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

Tomorrow at some point I'll send you an email explaining more about this bipolar thing.

It's severely affecting me at present.

But at least thank goodness I'm not losing my temper in a horrible way.

I must take some extra medication now to sleep.

I don't see your 'eyes', so with any luck, you've succeeded in getting some sleep... I hope you have, because otherwise you'll be totally frazzled!

Insomnia worries me, because for a few weeks, maybe even months before his death, Garth couldn't sleep. (He mentioned it only once, and I wished I'd had some helpful suggestions, but really I don't. But I do know that the insomniac state of mind is *awful*! Sometimes I suffer from it in summer, usually in December, I suffer a total inability to sleep, and even at the best of times, my 'Woolworths bladder' wakes me up at least once a night. But I don't think it's as bad as what you're experiencing!)

You're doing really well in communicating here, bless you!

and with the next few days,

Vicky

Hi Vicky,

Something psycorp said today, has made me think about the way I sometimes am with you, on that TGD thread. I think I sometimes go too far with the 'sarcasm', though there is often an element of teasing to that as well, which hopefully you know. And I'm truly sick of hearing about the stuff now, that happened in the dim and distant past.

It was really hot here today. I saw my first ants of the year, which excited me. They get really active when the weather is hot. Their metabolism gets really heated up . I'll never get fed up with watching them. They are just *so* interesting, they way they run around collecting food to take back to their nest

Hope things are good.

Effers s, and lots of them,

Oh yeah, forgot to say, I'm going to try harder to treat you better on that thread.

Hey, it's okay, I understand you're teasing (even if you get a bit close to the bone sometimes!)

The s sound endlessly fascinating, I used to love watching them when I was a child, we had a wild front garden just bursting with life, and the most fascinating were the s and the woodlice, or slaters as my Mum called them (I am not sure why.)

Vicky

Hey, yep woodlice are excellent. I was fascinated with them as a child, to. There's an incredible number of different traditional colloquial names for them here. Slater is one I've heard. My mother always called them 'pea bugs'.

They were eaten traditonally in the old days. They are in the same family biologically as prawns. They are land based crustaceans. I have loads in my garden, and I always have it in my mind that one day I'll get a traditional old fashioned recipe and try them. So far I haven't. Maybe this year. I'll let you know about the experience.... Now don't go and say,' Euuw' or something.......

I reckon that's why they have so many common names, because they were part of the diet of people; a free food for poorer people I suppose. Yes I'm most fond of them, and the way they roll up into a ball.

When you have a bit of time you might find this article fun about British, slaters. Apparently they were even considered as a cure for stomach ache......as well as featuring in paintings and novels.....

http://www.earthlife.net/insects/isopoda.html



Yes I do get a bit close to the bone sometimes. I'm glad you could tell me.

Eaten! Wow, yes, my reaction is indeed, eeeuuuwww! Thanks for the link to the article, it's fascinating! Pea bugs, I like that name... it's quite descriptive. My mum didn't like them, and even less, that I collected them to "study," if you can call it that, given that I was 5 or 7 at the most...

I'll see if I can find a recipe or two! (Not that I'd know where to find any slaters where we are, but you never know...)

Vicky

Just to say further, I am reading that woodlouse link, and it's fascinating!

That they can walk several kilometres in a day, incredible! That some (the NZ ones too!) are carnivorous...

I see that the British ones anyway, vary from 2mm to 30mm in length. The ones I remember from when I was a child, were probably about 15mm long, I think.

Then there's this! "There is even one species, Platyarthrus hoffmannseggi , which is nearly always found associated with s "!.

What an awesomely fascinating page, thank you again...

Vicky

I'm glad you liked that page. And yes I loved that about one species being associated with ants; Platyarthrus hoffmannseggi; what a brilliant name. I looked them up and they are extremely cute to look at and very, very tiny. It says they occur in southern England, but I'd have to disturb the nests to look for them. I won't ever do that. (As an aside, my mother is a fanatical gardener was always doing one thing or another to get rid of ants nests, because ants sometimes eat the roots of plants. It always really upset me )

Platyarthrus hoffmannseggi,

http://www.uksafari.com/woodlouse2.htm

Did you read as well that slaters once inspired a sermon? I'd loved to have heard it. And the NZ beach woodlouse, Scyphax ornatus , which feeds on drowned honey bees. Wow. Brilliant.



AS you liked that quote from Proust's Remembrance of things Past, I'll quote you another bit, which is just.........too much for a Romantic like me.

