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

Hi there. Now what do I call you ??!!

Your photographs of the dogs are beautiful. And what a pretty girl your daughter is.

Lovely thought to have a church blessing on your Silver Wedding. You and your wife look a very happy couple.


Thank you for sharing the photographs with us.

Regards,

Jen

Hi Jen

What do you call me? Mad, bad and dangerous I think you once described me dear old dad. That'll do for me.

The photos of the Silver Wedding are seven years old and do not do Val justice. She looks like she has a few teeth missing. She has a full set as I can confirm - I see them in the glass beside her bed everynight.

I will upload a pic of Ella and post the URL - compare and contrast with my daughter.

The website was thrown together as a test and to send to Wire Hair Fox Terrier friends we have in the US. They are a bit more gushing than us Brits and the pages were put together accordingly. I will do an update as we have moved further west to Pembrokeshire and I only have one leg now following the Tenby Chainsaw Incident.

Neil

Good Evening Neil.

I prefer, mad, bad and very dangerous to know. Have you really only got the one leg ?

On a serious note, a friend of our had a very bad accident with a chain saw while working for the forestry commission - or something very similar. He didn't lose any limbs, but is permanently on crutches.

After about 3 years, he has eventually received compensation. And not a day too soon for his wife and two little daughters.

Will look out for the photos of Ella. I think your daughter is about the same age as mine. Was she born in 1972. Mine was ! A good year for pretty blondes !!

Love to you and Val.

Jen ?

Hi Jen (why the ?)

I had problems with my ISP and couldn't upload a pic of Ella but I have got around it by saving the pic as a pdf (a low res image). I have posted the URL on my page.

Val took Ella back to Germany on Sunday and the house is very empty. Never mind, we hope to have her back soon. Val flies back next Tuesday so she will be feeling low. Oh goody, just in time for my birthday (men are selfish creatures).

My daughter was born in March 1973 - how could you have a daughter who is four years older than you. I could have sworn you said in one of your postings that you were 27 or was the birth the result of an immaculate conception (no, but it was pretty damn good (c) Mary 1BC). Do you have any other children? We stuck with just the one and then had dogs as child substitutes.

You've been a bit quiet on the Boards recently - it must be nice to have a life.

Speak to you soon

Neil

Good evening Neil on Thursday, April 15 at 22.36.

Ella is so, so lovely. How proud you must be of her. Is she like your daughter was at the same age ? Yes, Val will be sad to return from Germany - even though it is your 50th (?) Women always want to be in at least two places at once, especially where love of children, family
AND husband are involved.

I think I must have lied about my age. But I was a very young bride and mother. I have two children, a daughter and a son. My daughter is very level headed, single and career minded. She is an 'auntie' and god mother to several of her friends children. She would love children of her own, but has not met the right man. As she tells me, she is getting very fussy the older she gets.
My son has 3 rottweilers and two children. And an ex partner. All very messy at the moment. He loves the kids very much, and it is heart breaking for him to be apart from them. But, young children need their mother and that's the way it is.
I am not posting because I am too involved in looking after the dogs, trying to keep the peace and generally pleasing nobody including myself. I look b. awful. A lot more than 27 I can tell you. Plus my other half is about all of the time !!! Buggar.

But, it's just a phase I'm going through. Trying to re-home one of the dogs has broken my heart today. Thank god for sunglasses to hide the tears and puffy eyes.

Have a lovely birthday. I hope Val is all right, and your daughter and children. It must be hard for her with her husband so far away. Every time there is a photo of a young man on the front page of the newspapers, I think that's somebody's son/husband/father.

Sorry, I am getting depressed.
And my name.....just for you, 'Jennifer' is my sister.

Hi Jen

Apologies for the delay in replying but I've been busy in the garden while the weather is reasonable. You have to start early in the spring to stay on top of my garden - it's just under an acre and it has taken three years (and about 15 skips) to get it remotely tidy. PondGirl would have been proud of my efforts to get a water feature/cascade going in the Great Pond. The clue that there once was a feature was a random pile of rocks next to the pond and, higher up, a couple of filter tanks. It's working now and a present for Val when she comes home tomorrow. She has always wanted a waterfall and it will be a nice place to sit and contemplate the fish, two billion tadpoles and various wild life(water boatmen, beetles, frogs and, to come, three varieties of dragonflies).

