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

Yes, you or FWR. Sounds good to me!!!

Yes, it's a good story and good characterisation. I think the tenses are OK, because you've got the narrator in the present, talking about incidents in the past.

And it's interesting how the two stories complement each other, both finding psychic significance in a fake diamond lizard brooch.

Really? Thanks mvp! Wow. Me, characterisation. Not something I thought I'd ever achieve. High praise from a trusted source.



I think I'll leave the story pretty much as is, now. Not that its perfect, but I'll let it be, for what it is.

I enjoyed our spontaneous exercise!

Dear Journal,

I'm considering fragrant memories.

It's strange how evocative fragrance and scent can be, how they can transport.

I think the sense of smell and the place where memories comes from reside quite closely, physically, in the brain district, but I'll have to check that local knowledge.

A87893725

Read the h2g2 Post this week: A87893969

Evening!

Well that's a strange coincidence, I was about to take a slink over there to Postland

Its been a hot bank holiday in the UK, on the beach! Which is good, 'cos we're still coughing and spluttering,so good to splutter in the wild. Salt is good.

Strange event at a beach in Sussex, UK,known as Birling Gap. A weird chemical mist descended. That's a beach that mvp goes to a lot, only they be in France right now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-41070002

Sorry to hear that.

Nice Post. !! Love the eclipse pics, I left comments and now I won't sleep because of FWR's greys.

Appreciate the work of the Ed, thanks!

Thank you! Yeah, that story just keeps getting spookier.

We went to Yorkshire for a family event but, now we've come back, we'll be going to France.
Scents, let's see. Honeysuckle, which attracts butterflies-in Sussex the White Admiral and, in France the humming-bird hawk moth.
The flowers of the lime tree, which can make a whole avenue of trees smell sweet.
And the stinkhorm mushroom
I've read somewhere that,if you went back to, say, Tudor times, you'd find a lot more scents but less noise.

hullo mvp! Oh, you're not in France yet.



Interesting, about scents.

What's a stinkhorn mushroom?? Have to check. Kind of an evocative name.

We've been gone for 10 hours. Out where you need a sherpa to get around: south of Pittsburgh. We crossed the Ohio River at Neville Island.

Soon, there will be an organ in this house. Once we rearrange all the furniture...my great-nephew is dying to learn organ, and I am to teach him...with this marvelous instrument, once it makes the journey across the Ohio and all the way up here.

Where do you put an organ? Don't you need lots of space?

Wow! Amazing pilgrimage across the Ohio! I have no idea what kind of landscapes you are travelling through. It is like foothills, or mountainous, or trees or plains? Are there animals in the fields? Or moose, or elk in the woods.



And how wonderful you're getting in organ! Your great nephew is very lucky!

What dimensions are we talking about here, as mvp says.

Is it a pipe organ, or an electric organ? Who will transport it, and how?

Will you have a special room? What are the acoustics like?

Lots of mysterious terrains. Very exciting.

I do like comparing our experiences.

An organ. Typo. Not in organ. I hope you're not getting in it, , or in a way you are. You're getting inside its musical heart, via your musical heart.

The organ is a parlour organ, of the electronic variety. Although a largeish appliance, bigger than the spinet piano already in the living room, it will fit in there if we rearrange the furniture...

Let's see if I can find a picture...

Aha! I have located a Youtube which may give you an idea, and also a chuckle:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls80g2y_arU

I would like to point out that when I went over to the nice people's house to test their organ, I played voluntaries by Jeremiah Clarke, because I'm tonier than that guy.

And crossing the Ohio just meant we were in the southern reaches of the Greater Pittsburgh area. How that works, hm, how to explain it to a European...there are mountains, see. It's summer, and the trees are all impossibly green. Nature's in profusion. At the same time, the main roads are lined with shopping centres and businesses of every kind. The main roads are in nowise straight, because 200 years ago, those were Indian trails. Sometimes they're called 'runs', as in 'McInerny's Run', 'Girty's Run', etc. And then there are the three main rivers, which have to be crossed and recrossed...

Once you get off the main road, God help you, because even GPS may fail. Houses are located in 'developments', but these are tucked away in the hills. Sometimes, you see them, but can't figure out how to get there. The roads wind around and around...

I grew up in this landscape. A friend of mine who lived in a different part of the county said his house was surrounded on three sides by the same street.

I'm lovin' that youtube link, the awesome Kimball organ, sounds amazing! I love the look also, its magic.

I'd love to hear you play, the people in the house must have been jaw dropped, like wow, this organ is yours my friend.



I love the landscape description, thanks! I really get the picture, great writing.

The Indian trails are fascinating. And the shopping centres and streets, with the mountains in the background.

It feels familiar now, the street bit. That's odd. Like I've been there, even though I haven't.



The road winds round and around. Imagine getting lost up there. Is there big snow in winter? I remember before you had big snow, one winter, was that when you first moved to your house?



Why do some places feel like you've been there before? even if you've never been there.

When we went to the States in '91, first and only time, we got off the plane at Phoenix Az, and it was like I knew every street.

Whereas some places you don't get that experience. Some places feel very far from home, lots of lonely lights and oddness.


And ...

Am I rambling? Me? Surely not.

I felt that way about Ireland - even though we went to the south, and my ancestors all lived in the north.

My dad's first reaction to western Pennsylvania was to tense up - it reminded him of the war, he said. But he got used to it, and loved it, too. When I moved to the Rhineland, I saw why: it's a lot like the Eiffel region. Even to cobblestone streets at vertiginous angles. (I mistyped and wrote, 'angels'. Vertiginous angels...now that's a poem for you...)

Anyway, yes, there is beaucoup snow. Which makes parking on vertiginous angels kind of difficult...

Here's an old-timey slide show of the township where I grew up:

http://www.shaler.org/311/Historical-Photos

Love the slide show! Those lovely houses, made from wood? When were brick houses first built?. Huh? This is my intelligent learning about the world. .

Old timey slides are so atmospheric. Can be quite ghostly also, depending if one is an historian or a psychic.

When I look at these old pics I don't feel like I've been there in the USA before.

It's the modern streets that made me feel that way.

Perhaps I'm just a tourist after all. A space tourist. In fact I've done all my travelling with a vertiginous angel named.. named...

There is potential here, indeed.

Vertiginous. As in vertigo. As in dizzy making, especially relating to a height. Changeable. Unstable. Wavering.

Just getting my definitons right, before the angel appears.



Talking of old photos, I love some of those Victorian pics where the ghost appears, quite obviously tricks of the light and fake ectoplasm. .



Interesting about Ireland and the Rhineland.

Does make one wonder why some places feel more like home than others. Lots of factors I guess. Memories, and ancestors, and just general compatibility, and all sorts of things.

I probably wouldn't venture into the concept of past lives, simply because I have no real knowledge, but people do.