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

I'm b-a-a-a-c-c-k-k!
Went for a flip in a helicopter today (Sunday) with my cousin. Flew south to a hotel on the Vaal river, landed on a tennis court, had breakfast and then took off again! Great fun to fly but very sensitive to the touch - even more so than a woman I think! I took the controls for a minute or two but I'm not quite ready for wingless flight yet! My late father used to fly when I was pre-teen and I really enjoyed those flights.

The term 'jammy git' comes to mind!

My ex was a helicopter tech in the Army Air Corps and in our nine years of marriage I never got a freebie ride in one of those adorable beasties.

Got to dash to ye Red Cross Shoppe...

Catch you later

'Appy Burfday 2 U, appy burfday to you, happy birthday to Gwennie, Happy Birthday to You! (Ends in three part harmony)

Now I'll have to send you the T-shirt instead!

Hava-good-one!

WR

Aw thanks! You're too kind old boy!

*Parks her Zimmer frame and hobbles to the fridge for another glass of sherry and picks up her knitting*

My parents sent me a cheque for £50 and John's mum very kindly gave me a beautiful gold puzzle ring, which is a treasured family heirloom that her grandfather, who was a clipper ship's captain (Captain Hook would you believe!) brought it back for his wife, along with six smaller ones for his daughters. Joyce doesn't have any daughters to pass it on to and although she has three daughter-in-laws, she has bestowed this wonderful gift on me. What's even more spooky is that it's a perfect fit!

Hope you had a good one! Didn't overdo it, did ya?

Well, I've got a bit more than a month to go myself (6Aug) before another notch on the wasteline...

Spooky rings that fit? I went to visit my Mom and we got talking about our first house in Pretoria. After an hour I have established that the raised-hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck-feeling whenever I was in the area of the panty outside the bathroom wasn't because I was about to pinch a packet of jelly, a chocolate or a sweet - the place was inhabited by a 'presence' of a man. 'He' was actually seen by two family members on two separate occasions walking from the front door through the dining room into the passage.

When my father first moved in to the house, there was a knock at the door. A man stood outside and without saying a word walked into the dining room, looked around, walked into the passage and returned to the front door. He said something like: 'You have done many changes, but at least you haven't broken it all down - that would have been unforgiveable'. Then he turned and walked out and never came back again. All most !!

I remember hearing floor boards creaking and popping as someone walked down the passage - but nobody would come past my open bedroom door. Mom would hear a finger being drawn across the piano keys but when she'd go into the study, the lid to the piano would be closed!

All very unusual isn't it...?

As a staunch and narrow minded atheist I shouldn't really contribute to stories but...

I can vaguely remember and my parents still tell me that I used to be convinced that when I was little someone was standing at the foot of my bed at nights and used to be terrified of going to bed, having the light out and if I used to wake up in the night, I used to bury my head under the covers.

Also, on a couple of occasions that I had a fever, I spoke in another language and frequently suffered from déja-vu.

One time, when I was in my late teens I lay on the sofa and dozed. Suddenly I woke up in a panic, unable to move and hardly able to breath, as though a heavy weight was pressing on my chest. I could hear the rest of my family in the other room but was unable to call out to them for help. Suddenly I heard a very deep voice say a few words in Welsh and everything was back to normal. On repeating the words to my Dad, he told me that they meant "Go in to the kitchen". For a few years after that I was terrified to go into the kitchen on my own at night!

One evening shortly after I had moved in to John's old 16th Century thatched cottage, we were preparing for bed and I was at the kitchen sink, whilst John was in the living room and we both heard someone say goodnight.

Mair, who was too young to know about ghosts was also convinced that a lady used to stand at the foot of her bed every night, but she didn't find her frightening.

It's so sad that the entire row of five cottages and all John's hard work were burned to the ground a couple of years ago.

I never do anything or go anywhere to celebrate my birthdays...Perhaps it's my way of ignoring them! I did however pour myself a wee dram of neat vodka to sip whilst abusing/singeing the evening meal.