Your comment about rehoming struck a chord. My daughter has had a miniature Yorkshire terrier/Wire Haired Dachsun cross for some years and had accepted the two children coming along. Before Ella came to stay with us he had begun growling and snapping at her but on Friday he was on Claire's lap and Ella walked past and he lept straight at her face, teeth bared etc and it was only Claire's quick reflex that stopped a nasty attack. Serendepity being what it is she mentioned the incidence to someone at the baby clinic who knew someone else who was looking for a dog. From the attack in te morning to handing over the dog was about eight hours. Claire was so upset. He was her 'baby' before the babies started arriving and she had to give him away - although he is small he could do terrible damage to the youngest baby who would be defenceless. She could rationalise the whole 'it's for the best thing', 'he must be very unhappy to start attacking the children', 'he is better off in a house with just grown-ups', but that didn't lessen the pain. However she didn't have time to agonise over what was the right decision. Ho hum.

It is the lot of parents to pick up the pieces of their children's problems and it must be tough to be looking after the dogs and finding new homes. I like Rotties but they get unfair press.

My s-in-law mentioned in passing to my daughter that he has been asked to go back to Kosovo - more money, see. At the moment she is much against it but she is already beginning to dread the five week leave he has coming (he'll be dead meat by the end of the first fortnight if he doesn't shape up, said Claire). Trouble is when you are parted from someone for six months you will miss them but you have to make a life that is yours and that person comes back and thinks everything is as it was when they left. My false leg is aching, a sure sign of a storm a' brewin'.

I was a young bride as well - had my first vote and a few months later walking down the aisle (I am allergic to the cordite smoke from shotgun cartridges).

I hope that things pick up for you. Do you still get the chance to see your grand children?

Best wishes

Neil

Hello Neil.

Shamefaced apology for the drunken squiggle last night. We went to a new restaurant, good food, wine and company and one was just a smidgeon squiffy. So, it seemed like a good idea to send some e mails when I got back home. So far, I have apologised to 3 of my virtual chums.

Our garden is about half an acre, no ponds, waterfalls or anything really. We spent most of yesterday digging and dividing and replanting. Today my back is killing me. I have 3 packets of seeds I want to sow, but still haven't managed to get the top soil fine enough. It's all a bit thick and solid, so no little shoots would be able to push through that lot. Rain is forcast today, but it is still brilliant sunshine and so warm.

I go to the dentist again this afternoon at 3.00 so expect it will be raining when I am walking home afterwards. Only a half an hour session this time, plus the time I am going to spend argueing over my bill. They've sent me one for over £600 ! Three x rays,inspection, temporary crown, hygienist, permanent crown and some ghastly procedure in the gum which I am having today.
Surely I should have been told the cost before I agreed to having all this work done ? Buffy knows it's a lot of money, but I've not told him exactly how much. The shock might kill him, plus he was stung on the neck yesterday and that was one big shock to his system I can tell you.

Claire made the only decision possible with her dog didn't she. In our case my son can no longer have the dog living with him, and his ex just couldn't cope with them all. Far too much for her.

Yes I see the grandchildren at least once a week. I always have them on Saturday afternoons.
We always do 'something'. Sometimes swimming, but I bought a family ticket for a nearby farm cum adventure park and 'zoo' and it is fantastic for the kids.
Trampolines, indoor and outdoor play equipment. Lots of animals they can hold, rabbits, gerbils etc. Lambs which they can bottle feed, collect eggs. Play in the barn on bales of hay, or is it straw ? You get the picture. I always take a picnic and we all come home exhausted. Now that the better weather is here, the farm is usually busy, but not overly so. Adults as well as children can go on all the play equipment. I would like to go on the trampolines and the slides but haven't yet plucked up the courage ! The children are aged 8 and 7 and they are good company and usually good little souls.
Gone are those days of shotguns !! Is that a good or bad thing ? I don't really know.
I am progressing with rehoming of the male rottie. Yes, the breed do get a bad press, but you just have to look at some of the owners. For some people it's a macho thing to be seen with a rottie. The 2 females are just so lovely and they are timid but friendly. Lick you to death they would.
I hope Val was pleased with your gardening achievements. Lucky girl to have you ! Did you have a lovely day on your birthday ? Expect you did. Oh, and another apology for the jokes. I was looking for something more suitable for you, but just couldn't find anything.

Bye for now,

Jen

Hey H & J (sounds a bit surgical, that)

Apologies for this being a bit of a round robin but now that I am old I can't type as fast as I could so I have answered in one reply both Helen and Jen's postings to me.

Aitch - It WAS a bit of a mad dash to get the house in order. I couldn't bring myself to put Ella's toys away in the loft - the place looked like Toys R' Us. I had kept the place tidy and did my own cooking but it needed to be woman clean rather than man clean.

When we moved to Pembrokeshire from Cardiff we bought a large house so that my dear old mum could come and live with us. There is a bit of difference between house prices and you get a lot for your money here and we bought a large house that splits into two living areas - she is known as The Mad Woman Who Lives In The West Wing (but not to her face). She did the little touches that made the difference.

