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

Hi Carole , sorry i missed you,just read your story " The Cherry Cake" what a lovely summer tale, the cake sounded deliciuos, certainly wouldnt make me faint hearing the recipe: as long as the cook brushes there teeth, and is a non smoker.

Brilliant!

Thanks Lofty glad you liked it. That one won me £1,000 in "The Lady" magazine short story competition.
What sort of books do you write and what is this book crossing (was it) all about?

Hi Carole, wow £1,000 in the Lady. Thats brilliant! You can buy a few cakes for that.

well i am not a writer Carole, i am only a er , well a reader i should say, i would like to be a writer ( but it is not a burning ambition right now, i'm quite young so the flower will blossom and grow one day, no doubt); and since being on here i have gushed forth some dodgey poetry , but thats about it. I have written a few ,very, short stories before, and one day i might even get round to writing a guide entry ,or two; but i am not a writer-not yet.

I think writing is hard work; everybody does it there own way, i know; but i am not well organized with the ideas that i sometimes have, it is not enough to just jot them down on paper, you need to commit some time to making whole stories , i think. One day.

I like reading the end result of other peoples hard labour.

I have read all sorts of things , but i like science fiction, historical and any good reads. I could list a few and there would be some classics that alot of people would have read, ( i finnished reading Frankenstein recently ), to those books we all stumble upon or are given , that are little gems, unknown to many.

Carole http://www.bookcrossing.com/ have a look, well worth it.

I almost signed up for bookcrossing Lofty and then I thought - is it safe; here I am giving them all my personal details and I don't know who they are, so I didn't do it. Lelly and Sim are Facebook members and there is a lot of bad press about that at the moment so I decided to back off. I am sure it is OK as you belong to it but you never know.
Pat knew who you were when I told her about your Mum's accident - said you all just waved to each other across the great divide. It's easy to cross now though isn't it? It was getting pretty bad when we lived there and then they did the new road. Maybe you are too young to remember but we had an action group going when I was there to get the road built on the outer route instead of a few yards from our houses in Romsey Close. Rede Action Group? Pat was Chairperson, I was Secretary and our friend in Burleigh was Treasurer. I expect your parents will remember it - I was always putting newsletters through the door and calling for jumble etc. to raise funds.
What are you studying at college?

hi Carole, yes bookcrossing is safe , you only need give them as much details as you did to sign up to hootoo, you do not get any spam off of them, it seems all good fun tbh; you needent sign up though, you can just browse, people will have left books in your area , i should think, and it is a bit of excitment, a bit like a treasure hunt if you see something you like,; mostly it is just freeing the books you have just read and it is totally anonomous like this site, but there are groups who get together like here aswell. Have a look and see how many people use the site you will be suprised .

Yes it is like a country lane now the bypass has been completed, and i was amazed when it was very first done; one day it just bowled me over , for a complete 2 or 3 minutes perhaps there was not one vehicle on the road-perfect quiet. It was a revelation, as you know before they built it the traffic had steadily got worse to the piont where there were lorries flying by every minute- our house used to shake with the rumble of them, and they even started to send them in convoys, one after another at night-time , i spose thinking nobody would notice the dramatic increase in traffic volume onto the Hoo peninsula.

I have to thank you Carole for helping with the byepass it really has made difference; they made a really good job of it all.

Just reread what you said about the Bookcrossing site,oh yes of course its OK, i have the best taste and the finest judgement when it comes to the web. I found my way here by lucky chance, and the same with that site. I am a member of a few of the social networking sites but i never go on them, i like it here.
I am not at college Carole. I was thinking of doing something on the Open University, it is hard work studying though and needs alot of commitment of time and energy-worth it though; one day if i get the chance i might do something on the OU, learning something new is fun after all, dont you think? I dont think i will ever write the great brittish novel though, although i might read one or two i hope.

Heres to the outer route of the wainscott bypass.

Btw Carole, if you go to Bookcrossing.com ->then->
on the black menu bar at the top of the page( left hand side)"Go Hunting" -> then ->
from the countries list " United Kingdom -> then ->
a county and look at how many and where people have freed a book.

Then -> you can forget about it until you come to think of what to do with that pile of books you have read that are taking up space and that need a good home. Or just keep your eyes open for some of those shifty people lurking about leaving books in strange places.

If i ever go on holiday in the West country, i will bring something suitable with me; actually i freed a copy of " Moonfleet" by J M Faulkner a while back, ( had it for over twenty years without reading, only finally read it, good story for a young boy, great ), realeased that in Rochester catherdal actually, because it is such an oasis of calm and tranquility i have released most of my books there funnily enough ( i have released less than ten i think, just ones i have actally read and thoroughly enjoyed). I wish i had of heard about it before , i have been giving books to friends for years, and they never read them, only pass them on.
If you ever join ( or even if you dont) my username is "rubeone". It will show you the books i have released , where and who ( if anyone ) has caught them.
Anyway i think that enough from me on Bookcrossing; still not a patch on hootooing and Glumdom, ya know?!

