maybe the presence of fissure swarms that might errupt with lava with little notice, or of gigantic mountain eating glaciers, puts all life forms on a more level playing field.

While there, I also got within the Arctic Circle. Don't know why that felt magic but it did. That was on Grimsey, an island full of puffins that I'd nominate as the daftest birds on Earth.

What a fantastic wonderful holiday. I suppose that there is still lots of ice even though it is summer!!

Did you go by ship or did you fly.?

I can remember reading about people's reacdtion once they stepped inside the Artic Circle. For some reason it is magical.

So glad you had a good time.

Thank you for sharing it.I shall now try and find my bird book and look up all those wonderful birds you saw. I think one thing I would like to do is to see the migration of the birds down here from the artic Circlke before winter sets in. And ofcourse v.v.

With affection

AR80 did you by any chance take any photos?

With affection.

Christiane
AR80

Thanks AlsoRan80, I was just thinking photos would be lovely.

Websailor

Hello Waz! Great to have you back! I would love more details about any and/or all of those birds (and any other kind of wildlife or natural phenomenon) you encountered!

Post the first, back to Barclays, (excuse me folks and block your ears)

_Oi_! Barclays, listen up!

I walked (how old fashioned is that!) through Shrewsbury all the way to your Pride Hill branch to hand two pieces of paper (you'd think this was some BBC period drama ) containing instructions for my same-day money transfers to two other banks, and you still got it all wrong!

Ok, half wrong. One transfer was ok, the other you 'lost'. You've been searching for it for a week you say? (You'd better not charge us that same-day transfer charge... Same day ...!) It's gone from our Barclays account, though you can't confirm it's actually left Barclays, and not turned up where I said I wanted it. £50K worth. Small potatoes I suppose, I mean what's £50K these days?










I know where it is.

I found where it went.

And I'm not telling.
You made me waste and hour and a half where a two minute fax should've done, so I'm not telling . So there.


(_And_ it's earning more interest where you wrongly sent it than I ever could get of you .)

I love a story with a happy ending.

So, did you see the northern lights? Aren't they fantastic? Course, maybe they are visible from the UK anyway. They sure aren't visible in the Ozarks.

Ok, return to normal mode.

Christiane, we flew there. Would've taken too long by sea I think. The best bird I've found so far to watch out for migrating from the Arctic is the sanderling because no sanderlings spend summer here, so any you see in winter have come down from the Arctic and either stop here or fly on South, some as far as South Africa. Besides which they're cute and rather smart little waders - brownish on top, very white underneaths, black beak, little black legs. They run along the beach, in and out of waves.

Birds are a bit feather brained about migration - not a lot of logic to it. Blackcaps for instance. You can see them all year round but the ones here in summer migrate south for winter, while the ones here in winter think we're just the place to take refuge from the cold further north!


Photos - I took lots, way too many! But I've put some on fotki if you want to see - the thumbnails are on http://public.fotki.com/h2g2Waz/for-sharing-with-friends/iceland08/iceland-best-of/

I don't know where to start with more details, Willem . I think of the birds, the artic skuas were the most striking, and the most spectacular and although I've seen one in the UK, I've never had the chance to watch them before.

They'd fly low over the water to pick out a tern to harry, lock in on it and chase it. Quite often two or three other skuas would immediately join in and this small white tern would be desparately banking ang turning and trying to dodge them. But the black, pointed winged skuas, more than twice a tern's size are almost as good at aerial acrobatics and I suspect when the battle suddenly stopped it was because the tern had given in and given up its food to be allowed to get away.



No Northern lights, Hyp - I would so much like to see those one day.

Too light there still, I think. September's the month I associate with them. You can occasionally, if you're really lucky, see them from the UK. I used to subscribe to Aurora Watch but if I did get a warning that conditions were good for a display somewhere like Aberdeen, I wouldn't really race across there on the offchance :/.

(It is a happy ending, isn't it? Wonder how long it will take them to trace it .)

Your trip sounds fantastic, Waz. Iceland sounds very exotic. I would enjoy all the birds.

*off to look at the photos*

Wow! for your photos and for mother nature, as well. What an absolutely breathtaking place. This home of ours really is an amazing bit of the universe.

It is breathtaking, and exotic. And neither I, nor my sister and b-in-l would have thought to go there.

We went because they loved it the first time they went after my niece chose it because she was doing school projects on volcanoes and whales. B-in-l's family have a tradition of being given the holiday destination choice after getting good exam results.

A work colleague wants to go in winter - I thought it would be miserably dark in winter but she's said that there's so much reflected light off the snow that that's not the case. Sounds magical, especially if you had northern lights thrown in. And a guy we met in a hot tub when the temperature (outside the tub, inside it was 40C) was 13, said we should really be there when the guage read -13C and it was surrounded by snow.