Val is tired but was not as low as I thought she would be - she is enjoying just sitting there doing nothing (the first time since January).

Thanks for the birthday wishes. I wanted a good digital camera and the family had a whip around and I bought one a few weeks back so I could take pics of Ella. It's fab!

We are a bit Billy-no-mates - we keep moving away from friends and family so there was no party and I had a low key one (my choice). Val, me mam and I went out for a meal a couple of miles away in Saundersfoot and it was fantastic. The town is a bit like stepping back 30 years - it is an unspoilt seaside resort.

The weather on Friday was a bit dreary - mist and drizzle. Pembrokeshire is very mild but we do get a fair bit of rain so we went for a drive to Solva - a lovely fishing village about 30 miles up the coast (towards St Davids). There is a place there where you can buy fresh (cooked) lobster and crab and bought some for a BBQ on Saturday.

The place where we bought the shellfish sells it from their back room. He goes out and catches ‘em and she cooks and dresses ‘em. They are cooked in an outhouse (all spotless) but I wouldn’t like to be a neighbour. When we walked into her house she lunges at me and gives me a big kiss and says Happy Birthday. I was well confused until I realized that she had read the ‘Birthday Boy’ badge that Val insisted I had to wear. Apparently it was her birthday as well (55) and she knocked a pound off. Without wishing to be unkind she was the ugliest female I have ever met and she smelt of fish – my kind of woman!

Saturday came and we opened up the bags from the Fisher Woman and found that the lobbies were monsters. We decided that there was no way we could eat anything else so we had a BBQ Surprise i.e. no BBQ and got drunk.

Sunday came and we had the BBQ we should have had Saturday and got drunk.

I had decided at the beginning of the year that I had to go on a diet and was going to go on a diet and that meant cutting out the drink. I think the third week in January was when I started not drinking during the week and being moderate on the weekend.

This lasted until the 29th January when Val went way for a couple of months and I drank to forget (add your punch line). Then it was my birthday. There’s no point in not drinking this week because on Thursday we are going to stay with some old friends after a wine tasting bash that evening in Cardiff.

On Friday my brother, sister in law, nephew and girl friend are coming down from Sheffield for a week and then it’s Val birthday on the 10th of May. What hope have I in losing weight. Hmmm? Hmmmm?

As you can see from the above we are very food and drink focused in this house. Might be down to Taureans marrying each other.

Jen - It was interesting about the farm/zoo you talked about - we have one about five miles away called Folly Farm and sounds very similar to the one you take the grand children to. Damn, ended on preposition. Sorry PG. It's nice you get to see the kids regularly - they keep you young I bet. As to the jokes - they made me laugh. I'm a sucker for a fart gag. As to the drunken email that made me laugh as well.

Sorry to hear Buffy has now been stung twice.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Crinkly yours

Neil

Whatcha doing ? Beautiful sunshine here then 3 mins ago when I'd hung out some washing the thunder roared and the heavens opened. Still warm and sunny but absolutely teeming down.
Just ran out and brought in the washing, and the neighbours have awarded me the wet t shirt trophy.
Buffy and his friends will be soaked. They are playing golf somewhere. I do hope they have their all weathers with them.
No news. Old school friend of Buffy's came to stay last week. I went into panic mode and bought 14 bottles of wine, and masses of food. We only see him once in a while and I always get into a state just before he arrives. Probably cos I had a crush on him when I was 18. Feelings were never reciprocated either. He is a bit of a womaniser so in hindsight had a lucky escape.
Did I tell you I am off on a line dancing week-end. The theme is 'green'. This is because the guest instructor is Irish. (!) God help us, 100 middle aged leprechauns leaping all over North Devon.

Yesterday walking with the dog we saw and heard a yellowhammer. We had the binoculars and spent a good 10 mins admiring him. We also saw a heron, and my grand-daughter kept saying it was a heroin. I had visions of her going into school this morning telling her class she was out with the grand parents and saw heroin.
After correcting her about a million times on the correct pronunciation, I realised I was losing the battle and so explained what a heroine was. At least Buffy and I will come out respectable in the classroom if teacher realises that we are not taking a class A drug.

Has Val recovered from her visit to Germany ? Children are sooo tiring.

Do not talk to me of herons. See my missive to Penny ‘Heroin Overdose’ when a heron cleared our newly cleaned pond of fish. In a way it kind of sums up my life - make an improvement in one corner and then see it reversed two fold. I felt so guilty that by cleaning the pond I was putting up the equivalent of a Big Mac sign for passing herons 'Come on down, the McFish nuggets are wonderful'. Still I won't get too bitter.

