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

Sadly our have discovered the so they have been climbing up and knocking all the branches off recently, so we won't risk putting decorations on it.

I'm glad to hear that the Rotary Club haven't been as bad as previous year, even if there sadly still is room for improvement there...

Glad you received the Christmas card, and that it was the first. I assumed that if the second class stamps took three days to arrive then they should start arriving from last Saturday - though of course this time of year means delays are likely. But I hope you enjoy the crossword this year, and have spotted familiar clues too (and of course the tacked-on last minute bottom line).

Oh, and if you hear any fun Christmas-themed news stories, please let me know!

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Ah, that's disappointing that are knocking the branches off, but not so bad to have baubles!

I enjoyed the crossword very much - nicely done with the top and bottom rows I like the multi-layered clues, too, like the 'Male doll toy, you know' Apt mention of the gift catalogue, too. Those were the days when my parents would host catalogue parties for the neighbours so they saved on delivery costs and the profits went to charity

I'm Rudolph today.

The storm was nasty this afternoon - I was in a meeting and couldn't hear the presenter over the wind and rain lashing against the window... I hope your bins etc managed to stay sheltered

In terms of news stories, this one caught my attention http://uk.yahoo.com/news/nan-grabbed-baby-ran-floor-212945627.html

The floor in the Lady Lever cafe did used to make an unusual tinkling sound in places when my wheelchair went over it, but it had been like that for years - I am very glad everyone was evacuated safely after it erupted

Glad you enjoyed the crossword - and new questions toom and that the bottom row didn't come across too much as crow-barred in last minute. It did mean that I suddenly had enough room for Ebenezer, but at the cost of losing 'Frankincense', cutting it into two words.

I'm glad that the catalogues enjoyed attending parties with your neighbours when your parents were younger - Feed the catalogues, let them know it's Christmastime! That's what I say, anyway.

I'm hoping the weather won't be too severe and windy for my journey to the Island this weekend....

Good luck with the weekend, I hope you spot an elusive 100th bird for the list (and check it twice!)

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And quite a news story

My favourite part is of course the inverted commas around the word 'repairs'. Will they really be repairs? Or something else? It brings it all in glorious doubt, but good to hear all were safe and sound.

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Yes! It is important to be clear about when text is a quote, but care is needed to avoid "quotes" such as Dave Gorman would say

"Feed the catalogues, let them know it's Christmastime!" - yes indeed

Best of luck with your journey The weather here hasn't been as bad as on Thursday afternoon, but it is certainly wet and windy out there. I'm hoping it will ease off for shopping later Burton Mere is closed today because of the high winds, and may or may not reopen tomorrow depending on how much damage there is - here's hoping it won't be too bad for them

My cold has eased off today so I am less Rudolph

Career Curiosities Mark II arrived today, well in time for my presentation on Monday I still see some bits where I think I could have made more improvements, but it is much much better than the first edition - makes such a difference when the brightened-up pictures fill the page better and are all consistent height with a border round them

Good news that the Mediaeval Baebes were OK getting to the venue tonight - I hope you were too

Shopping was a bit of an expedition - I had planned to go to a little supermarket, just to pick up essentials quickly, but unfortunately the road there was closed due to a rather large tree that was wobbling around at a precarious angle. I ended up doing a u-turn and going to the big supermarket in the opposite direction. Not the best, because the car park wasn't sheltered, so I couldn't even get the car door to stay open against the wind. Luckily a kind person noticed me struggling and gave me a hand. Thankfully the wind had dropped after I had gathered the provisions, so I was OK getting back into the car. A few flash floods on the route, but not as bad as they have been, so it was OK.

Our wheelie bins are having a bit of a lie down, but are otherwise OK - not like the year when we had boxes with lids, and some people ended up with more lids than boxes, and vice-versa. I hope your wheelie bins etc are OK

I'm glad to know your cold is on the mend so you are heading back to human.