Dear Lofty (aka rubeone) than ks for that bookcrossing info. It looks like I do not need to fear it!
I just adore books and if I haven't got one I feel deprived - well it idoesn't often occur. But sometimes if I have just finished one and haven't got another I feel deprived. It is then that I go sorting through the book shelves here and re-read my old favourites. For years I only liked reading hardbacks but now I usually get paperbacks - my husband buys them for me for birthdays and Christmas. Funny thing is though I usually open the parcels and sort them into ones I haven't read and the ones I have (he can't remember!!) He always keeps the receipts and WH Smith in Honiton know me now - I just go and swap them!!.
Initially, on Glum I thought you were a male - now I am wondering if you are female (if it's not a personal question)
I agree about the studying - and it is very hard to do it alone I find. I left school without a single qualification. Well in those days it was quite common. I left at 15 and because my Mum was a single parent (my dad died when I was 8) I was pushed into the first available job to help with the family finances. It was a good job though as assistant secretary to the M.D. of a Bottle Company in Mayfair (my dad had worked there and they loved him and wanted to help my mum). What I realy wanted to do was be a journalist but it meant staying at school until I was 16 and that just wasn't an option for me). So I was always a secretary - a good one I was told many times. That was due to the M.D's primary secretary. She was awful to me and many days I left the office in tears. But it was a good grounding and although she was a bit harsh I was well trained. I did night school for the shorthand and typing etc and got all those certificates. Since then I have done loads of evening classes for pleasure - mostly creative writing, but also, cookery, cake decorating, Greek language, French. I did try to get an English Lit. O Level but studying alone at home with two small children I just failed to complete the course.
It's good to chat to you but I am off to Glum now. I was only away one day and there are 19 posts to read!!

Hi Carole, i'm glad you had another look at that site - it is quite good fun i think.
Without any disrespect to ,: my mum, my gandmother(s), you Carole, Lelly, the Queen and all womankind in general, ; what makes you think for for a minute i am a woman?
Carole, i shall take that as the utmost complement; for it has been proven to me women are the fairer of the sexes over the years, but sadly i was born and still am, with no intentions as yet of changing gender, a man.

It sounds like you had a hard start in life, but it obviously has not stopped you getting on with it, and making something good out life and a happy home for you and your family.

My own life has been quite spectacular in being quite unspectacular; when i left school, allot of us found it quite hard to find work, although we all did; i started my working life on a local farm, i was meant to be attending the sixth form, and carrying on with my studies but that was left by the wayside in favour of a pay packet. Some of my friends were lucky enough to get an aprenticeship and go to college, but i had to wait nearly another ten years before i would do the same. For the past six years up until the beggining of last year i worked in a local factory, making evrything to do with-beds and bedding, and had intended after starting the year in the construction industry, to carry on in the building industry, but decided after 2 jobs in 4 months to get a job with a little more stability , which i am in at the moment in Gillingham, a contractor for the railways, which is ok.
I actually turned down a job, when i decided to go into the building industry, from the boss of a small printing firm, would have been a lovely job, long hours and not the best pay though, but with good long term prospects; but that is hindsight for you.

Getting back to writing, i hope your travels have inspired you with a few tales to tell, and learning as they say is for life, i actually went back to night school for a gcse English language qualification a couple of years ago, which i hope has helped me brush up on my English, although it showed me how much *further * brushing up i need.

I will let you get back to Glum now, before i go though you said you were writing something; a novel in the making maybe, do tell all one day if you want to share any ideas you have or maybe need a friendly ear or sounding board for something you have already done, i did enjoy that story you wrote for "The Lady", i am sure you have many more to tell.

I shall write something for the guide one of these days ( i was going to write a short story before Christmas, a Christmas story, but only got as far as a rough outline - but might still write that up for this Christmas maybe? ), and if so will let you know about it here, first.

To Glum!

It is funny because Lelly and I thought Simmy was a girly too when we first started talking. Maybe it is your feminine side that shows on a site like this. There is a lovely man around the site called Spy though I haven't heard from him for a while. He is an American and had a terrible traumatic time with his son some time ago, so he went offline for a while. Then he came back but again seems to have gone quite. There are conversations with him on my site. He used to be one of the big cheeses on H2G2.
Glad to hear you have now got a job. When Lelly's brother was leaving The Math School in Rochester it was hard to get jobs but he got a place at City University which put off the job hunting for another 4 years. After that he spent 6-months at the Crest Hotel, Rochester being a wine waiter. I often think those were the happiest days for him. After that he went to Cheshire to work which is where he met his ****** wife and for the past 5 years he has been living in Sydney. If only he had stayed at the Crest - he might have bought it by now! and we would still have him near us. Still we try never to say "if only" it isn't worth it is it as there is nothing you can do to reverse it. At one time Pat and Paul's daughter Sarah (she is a lovely girl) and Chris (my son) were going out together and we all hoped they would make a go of it, but, sadly they are both married to other people now. I understand that Sarah is happy though! I am not sure about Chris.

PS There are two of my other stories around somewhere - The Mummy and Golden Wedding - but I am not sure how you find them now. Golden Wedding was also bought by The Lady, but after winning the £1,000 prize I was quite fed up to recieve only £100 for Golden Wedding. They get first serial rights too and they would only take it if I edited out 900 words! That took me the best part of a week and all for £50 per page! I decided it wasn't worth it.

Just did a bit of research and The Mummy is entry number A3548964 - you can search for it if you have nothing better to do!!