Jack, my late father's past partner in the architectural practice used to live in a house in Cape Town that was 'inhabited' by the of a previous owner, Michael Higgings. Jack had made some changes to the house as it had been designed for the Northern hemisphere and everything was farse-about-ace. After he moved in, he heard pots clattering from the no-longer-a-pantry and banging cooking utentils from the no-longer-a-kitchen.

He consulted a local psychic who walked around the house and said to him: 'Michael is upset because you have confused his lifestyle - after all, he's lived here longer than you'. That night Jack waited until the noises occurred. He stood outside the (closed) door and said: 'Look here, Michael, I live here now and this is the way things are - if you want to stay living here, either get used to it, or I'll pull the whole house down and then you'll have nowhere to stay.' That was the last of the banging and clashing...but he was sighted regularly sitting in a (real) antique wing-back chair next to the fire where he would read...

Later occupants of the house were very worried when their daughter of five or six started talking of a 'lady' that used to walk into her room at night. They moved across town and hoped that would solve the problem one night they returned from a night out to find the daughter and babysitter pie-eyed and sitting in the lounge. The daughter's room was trashed! She said that 'the lady' from their previous house had come to see her and was angry that she had left and didn't come back.

No more events happened but many years later they were in a museum when the then teenaged daughter pointed at a small oil portrait on the wall and said: 'Thats the lady that used to visit me in our old house!' Closer inspection revealed that it was a cleanshaven man with shoulder length hair. They researched the unmarked exhibit - it was found to be a portrait of a certain Mr Michael Higgings!

Ewwwwww! Spooky!

My eldest brother reckons that he's a medium (medium rare if you ask me!) and can see people's auras...

He got into a lot of trouble with ouija boards etc when he was in his late teens but nowadays he's a model of respectability.

As I've aged and become more cynical, seeing or hearing things and even déja-vu have gradually diminished. Perhaps children are more susceptible to such things, if they really do exist?

of course we do.....

*on a gig out of town = offline until Sunday late*

Have fun, don't electrocute yourself - or swallow the mic and tell Gwennie all about it when you get back!

We played Friday night for three hours from 8-10 and Saturday from 6 to 9. (No problems at the gig from the micophone!) We did have the occasional oaf / drunk / bigot / racist wander by and make remarks about something or other... We played outdoors and had the sound system louder than ever before but could hardly hear ourselves at all! The organisers want us back again next year as a full feature band and to play a ball in March as well!

Our vocalist PJ is a real sl*t - divorced and always on the make, he spotted two stunning ladies that stood out markedly from the local ladies. I could tell they were out-of-towners and when PJ struck up a conversation during a break, they turned out to be (married) ladies from a local shopping centre in Pretoria! So much for his idea: 'You don't now how lucky you can get in a big town'.

Well done! It sounds as though you had a good time and were thoroughly appreciated. Do you get nervous before a gig? I know I would...

I expect the ladies were looking for some gullible fool to carry their shopping bags for them and PJ probably had a narrow escape! Perhaps you should introduce PJ to h2g2 and Pandora (she'd make short shrift of him)!

From past experiences at work and whilst out socialising I've found that many divorced men are desperate to 'score' and they usually made me .

I wouldn't say he's desperate - I know of two regulars (also divorcees) that he's into and he's always on the make for other temporarily unattached females. He's hormonally overdriven and amoral sexually.

I'm a flirt and a looker but that's where it stays. As I've said to Jen many times: 'I may look at the menu but I still prefer to eat at home!' I don't even have hors d'ouvres, whether I'm on my own or with Jen .

(Nobody would want me anyway! All the young ones call me 'Sir'or 'Uncle' and the older ones are looking for young bloods to turn into men...)

Nervous before a gig? A bit queasy in the stomach, but nothing that a red bull, an and a couple of numbers won't conquer! Actually, it's quite funny to see people come up during a break to ask you to 'announce' something or other for someone or other. It's a pain in the butt if you do start as then everybody wants something said - so we tell the person to announce it themselves and show them the microphone - they away like gazelles from a cheetah!

