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

i *love* those "tech" conversations!!

(mudhooks - i'm from england, currently living in mont-tremblant, and i took a short overnight trip to ottawa...)
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The area around Mont Tremblant is really beautiful, at least in winter. I was there back in winter 78-79, but haven't been there in summer.

Tulip Festival is coming up. You should try and get here when the tulips are in bloom. I expect they will have some special memorial this year, after the death of Queen Juliana last month.

ooh!
tulips are pretty...when is that then?
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April 17-18: Maple Syrup Festival in Delta http://www.ucdsb.on.ca/athens/maple/

April 24: Perth Maple Syrup Festival http://www.heritageperth.ca/Up&ComingEvents.html

May 6-24: Tulip Festival http://www.tulipfestival.ca/

April 14-15: Perth Garlic Festival www.perthgarlicfestival.com/ There are actually a number of garlic festivals around the same time. Food, gifts, and garlic, garlic, garlic! I LOVE the garlic fidge....

i might just go...
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I'll keep you posted on the progress of the tulips. Sometimes the tulips don't pay any nevermind to the calendar and are either too early or too late.

Last year, it was cold and blustery during the peak of the tulips, and all the tulips closed up tight, acting like litte windvanes. After a particularily windy night, the spectacle of 300,000 tulips, all pointing southeast, was amazing.

That should have been "no nevermind".

<< the spectacle of 300,000 tulips, all pointing southeast, was amazing.>>

I only wish that I had had my camera then. (It must have been the spring before last, as I got the camera Christmas 2002).

i don't think i've ever heard the phrase "no nevermind"
i understood what you meant anyway
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It is a redneck term meaning "It doesn't matter", as in:

"Y'all better watch yer daughter and that dawg. That's a pit bull."

"Aw, that don't make no nevermind. She ain'ta gonna hurt it."

or "Don't listen to", as in:

"I told your yer daughter not to tease the dawg. Now, she's all bit!"

"Aw, y'all know how kids is. They don't never pay y'all no nevermind."

As I was growing up, my mother, originally from Scotland, used to regale us with stories that always had a punchline in a Scottish dialect. (probably why I can watch British and Scottish TV shows and understand everything said)

Her parents used to travel all over Scotland with a motorcycle and sidecar, both before she was born and after. She has several stories revolving around the Motorcycle and sidecar.

My favorite story was before my mother was born. They were out in the sticks somewhere, and stopped in a little shop to get something to drink. On top of the counter was a plate of buns. The store's moggie hopped up on the counter and started licking the tops of the buns.

Appalled, my grandmother said "Should she be doing that?"

To which the woman behind the counter replied "Och, it'll nae do her na harrm!"

Och aye the noo! (My mother was Scottish too, Mudhooks, and had some great stories.)
My daughter-in-law and son are considering getting a motorcycle and side car and she had me in stitches last night, trying to imagine them pootling around Rotorua in it.
Goggles and helmet, and Megan.

One of the other stories she told was the time when they stopped to get water from a well. They had a collapsible canvas bucket which they took with them, easily stowable.

The asked a farmer if they could use his well, and got a bucket of lovely, cold well-water. Grandmother held the bucket on her lar and off they went. Grandfather went around a corner too quickly, and Grandmother, forgetting the bucket was collabsible, let go of it.

She said there was nothing so "refreshing" as getting an entire buicket of cold well-water in your lap!

I wish I had known my grandparents. Grandfather died of a stroke during the War, and Grandmother died after the War, of cancer, so I only know them through Mom's stories. Mom left Scotland shortly after, and never looked back. Still, we would like to make another trip back. Mom will be 80 in June, and was hoping to go back for an "Olg Girls" reunion for her school, Esdaile. It certainly doesn't look likely that that will happen.

We were back in 1962, when I was 6 and I clearly remember so many things. I would like to have the chance to go with her. I want to make a record of things so I can have a family history.

Mom was from Dumfries and her father was the Presbyterian minister, there.

Yeesh!

lap, not lar
bucket, not buicket
Old Girls, not Olg Girls

Reminds me when I camped in a farmers field some years ago. Put the tent up in the dark and got some water out of the well in the corner of the field to make a brew. Bit bored so decided to see how deep the well was by throwing this big stone with a chain on it, which was next to it, down the well. Had to move out quickly and find another field when the goat flew past and downwards.

Good Gravy!

My mother used to trek.

Many, many years ago, she and a friend had been hiking and it was getting very dark. My mother's friend couldn't settle for any of the campsites because she absolutely must have water because she couldn't sleep without brushing her teeth.

Finally, well after dark they heard the sound of lapping water and Madge could brush her teeth. After doing so, she went on about how lovely it felt to have clean teeth before bed.

When they woke up in the morning, they discovered that the "perfect campsite" was right beside a disused municipal dump and the water was a little "lake" right in the middle of it.

Mom also tols the story of her mother, who was a teacher many years ago in an inner-city school in Scotland. Most of the children lived in tenements and had no experience being out in the countryside.

They were hiking through fields and it was getting pretty warm. They came upon a lovely fresh stream bubbling down the hillside. Grandmother said "Ah! Just the thing!" and bent down and drank the fresh, cold water from her cupped hands.

The kids were appalled! "Ewwww! You'll get sick!"

"No! It's lovely! There is nothing more refreshing that cold spring-water. Try it."

None of them would try it.

Finally, she gave up, drank her fill, and they set off again.

They rounded the large rock that lay upstream of where she had drunk. And there, draped across the stream, was a very large, and very dead sheep......

"Och, Miss... Are yae shure ye nae wanna more tae drink?"

It was a story that was told and retold by the students in the school.

ewww!
that's horrible!

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[ltp]
re comeing back least you can acess videocams
http://www.eastbourne360.com/cgi-bin/panoramas/imageFolio.cgi?direct=East_Sussex
should lead you to dumfreshire,catch you later