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

Oh they must mend Wilfie soon. Or I can hire a car. It's time I went upcountry again. I need to do a road trip; my trip last year was cut short. I've been writing about rural South Africa in ML and I need to go there again, i need the silence and the beauty and the sun and the stars. I must go to the Eastern Cape again. So sad about Henry but he was stealing from me, I couldn't cope with that. I need the rural areas again. I need the rural areas. Perhaps I should sell up in Stellebosch and find a little place right upcountry out of the way, in Calvinia or somewhere really far away, and buy a little place, in a little street, in the middle of nowhere, and go there and sit and enjoy the sun setting over the veld, and drink my vodka and coke, and sit, and sit, and sit. And write! I'd have to take some books there, or reduplicate some of my library, and go up there and write another 50 pieces for Volume 3 of Words from the Word. Oh, and compose, I can take my composing computer and go up there and write music. Yes, this is what I should do. Now I've got Shem Elohim to myself again, I can do this. OK, well I must get my den sorted out, and then perhaps sell my Stellenbosch place and buy a little homestead somewhere out of the way, where the streets are very broad, broad enough to turn an ox-wagon, and sit, and write.

Yes I'm going to do this. And I thought, I could go to town again with the decor. I thought a brass 4-poster bed. I thought a beautiful big wooden table, with chairs. I thought really comfy places to sit. I thought of a big valve radio. I thought of ADSL. I thought of a computer and an amplifier, but I wouldn't leave any tech in the house when I was away... I'll bring it up from Cape Town in the car. Books, yes. Composing laptop and writing laptop. Or I could make the Sibelius machine dual boot. Or is it dual boot already? I don't think so. Could I make it dual boot with Mint Petra? If so I would only need to take the one machine.

But I think probably the Ultrabook and the composing machine.

I will need another BDB and LSJ and TDOT and TDNT and Bibles and so on.

I would need all that, yes.

And interiors. I could invite V and he could paint for me?

Furniture and walls and wooden floors and rugs and so on.

Oh how exciting. A project. A place to sit and write. A winter quarters. Somewhere really far, out of the way. Somewhere in the middle of the veld.

Yeah. That's the plan. Somewhere in Nerensdorp or Vergetensrivier.

Just had a long (1 and a half hour) conversation with my metric parent, via SkypeOut, which is a boon and a blessing for anyone living far from one's family. Listening to Saturday broadcasting on KARN News Talk Radio. It's bracingly Rightist.

I wonder whether I should dare to drive Daisy upcountry in search of my writing retreat? I should want to do the decor! Yay! Another place to do up! How marvellous. Wallpaper, I think. I'll have to buy it here in Cape Town and take it with me to the House of Lovingkindness. Get someone local to hang it. Or perhaps Gerry can be persuaded to come and do it for me. A four-poster brass bed, that's what I want. And some furniture. It's for writing. So I'll need a bedroom or two, a kitchen, bathroom, lounge, garden - yes, I'd like a garden, although how to manage it when I'm away, is something I'll have to consider. Nothing of value is to be left in the House, except for my books, which I'll have to lock away. I shall need an amplifier there, which I can take from Shem Elohim, the second amplifier, or perhaps a third, to leave there, locked awa',awa'. I can attach my small FM transmitter to the lappie and tune a radio into it and connect the radio to the amp. I've got a small radio, a Roberts Sport job, a pocket radio, which would suffice for the job.

Plug that into the amp and tune it into the transmitter, and Bob's your uncle. Excellent. Big sound from the laptop.

Yes I should like to find a detached house somewhere, so that I don't have to worry about neighbours unduly, given that I keep unsociable hours. I want to be able to listen to music at four in the morning without waking anyone up.

I'll need an ADSL connection with wifi and an Internet Radio - the one here is too heavily wired up to want to schlep it around - I'll have to find somewhere that has broadband. Otherwise I just use 3G, if that's available, and plug the modem into a 3G > wifi converter.

Cell C do a good 3G service, ultra fast too.

Menin Aeide - flute and piano?

Ite Thoai Lyssas Kynes - flute and piano?

Thinking now of a flute piece using Greek lyric metres. Dochmiacs etc. Given what Plato said about the flute, the piece would be maenadic.

I could take the 4th Stasimon of the Bacchae and make a piece out of its rhythms. Yes that's a good idea.