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

Hi Waz. Hope you are OK? Jodan, Pin and I are a little concerned. No postings for a while. I trust you are holidaying in some exotic location and sipping a deliciously cold cocktail whilst being fanned by a large palm frond, as you toast yourself to a perfectly sunkissed golden shade. Catch up soon eh?
take care
boots

Oh boots, I wish! No, I 've let work and work related worries get me down. I know I'm getting them out of proportion, especially talking to you I know I'm getting them out of proportion, but, well that's why I haven't been around..

I did spend Sunday evening with friends deep in the Shropshire outback. We had Chinese takeaway, outdoors by candlelight, with a bottle of wine, followed by a walk across newly cut fields. It would be exotic to an ozzie, no?

I have Wednesday off, I refuse to work Wednesday - the auditors can look after themselves. Catch up then,
Waz

Positively posh picnic by antipodean standards! Glad you are Ok and will chat manyana.
take care
boots (who has made a couple of decisions)

Evening Boots,
just dropping by to keep in touch - how are things?

I watched the programme on the florist's tonight. No red and yellow crysanths that I noticed. Covent Garden was less chaotic than I'd imagined, perhaps they tidied up for the cameras.
Waz

Hi Waz! Good to catch up. I also saw a bit of it and recognised several of the market boys. Have to blow the old trumpet and say I think our work is better. Thought the brides bouquets were dreadful. (It is subjective though) Liked the idea of the petals but the execution was...not good. If they went out of our shop like that heads would roll! Liked the fish tank lots but the gloriosa lilies in the gold fish bowls...been there...done that (about three years ago) but it was quite fun. (piece on weddings hopefully in this weeks post if I make the dealine)
The market is quite a sad place now...not nearly as buzzy as it used to be...but that's another chapter...and, yes, definitely prepped for the photo shoot!
Getting there in answer to the unsaid. Have been accepted on the TESOL course and now have to find a window. I feel better now I know I have something in the future that is not a shared experience. Quite scared though and I did say to Ravager before the interview 'what the hell am I doing here?' Miss him so much. Ravager pup pulled me up rather brutally but very wisely. 'Mum you will probably live for another thirty years...are you going to live them in the past or are you going to have a future?'
Not perhaps the best timing in the world but I probably needed to hear it at some point.
How are things with you?

The Ravager pup wants you with him, in the future. I don't think I can begin to understand how hard this must be - except for what comes through in the pieces you write.

I'm right in thinking the course is in teaching English aren't I, as a foreign language or have I a wrong end of a stick there? Congratulations on the place, and not just on getting through the interview but on getting to it. I hate interviews.

Gloriosa lilies are stunning. I came across a wild flame lily once - so vivid growing in dry grass in bleached out bushveld. I'm sure your work is better. I wasn't that keen on the wedding flowers. The eggs in the fish tank were odd, I thought, for a wedding. I can see the connection, but... ...

I am fine but not looking forward to tomorrow, it's the first day with the new boss - so I ought to get some beauty sleep I suppose.
Waz (not actually sleepy yet)

Hope the first day went well. Hope the new boss is OK. Glad someone else has sleep problems. I eventually dropped off at 2.30 not great when you have to be up at five. I was late...very late.
Yes the course is the teaching english etc. I think I will enjoy it. If nothing else it will help my grammar. I also quite enjoy teaching. Did a bit with drama in another life and found it very rewarding. I also love to travel and can't see myself enjoying solo holidays in the true tourist sense for a while. It just made sense.
Still finishing the wedding entry. Having a bit of of a probelm with the 'eavesdropping' technique.
Spoke to my agent (theatrical not literary - though he does that as well but not 'actively' for me...in fact he doesn't do a lot actively for me...boots drifts off again! I've only shown him the children's stuff and it's not really their bag).
Interesting chat though. he reckons that nowadays far too many wannabee writers try and write in a multitude of styles rather than honing their natural style. Food for pens eh what!
One of his writers brought in a cracking story line and he (the agent) thought it would make an excellent drama. The writer, who was of the old school, argued that as such, he would not be able to do it justice - being a comedy person. As it turned out he was right. he handed it over to another author who had great success with it. Good to know that proper writers chat!
It's the dashed finding the style bit that's the problem.
boots (sneaking time off the day job)

PS two fish tanks! I think or I was more tired than I thought.Hated the eggs but liked the submerged orchidd and the water plantand pebbles mmmm perhaps they were the eggs...just looked different.Odd I agree but good to be different! Must tell you about one of our favourites sometime...now THAT was cool!
take care
boots

The new boss is 'a very nice man'. I knew that already - it's not always enough is it? Only time will tell. Might know by the end of October.

That's some writer, handing over his storyline like that. It must have been a wrench. Ha! Just remembered I promised my mother I'd check if I had her vice grip - last Tuesday week. Last Tuesday. Last Friday. And Staurday. Then Sunday, and this evening.

Back later...

Back, and in trouble. I have got it - told her it was very unlikely before. Don't think she'd appreciate a phone call now. I might just go round and post it through the letter box before they're up in the morning. Anyway...

I would have thought experimenting with different styles would help to find the one that felt most natural. And maybe to find new styles unexpectedly suiting.