Definitely blowing fully out there this weekend - I was lucky I travelled when I did on Friday, as all the ferries were cancelled on Saturday morning and early afternoon - as well as parkrun. I had putting on my running clothes and was about to go out when the cancellation came through.
We spent the day wondering whether the weather would cancel the concert. My friend's neice had been due to be in the illuminated parade on the Friday night, but both Friday's Ryde illuminated parade and Saturday's one in Newport were cancelled. Also as so many ferries were cancelled, even if the ferries started running again, there was no way of knowing whether the Baebes would have been able to make it - when ferries are cancelled, it means that the bookings go into limbo. So if the 9am, 11am, 1pm and 3pm car sailings are cancelled but the 5pm goes ahead, then the people originally on the 5pm are unaffected, but everyone originally on earlier sailings have a free-for-all on any available spaces, and in the peak of the season it hasn't been uncommon for the companies to turn around and say, 'we should have spaces on the 3am'. Fortunately they don't mind foot passengers who just can walk on whichever sailing is next.
Instead of parkrun, we went to the excellent Christmasworld at Busy Bee garden centre (Last year's 'Best Christmas Garden Centre' winner). I didn't get anything, but I do enjoy looking around. It was very busy throughout - except in the garden centre's small section dedicated to actual garden stuff. Who would want to go to that?
The performance itself was excellent, and very similar to last year's in that they did a lot of carols, particularly from their 'Mydwynter' album, even though they have a new album out this year (which I got signed). Their outdoor procession was cancelled, however, due to the wind.

I'll have a look at the wheelie bins tomorrow when I head to work. I'm sure there'll be detritus and branches on the paths, particularly through the paths. Sounds like you've had quite the adventure too with wobbly trees and doors. I'll keep fingers crossed for Burton Mere also escaping damage.

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Yes, my cold has cleared up quite quickly - good yesterday that the self-checkout was hands-free, though. Today I went car birdwatching and didn't see any owls, but I'll check my photos of the flock of wading birds I spotted, just in case a Greenshank was amongst them Burton Mere had a bit of clearing up to do, but they were able to open at 11am instead of 9am, so that wasn't too bad. They did post a photo of the paths/mudbaths so I didn't go - an owl appeared there just before closing time

Yes, lots of twigs and things around on the roads here. Glad you had a successful trip there and back - very fortunate that you were able to travel before all the ferry cancellations. I can imagine it was difficult, like on the trains, when several cancelled trains worth of people all bunch up into the next available ones (the time I spent 4 hours in Leamington Spa springs to mind...)

Sad but not surprising about parkrun - glad you got to enjoy the garden centre instead Funny indeed how the small sections of actual garden stuff are so unpopular at this time of year

Glad the Mediaeval Baebes were excellent and Christmassy/Wyntery Sad about the procession, but the main thing was that they made it to the venue

I found Cars 3 on iPlayer this weekend, and enjoyed watching that - many wise words of motivation. Good to see statistics feature, too - Natalie Certain was a great character! Pleasing how they featured the flashbacks of Doc Hudson/Paul Newman, and there was lots to enjoy in the credits, too, seeing the people whose names had been turned into car-related puns

The presentation went well and I got good feedback. People were intrigued by the book, so I might get a sale or two The questions at the end were challenging, though. One person asked a question I'd already answered, but they must not have realised for some reason. Another person mustn't have followed the timeline, so thought I was still a teaching assistant and asked me technical pedagogical questions. The third person asked a really good question that brought together all the presentations - about employment law as well as personal experience - so all the presenters said a few words and that was an excellent ending to the session

I hope your wheelie bins are OK. Our wheelie bins were emptied today, so they are back on schedule, and no worse for wear after the weekend lie-down - phew.

I looked through my photos and didn't find any greenshanks, but I did see an owl after all! I took a couple of quick photos of a bird of prey zooming past just before I went back home, and I now see the silhouette has the distinctive profile of wide face and narrow tail I'm not sure what owl species, though - it was 16:16 when I took the photo, so it could be a Barn Owl (dusk and night flyer) or a Short Eared Owl (day and dusk flyer). Pleasing anyway, to know that the owls are out and about, so I can try for a better photo next time

Glad to hear your cold cleared up and you've managed to unexpectedly see an indeterminate owl

And congratulations on your presentation and feedback, hope it leads to a sale or two.