Except of course the howling lost little boy - he was treated to sitting on the drummer's chair and got an ice cream if he stopped crying and told us his mommy and daddy's name. Hell's teeth - he remembered his Mother, Father, Uncles, Aunts, Grannies and Grandpa's after that and all his cousins thrown in too!

Awwwww! What a sweet child!

PJ sounds incorrigible!

Mind you, I went through a phase and was quite promiscuous for a few months following the break up of a long term relationship and I think that I was trying to convince myself that I was happy. I'm not so sure that I'd have done the same thing a few years later, by which time AIDs was prevalent.

It's a constant worry to me that Mair will contract AIDs from a partner at some point in her life...

Nowadays I'm a strictly monogamous type.

By the way, the girls in the Drool Thread are currently 'discussing' older chaps...so there's hope for you yet!

We had a talk about HIV/AIDS at work last month. The speaker drew a bed and put two stick figures in the bed. They asked: 'How many people are in this bed - HIV speaking?' Everyone said 'Two' and they amplified the question by stating: 'This one has slept with six people and this one has slept with twenty two people...'

They drew the twenty eight figures underneath and they went down to the next level and so on until the whiteboard was full! They came out with the saying: 'When you choose to sleep with someone, you're sleeping with everyone that they've ever slept with!' It makes for a powerful message.

There is only one weapon in the war against AIDS - TRUTH !
Factual knowledge, open discussion and telling how you felt when you messed up and how you feel when you know they messed up... I can't live my children's life for them - but I can give them the facts and feelings of my own for them to use in building theirs. That and a good inquiring attitude is the best inheritance I can hope to give them!

You're quite right of course to be a proud parent. I hope that my sproglets grow up happy, healthy and what I like to call 'well rounded' - personality wise that is and not necessarily tummy wise, although Chris is working hard at following in his Dad's footsteps!

I try to be as truthful as possible, especially with Mair about my own past experiences in the hope that she doesn't make similar mistakes to mine.

We have enjoyed a lovely afternoon in Durham where Chris participated in the Commonwealth Games Queen's Jubilee Baton Run. The weather was just right - bright and breezy. Chris ran along a 400 yard stretch of road, flanked by Police motorcycles with flashing lights and handed the baton over beautifully. I was so proud of him that I gave Chris a huge hug and cried.

We got home so late that Mair had to let herself in with a back door key that I gave her this morning, which is the first time she's had to do this. I suppose she's old and responsible enough to have her own door key now so I should get one cut and give it to her this Sunday, her 15th birthday.

to Chris from me too!

Alan is already starting to follow his father's sinking chest (otherwise known as widening tummy)

I have trouble getting clothes to fit Chris because he's in-between teens and adult, especially with such a large waistline and bottom. He used to be so skinny too, but that was when we could hardly get him to sit still long enough eat anything. Oh well! I'd rather have him eating without putting up a fight than how he used to be.

Did you see the picture that I sent of John and myself? No doubt you will have noticed that I can only just get my arms around his middle...

I notice that Pan has 'replied' to your politically incorrect joke then... See? I told you that she wouldn't mind.

Don't be afeared when you get a massage from my 'stand-by' e-addy. My usual one receives (mostly) but for some reason has made me e-dumb.
All I ever get at the hotmail one is spam, spam, sausage and spam so I usually delete messages by the pageful! Don't use it unless you don't hear from me fer weeks!

What don't use the hotmail addy or your usual one? I have already replied to the one you sent myself and Pan this afternoon and I assume that was from your hotmail addy.

I used to have a hotmail account but stopped using it because of all the spam. Mind you, since Mair started her web sites, we have received lots of junk mail (lots of sausage type ones too and addressed to Mair).

Then we had some horrid person sending us a couple of infected Emails per day, which I know was deliberate because as fast as I instructed Outlook Express not to download from the server any further mail, they altered their address. I spent ages mailing their Email hosts and eventually the infected Emails ground to a halt, so I assume my complaints must have worked.

Have a jolly family trip by the way and enjoy your stew and es from Jenny.