And I think there were lots of fish tanks. Please tell about your favourite.
Waz

Hope you appeased mama!
Pants RL day. Post included yet another rejection slip for collage, car insurance renewal...car has to go, well current one at any rate...'We pay how much for insurance?' scenario.
Company tax demand and a 'Oh by the way don't worry but your breast screening has come up with some abnormalities, please can you come in for stage two?'
Great!
PS 'here is your widows benefit form please fill in'
B******s!
boots (hoping the postman misses her entirely tomorrow!)

Oh, Boots - that's an awful day. All I can do is throw virtual s an s your way. The publishers are idiots, they're always reading screening results wrongly and... shoot the postman.

Appeasing hasn't been done yet - I was going to drop the vice grip in on the way back from shopping but I forgot. I'll drop them off on the way to work tomorrow. She doesn't have to say anything, I can already see the 'look' I'll get. And hear the sniff that will go with it.

Re the other thread - I was just about to ask you if you'd seen it, I read it earlier, just before you posted yours. Good isn't it.

See you lurking friend...how goes it? Hypatias day has not been a good one. I think she needs all of us but most of all Frank.
If you need the threads I will try.
take care
boots

Hey there, been talking to you elsewhere. The complications of talking in threads! Came here and went to catch up on Hypatia's news, .

I am doing ok - had a good trip to Harrogate and called on my brother on the way back, inspected his two allotments and dug up some new potatoes for tea. That part of Yorkshire is very beautiful.

Re the other thread, here's a to take along too.
Waz

Thanks Waz... and for complimets and cats. I'm OK. They found something which worried them...overlapping tissue? I don't understand, but they crushed the nipple again and went in for a close up...not the best photo I've ever had taken! Then ultrasound and then the obligatory grope, but it's clear. I have had inflamed tissue in the chest area...an old friend pleurasy kicks in now and then and causes the muscles to inflame (so they tell me) so that may have caused the blip. Personally I think they just creased the old wrinklies last time!
One more wedding to go, I put some on hold and didn't take any more. Off to Wales on the 25th to help Angela do a weekend gig. I have to do the flowers, she's cooking. Just as well it's not the other way round. My daughter says coming home is better than going to a health farm...no food anywhere and any that comes in is instantly cremated! She's lost half a stone. Then off to Corfu on the 28th with Angela and her family. They have house there...she is the original Shirley Valentine! (Now there's a possible column!) Going for two weeks so will be off line for a while. Angela is to the internet what I am to food! Will try and do a column for next week and if poss send in a couple of reserves but it all gets a bit hairy now so might not make it.
Glad the trip went well and the family farm provided good sustenance.
take care good friend and chat soon
boots

That's excellent news. About the scan, not you being missing for two weeks. After the scandals of missread screenings I should imagine they err too far the other way now. Which is better than missing something but you could have done without the worry. Two weeks on a Greek island sounds good, and presumably will not resemble a health farm in any way? Gerald Durrell's Corfu read like a paradise, wonder if it's still like that.
Your take on a Shirley Valentine theme would be ! And nothing like Gerald Durrell!

Was reminded of your writings at work today - someone put an enormous, and I mean enormous, blousy, white and blue flower arrangement in reception. The only place it would have looked anything like in place would have been a wedding marquee. It shared a space with three artistically placed, long stemmed, flowers in a modern, very long, thin, blue glass vase, elegantly stood on a short classic column, around whose pedestal (as the truly finishing touch) several large pebbles were 'scattered' for a natural look. !

When you're in Corfu I'll be heading north to Aberdeen, for a couple of weeks probably. Forvie Sands here I come - every other day if I get my own way!

While I would *never* want to discourage you from keeping up our fix of Boot's pieces (), don't stretch yourself too thin. I know what it's like rushing around before going away, you end up wishing you could cancel the whole thing. Which is not good.
til later, Waz

Picking up from the other thread - I suppose it gets worse as the challenge of coping wears off. Just have to stick with it? It will get better too. Keeping busy is probably good but at the schedule you're on there. Perhaps in Corfu, somewhere less familiar (?) it will be easier to have some time for yourself.

I've been reading Pinniped's Gorgon. Can't get the butterfly bit of mind.

I'm here for the space of anothe coffee, another look at the chinese dragon kite I'm tempted to get, 15m, it would be so embarassing if I found I couldn't fly it but glorious if I could, then off to do chores.

Kite sounds great! I drove through Richmond park a few weeks ago and saw people kite boarding? Well that's what it looked like. Sitting on contraptions like skate boards and skimming across the grass. Some even had harnesses on and were trying to paraglide...that worried me a bit no water for safe landing! Mmmm think I will have a go at paragliding in Corfu...hate heights but who cares!
Yes it will be great to get away.
take care
boots (back on the bench)

Now all I want to do is fly a kite. Not be one!

It's a long time since I saw Richmond Park - not since the '70s. The family lived in New Malden, not too far away, for a couple of years. I doubt it's changed much.

Just popped in to say hi. Missed you. Hope all is well. Have had holiday which was lovely... being back not quite so much fun.
Catch up soon.
take care
boots