And you've enjoyed 'Cars 3' too - I thought that was a good film, much better than the second one as more poignant. It had seemed unlikely that Pixar will make more as the series was John Lasseter's idea, but it looks like there may be a fourth film after all.

Our wheelie bins survived intact, and were actually emptied as normal today. Annoyingly the chewed through the cables of two sets of Christmas lights, so they have had to be thrown away, and I'm worried that they've eaten my scanner's cable as that isn't turning on. Admittedly the scanner has been a bit temperamental for over 18 months, but it always turned on and then played up, now it isn't turning on at all or making any attempt to scan, which is an uncharacteristic error.

There was a pigeon incident when I cycled to work yesterday, which was a bit of a shock. I was cycling along on the cycle path next to the road, with a grass verge on my left and the road on my right, and there was a pigeon in the verge ahead that was disturbed by me, took flight across in front of me flying into the road, straight into the windscreen of a Land Rover (or similar vehicle). It seemed to fly off after so hopefully it was not too badly injured?

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Today I met a colleague who had been at the presentation, and she was intrigued by the book, too - she found the presentations very poignant, as the first one focused on what the law says about how employers *should* work with disabled people, and then the disabled people gave presentations about how it doesn't always happen like that... Makes us appreciate the good employers all the more, though, and I currently count myself very lucky

Glad your wheelie bins are back on schedule, too. Very worrying about the cables, though - of all the things could chew, they choose those... Good luck with troubleshooting the scanner

My mobile phone announced today that it will retire in April It's only 2g, so it's no wonder I don't get very good signal at home these days. It has lost its ringtone as well, so I miss calls if I don't hear the buzz sound it makes instead. Time for it to retire indeed. It has served me well for 25 years I'll have to take it to the phone shop to see if I can keep the number, as I'm very fond of that

Shocking indeed about the pigeon - hopefully it recovers indeed Coincidentally I had a pigeon incident on Saturday, but fortunately not as scary as that. A pigeon was sitting in the middle of the road as I was driving, so I slowed down. The pigeon took off, but the wind was so strong, it couldn't go forwards. I ended up stopping completely while the poor thing sorted itself out - it managed to do a 90 degree turn and floop into the hedgerow without encountering any other cars, so it was OK.

That will be interesting if there is a Cars 4 - I thought Cars 3 did do a good job of setting up for a Cars: The Next Generation film

That sounds like very good feedback about the presentations as a whole as it sounds well organised and holistically inter-related.

I've found a small pinprick on the scanner's power cable, so I suspect it has in fact been bitten by a . So I think we'll have to get cable tidies to keep cables away from the cats so other things don't stop working. They bit through my USB-powered this morning.

I hope you have good luck getting a phone replacement that will be everything you want at a reasonable price.

Today's been another relatively uneventful day, though my son did bring home his step stool he's been making on his course, which he was very proud of.

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Yikes, really have developed a taste for cables Cable tidies should help indeed

I enjoyed a Christmas Dinner today, and plan to enjoy another one tomorrow night

Glad your son has made good progress after the challenges at the start of term

Strange weather here - I thought it was foggy this morning, but it looks to be some sort of dust that has covered all the windows. Typical, as the window cleaners were only here on Monday. I hope it will wash off in the next shower of rain

Career Curiosities has been rejected from Amazon because it has been judged to be a colouring book like yours was

Annoying that the algorithm, or whatever it is, can't tell the difference between a line drawing and a colouring book, though. Worse for yours, as you have better backgrounds than I do. I can't imagine why it thinks yours is a colouring book, given that it is already coloured in...

Ah well - it means I can reduce the price as I don't have to take into account the extra overheads.

Sorry to hear that Amazon think 'Career Curiosities' is a colouring book .
In related news, I was getting close to finishing my latest - but without a working scanner I'm a bit stuck. I've ordered a replacement power lead and am hoping that will arrive soon and resolve the issue. If not I'll have to find a replacement scanner that knows of the existence of colours other than grey.
I'm flattered that you like the backgrounds I've doodled - though I would say that most of the time the backgrounds are just that - backgrounds that the figures stand in front of without interacting with.

