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

Red Maids eh? My brothers were at Clifton College.

I was there a long time ago, left in 1973!

How about you?

I still go back to Bath, in spite of chucking my hat in to the Avon and swearing that I wouldn't!

I had a boyfriend from Clifton College.... played Rugby (of course!) and we used to fence against them (I was captain of the fencing team, right up until I was expelled... then commuted to suspension)

I actually liked Bath a lot... used to drink in the Beehive (we were allowed out in the UVI, and I used to spend weekends with Daygirl friends!)

I left in 1982. Then... the way of Army brats who go either one way or the other... joined up!

As a third generation nurse, my plan was to follow my mother and grandmother into the QAs, but I met my first husband and got married instead!

My father's family come from either side of the Bristol Channel, so that partly explains my occasional need to return. Also a good friend from nursing days lives in Bath.

We didn't tend to visit many places in Bath for evenings out. The boys school across the road, Kingswood, usually had one or two boys who had cars and we used to go to pubs outside the area, away from prying teachers! I can't remember any names now, apart from a pub called The Shallows on the road to Keynsham. They served a killer scrumpy!

Used to make me laugh... 6 years of boarding, allowed out every other Saturday afternoon (in groups of 6 accompanied by a 6th former if we could find one) and then in the UVI we had our own sitting room (where we could smoke) and entertain boyfriends in the evenings and at weekends! Presumably they were supposed to spontaneously appear... because the school discos (dick shows) only meant loads of us standing around being wallflowers. Which progressed to me hearing everyone's woes (boys and girls) about who fancied whom.

I felt like a matchmaker sometimes, and should have started a fee-taking agency!

I did some training at Catterick.... we used to fight the QAs (not literally) because "our" guys all wanted to go out with nurses!

Anyway, I have some nearrly empty nail varnish bottles for you... are you fussy if it's turned to a semi-dry sticky gloop?

I think our school must have been relatively progressive, in hindsigtht. From the IV and UIV we were allowed in to Bath every Wednesday afternoon. In the V it was Sats as well and from the UV it was whenever we had a free afternoon. VI we lived in a seperate wing of the school and UVI seperate house altogether, (closer to the boys' school too!)

Ohmigod, all those does he fancy me, doesn't he fancy me talks! No one cared who I fancied, Nick Wooley actually, wonder what he is doing now.

Have you registered on the Friends Reunited site? I did, rather rashly! Quite surprised to find one of my junior schools listed too, Pasir Panjang, in Singapore!

Maybe I'll register... maybe not... maybe... oh what the heck! I will.

How did you like singapore? I only got there for a brief trip when I was sent to HK for a couple of months. My parents (who met there) gave me a list of places I had to visit. It was great!

And. Not only the "does he fancy me" stuff. the "ooohhh, look what s/he's wearing!" Argh. Glad I'm out of that now.

Do you go to school re-unions?

It's good to see that you two ladies have been getting along in my absence!

I think that if I ever returned to my old (mixed) secondary modern, they'd forcibly eject me!

My Head Master's parting comments on my final school report were that I'd benefit from working in a more mature environment. To this day, I have no idea what he meant...

You two seem to have had such a sheltered puberty whilst at your schools, which makes me glad I didn't get sent to one. My education may not have been of such a good quality, but I would have hated to been at an all girls school...

My parents were very strict, so inflicted their Victorian ideals on me at home and wanted me to boot me off to secretarial college, but I rebelled and look at me now (living in the arm pit of the UK on State Benefits)! Perhaps I should have listened to my mother; joined the Young Conservatives, married the boss (a nice accountant) and ended up living in suburbia, playing the wee housewife (driving my sprogs to school in a Range Rover and shagging all the nice young handymen my hubby employed).

Caerwynn, I just wondered whether you'd like to join Sho and myself here, which is a mutual drooling over sci-fi characters thread for a bunch of sadly disturbed females... 8-) http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/F42604?thread=139168&post=1293696#p1293696

Flip, can't believe I forgot to ask her to come over to the drool thread!

My headmistres thought I was a danger to society! I was fairly wild you know, because, after all there are school hols and weekends.

Not that I don't have thoughts about boffing the handymen..... the guy who fixed the digital stuff was... oh, listen to me!!!!

One thing I did learn at school: how to roll a joint!

LOL! School also taught me how to roll a joint and I can vividly remember rolling one under my desk, during a Human Biology lesson... (I used to smoke in those days!)

During one school trip to France I fell into a state of panic when the French Customs searched our coach for drugs, as I had a stash of weed with me at the time. Fortunately, they didn't do a body search on us... (It's sad really because nowadays, I'd rather enjoy being body searched by a nice young Policeman! )

I also remember the Police raiding my old school...Betchya never had that one, hey?

If only my teenage mutant sulk-a-lot knew what her mother used to get up to! She is frequently amazed that I catch on to what she's up to and ask me how I know. I usually respond with a "Been there and done that!"

You have all this to come my dear Sho!

I've got it all to come?? arrgghhh ... in that case... I'm

We made biscuits in the UVI kitchen, and then the headmistress was showing parents round and we offered them...... lukily they didn't take any.