'I found the whole path throbbing with the fragrance of hawthorn blossom. The hedge resembled a series of chapels, whose walls were no longer visible under the mountains of flowers that were heaped upon their alters; while beneath them the sun cast a chequered light upon the ground, as though it had just passed through a stained-glass window; and their scent swept over me, as unctuous, as circumscribed in its range, as though I had been standing before the Lady-alter, and the flowers, themselves adorned also, held out each its little bunch of glittering stamens with an absent-minded air, delicate radiating veins in the flamboyant style like those which, in the church, framed the stairway to the rood-loft or the mullions of the windows and blossomed out into the fleshy whiteness of strawberry-flowers.'


His sentences are amazing in their dreamy, going on forever, length; more than any other writer, I can relate to the way he feels and sees things. And its just so affecting. I don't know whether he was a practising Faith person, but the inspiration from his Catholic sensibility is truly wonderful. It's the greatest novel I've ever read, that comes close to expressing things in my way of perceiving reality. When I originally read it, it nearly sent me crazy

As *you* would say, and did yesterday, awesome!

Yes, the drowned honeybees thing really struck me! I wonder where they all (the honeybees) come from?

Leon's graduation was today, it was amazing, a very long day, and he looked so cute in his academic regalia! (I shouldn't really say cute, he's more than cute!) The weird thing, is he really made me think of Garth..

That passage is amazing! I understand what you mean, about the lushness of the writing, and the sensuousness of it. It's wonderful!

Vicky

Hey Vicky that is completely brilliant news. You must be hugely proud. And it must have been really moving for you. I'm not surprised you thought about your brother.

I'm seriously pleased for you and Leon. I imagine he's both cute *and* more than cute...

He doesn't know me but congratulate him very much from me anyway.. It's a big achievement.

It's really nice to get such good news from you......

Effers; s

He says thank you so much for the congratulations! He's in bed, because he went to a birthday party for a woman called Amber last night, and came home at 02.30, and he has a night shift tonight.

I'll send some photos by email, and we had some fun on Friday, when we were walking up the main street, after seeing his friend Jin Koo off to University, some guys at a kebab place came out and offered us free food by way of congratulations! We'd have accepted it we hadn't just had a big lunch...

I am so thrilled!

Vicky

I think you should also try to avoid personally attacking. I understand more because you are the only Faith person on TGD thread. mickey can't handle it. WG has left, as has little miss nicky. You know my views if I was in your place I'd leave. But that's up to you.

If the atmosphere continues, I will just unsub. It's pointless. It goes nowhere. It's clear to me some people on that thread, and you to to a degree, just go round and round. I'm creative by nature so I will lose patience.

But you are a friend. I've told you that's permanent now. And I don't give a damn if others don't understand.

But you've got a good week ahead. Concentrate on that, not hurting yourself.

Effers;

You have a very good point, Effers.. I should say myself to be above doing what's been done to me!

I am staying away today, although I don't know about tomorrow... and I may wean myself off altogether! Who knows?

Vicky

show myself, not say myself! I'd say preview is my friend, but as someone pointed out on the 'edit button' thread, it's perfectly possible to preview and *still* not see the mistake til it's too late...

Vicky

never worry about typos with me. I always get it. Crikey i always get what blicky is saying You've a way to go in the typo stakes before you get close to blicky.

Being the funny/nice person I am, I quite like typos, or should that be tipoze?

blimey I must really try to get a bit more sleeeeeeeppppppppp . G'morning.......

Sometimes I have a wee bit of trouble working out what Blicky means! Nevertheless, I hate typos...

It's so frogging cold here you just wouldn't believe, it really makes me wonder about climate change, it's definitely the opposite here of what it is there, as it gets colder every year here!

I hope you had some quality sleep!

Vicky

Well you'll feel even worse now then. I'm just sending you an email with attachments of pictures from my garden. Stop whining about the cold. I told you, you have to really get into the awfulness of stuff and then you start to enjoy it. It gets hotter every year here. Poor old Kiwis. My heart bleeds for you.

I spent the last few hours sorting out my images, doing this hawthorn slide show thing and organising some thing on the internet which you can have as a Mac user which syncs directly to my Mac for stuff. I'll post it on my space when its sorted.

We had another really hot day here today.

I'm not buying this whinging. Don't they sell clothes in kiwiland? Stop being so pathetic.

Get your head out of all those damned books.

Have sent you a email reply.

G'night.

Okey-dey!

I am seriously annoyed with computers at the minute, though...

Vicky