Good luck in getting dust-free windows - has it washed off? It definitely would have this time last week in the storms.

I've not yet had any Christmas dinner, but hope to have a work one on Tuesday. We tend not to as it creates so much washing up, and I don't go out that often to clubs etc where Christmas dinners would be held.
The issue with the work Christmas do is there are people like me who think, 'This might be the only Christmas dinner I get this year, so I want it to be a proper Christmas dinner' while others feel 'I've had ninety seven Christmas dinners already this month, I want anything other than Christmas dinner to eat' and difficult to find middle ground.

We had another episode with our cat Maxy needing to be rushed to the vets with breathing difficulties, but he's back home now with different medication.

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It is most strange that Amazon can't detect the images on the pages any more. Backgrounds aren't as exciting as foregrounds indeed, but they definitely distinguish an image from a blank page... I can just about accept the criticism that my book looks like a notebook because of the lined paper, but really there's not much space for writing given that there are images on each page I wonder if Lulu Support would be able to help - especially you, given that your book is in a series that Amazon previously accepted... Possibly not, as arguing with an algorithm is not easy...

There was some rain overnight, so it has rinsed the windows on the west side of the house. The windows on the east side are still dusty, though

The Christmas Dinner organiser did do well for us - the one in the work canteen was traditional (plus a vegetarian option), and then last night there were various different choices on the festive menu - quite a few people had another turkey dinner, but I chose the fish, and a lovely sorbet to finish. It was a good evening - my boss was on fine form talking about his family history, so I was able to share some insights, and I also had a laugh with people in the team that I don't see very often

Sorry Maxy hasn't been well, but glad he's back home again now Good luck with the scanner situation, too - hopefully the new cable will fix it soon indeed I hope the kittens soon find better things to chew, too

Yes, it is disappointing that Amazon doesn't recognise things I've coloured in as not being blank .
As I'm not actually fussed about selling multiple copies - in fact, you're my only 'customer' - I'm not too upset about it. Even when I heavily promoted my first Lockdown only a couple of copies were sold from Amazon, so as an author I'm not really making them money.

I'm very pleased that my scanner's power lead has arrived, so my scanner now has power!
Admittedly the scanner is still about 15 years old (a 2007 model HP Scanjet 3010) and still very temperamental and doesn't always work first, second or third time - but now at least it turns on before being temperamental, which is a step up from not doing anything.

Today I went to Southampton's Christmas market after work with my close workmates, which was very enjoyable, and tomorrow is the work Christmas lunch with the new team. I'm glad to hear that you've enjoyed yours.

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Yeah, true that we're not exactly priority customers for these places. I think your La Vida Lockdown books deserved to go viral, but that sort of thing can't be forced - c'est la vie. The most important thing is that we have printed copies that look great on our bookshelves

Aha - glad the new cable arrived promptly, and your scanner is back to its usual temperamental working order.

Glad you enjoyed the Christmas Market I hope your Christmas Dinner is up to standard, too I have another lunch tomorrow, and it has been confirmed that it isn't a Christmas Lunch, so hopefully there will be some good options instead

Thanks for the update on - sorry about your internet, and I hope you're back online very soon

Glad you had a great time at the Paul McCartney concert - sounds from the news report that it was even better than expected

My Wednesday didn't go according to plan - I was to have two meetings with the festive lunch in between, but the lunch and afternoon meeting were cancelled and my boss was off sick, so the morning meeting was a bit boring. I decided to get some petrol in the afternoon instead, and by coincidence met a colleague in the petrol station

The other meetings this week were OK, although one was a bit annoying.
A colleague arranged some online training, but we couldn't do anything practical because he hadn't activated our account and he wasn't at the training so couldn't fix it. We had a good chat with the trainer, anyway, and I have a plan for what to do when I can log in.

Yesterday I successfully gathered some provisions for next week, and had a cup of tea with my sister. Today was a 'batten down the hatches' day with the storm - more heavy rain overnight, so Burton Mere closed for part of the day, but I stayed in and got some jobs done.