I ran away too. (I still hold the record for the furthest escape) I got to Cardiff (we lived in Pembroke), where the police picked me up and then put me in a cell to "protect me from the drunks". And when my dad came to get me he drove me straight back to school

(see, I have my smilie crib sheet with me)

I look at it like this... whatever my gruesomes do is only going to be as bad as what I did... oh. Better lock them up now I suppose.

Did I tell you? #1 wants to be a when she grows up. She loves this smiley

Sorry ladies, unable to get here earlier as there was no internet connection from ntl AGAIN!!!!!!!!

In fact there was no signal at all, not even terrestial tv pictures. Got on the phone and whinged! Apparently if 5 users phone in it is classed as an outage and gets priority for repair. Less than 5 you have to wait a fortnight next Tuesday for an engineer to visit!

So ended up having to sit in the car whilst No2 son got some driving practice! He is doing well, just needs moe experience.

Yesterday he had to deal with rounding a bend to find a bungalow being transported on the back of a large lorry! He didn't panic, just braked and pulled over, whilst his mother was a quivering wreck.

You must be brave to sit in a car with a learner driver!!!

I'm considering going on DSL but I'm not sure. There are some additional costs involved, but I'll (finally) get a flat rate.... ho hum, just got ISDN 6 months ago. The ol' man went when I told him about this one..... still I'll get my way in the end... I always do!

Cable modem works well for us. Fast connection, can download wads of stuff. All four of us can be using it at once with no appreciable lag.

The only problem is the weather! I am sure it's what causes the problems.

We were the first ones in our entire area to have an ISDN line installed 4 years ago when Kelvin and I set up our company. But it was expensive. With the cable modem its unlimited access for £20 a month saves us a fortune!

My Mum-in-law (she lives in Hartlepool) has cable t.v. and Email via her television and I'll have to get her set up with a PC so I can have a play. Unfortunately NTL don't cover our area and Freeserve want £40 per month for a DSL line...I suppose we could always do away with our Sky Digital Television service (£34 per month). Do you think the rest of my family would be up for that one or is that a silly question?

*Passes Caerwynn a to settle her nerves after the incident with a mobile bungalow*

Thanks for the Gwennie! Went out again yesterday with him, but the most Neil had to cope with were cyclists and horses, the latter were the better behaved!

You can't give up Sky, it would cause uproar. Does the DSL line give you unlimited access and would you be online for more than 4 hours a day? Then DSL would be cheaper (I think, but then I always was a dunce at Maths )

I'm seriously thinking about DSL... can't give up Sky. Oh heck, I'd need loads of and and and and and and .... A life with only German tv (which to be fair, now shows Stargate, Andromeda and Farscape.... but not being able to listen to KHC and MS in the flesh... no way Pedro!)

We're getting DSL soon in the village... which is a big improvement because we have nothing else. No cable tv for the por hermans, so they all have satellite dishes. The cable company are going to have to offer big incentives to wean them off that methinks (rubbing hands together) although in the "consumer non-paradise" that is Germany I think maybe they'll mak it extra expensive.

Oh well, me & the gruesomes are making chocolate pie this afternoon ... sorry Gwennie, no vegan version. See you later.....

I too am a fellow maths dunce, Caerwynn and I shouldn't be with both my parents being accountants! (That's the only smiley with a pointed "dunce" hat look-alike!)

That's okay Sho as I have a tub of vegan chocolate soya ice in the fridge to delve into, although I did really buy it for Mair!

Somehow I don't think that DSL would be cheaper, as with my teenage mutant sulk-a-lot Mair, John and myself all use the Internet at various hours during the day and we probably total at least 10 hours per day of Internet use between us.

I currently pay Freeserve "Anytime" £9.99 per month for unlimited Internet access, although this introductory offer (I recently switched from a previous Freeserve package that cost £10.00 per month, but I also got £10's worth of free phone calls included each month provided I used their telephone service too) will increase when in a couple of month's time to £12.99 per month.

T'would be great were NTL to eventually cover this area, but the gas/water utility companies have enough problems maintaining their supplies due to Crook being an ex-mining town that is sitting on top of lots of disused mine shafts, so I don't think that they'll ever bother with this area. I guess that we'll just have to either wait for digital to become cheaper or move!

We're hoping to move to Cornwall when Mair finishes her schooling anyhow...

Cornwall is pretty well netted up I think.

I'm still trying to convince the other half that it would be a Good Thing.... it's uphill. Maybe I'll do what those Turkish women did about the running water.... make him really suffer. 8)

Currently I'm setting up my website (one little tiny new fic on there Gwennie.... Karaoke if you're interested) but Geocities isn't playing. Ho hum. It's costing me a fortune anyway!

I'm refusing to move until I've been here at least 4 years, and by then it will be silly because of schools. Unless we suddenly manage to vanish the overdraft away by .....

Kelvin and I have dream of moving to somewhere with a view. But he wants to be on a hill with a view of trees and fields, I want to see the sea! I am sure we can compromise though when the time comes.

But once we are getting too old and decrepit we will probably move into a retirment flat or some thing sensible.

I do think residential and nursing homes are going to have start installing internet connections, ready for the silver surfers!