It's not been too bad here but the wind is so cold. We had a barbie the other day (spatch-cocked chicken in a tarragon and sherry marinade, thin pork chops in a honey and mustard sauce and steaks with a dry marinade) and the cold air was blowing over the surface of the food chilling it as fast as I was cooking it. I had to finish it off in the oven but not to kill any bacteria - they had got fed up and left for warmer climes much earlier.

The things kids say…I wished I had kept a record of the things my daughter Claire said when she was young. You think you will remember them but they slip away. I do remember being stuck in a traffic jam and her piping up with ‘What does Rev mean’. We had recently bought Cluedo and I explained it was short for Reverend and that Reverend Green was a minister of the Church. There was a moment of quiet reflection and then she asked ‘What’s that got to do with cars’. I said that it doesn’t have anything to with cars. ‘So why does it have Rev on that clock thing’, pointing at the rev counter. D’oh.

Val was going to go to Germany for a week or so next month to look after the children and allow the parents to go away for a few days but she had to get back because she had jury duty starting mid-June but she had a letter saying that because of the court rooms being modernised she was excused. Pah! I thing the good people of Haverfordwest had seen my posting a few months ago warning ne’er-do-wells to take care as Val Dredd would be sitting in judgement during those unfortunate and regular days in a girl’s life when they can rip out a man’s spleen and do the Fandango on his bits just because he looks a bit shifty. And that’s after HRT.

In the event she can’t go. We had a phone call from Ella saying that she had spots on her bits (she is very polite) and that she’s got ‘Chippen Pops’. Although Val had had chicken pox she doesn’t fancy running the risk of shingles. I am alone in medical history in having had chicken pox twice – the second time as an adult and I have never been so ill.

We have satellite here and Sky has all the local BBC stations. I kept an eye out for the invasion of 100 leprechauns dancing to Akey-Brakey-Heart but I must have missed it. When we lived in Cardiff we went to a line-dancing class and I was the Klutz of the Klass. I have terrible coordination and was advised to leave – there were some scary women in cowboy hats who wanted to run me out of town.

A golf widow eh? Never played proper golf but did try crazy golf in Ilfracombe. We used to get the Waverley Paddle teamer from Penarth to Ilfracombe when Claire was a nipper - happy days.

Claire saw her ex-dog out with the new owner yesterday. She stopped and said hello and the dog was so pleased to see her that it took her a while to be able to drive home safely. Ho-hum.


Speak to you soon

Neil

Morning Neil.

Have just returned from the post office having had a card telling me a package awaited but there was a 1.07 surcharge to pay. When I picked it up, there was a first class stamp on, and it felt pretty light.

When I queried the cost, I was told the item was 7p over the first class charge and there was a £1 handling charge. Gets home, opens the envelope and it was from a friend who had sent me 3 empty weetabix boxes as she knew I was collecting the Top Trumps tokens for my grandson !!
I had sent a round robin e mail about 4 weeks ago to various friends and family saying I was 4 coupons short, and since then I have been inundated.
That's another bone of contention; firms offering things for sale if you enclose so many tokens etc and then suddenly the promotional boxes disappear from the shelves.
I phoned the animal refuge about the rottie and was told he'd bitten the vet. In 30 years this vet has never been bitten. I said I was very sorry but the dog must have been really frightened. He has never bitten anyone in his life. Then they say there's a problem with his eyes and he needs an op and can we make further donations. That's no problem, but there was nothing wrong with his eyes when we took him in, and we had taken him to our local vet for a check up and an up to date set of innoculations etc. I did ask if we were talking about the same dog. So, more worry and upset.
Have had the 2 female rotties since Monday as the children and mummy have gone down to the caravan with their other grandparents.
Today the sun is shining;Buffy off with the larks golfing and I am hoping to burn myself to a crisp.
I am so impressed with your BQ marinades. You could never come to one of my barbies....I would be so ashamed.
Heard Helen on the radio by playing yesterday's JV show at 12.22 pm. She sounded very calm. I have asked her where her geordie accent went to.
I would probably be like Michelle from the previous day. Yelling and out of control. Buffy was up a ladder at the time and I was holding onto the bottom rungs - to catch him if he fell of course !!

Ella is very polite with her bits. Funny word that; my grand-daughter has the same modesty. (I had to stop her using the word half'penny in my hearing. Taught to her by her other gran. Sniff)

We don't dance to Akey Brakey stuff ! Some of the women are very scary though. For a start, a lot of them are square shaped. Wide from the shoulders to the hips, with long t shirts over black trousers. I used to be frightened of some of them, because they give such glares if other people go wrong. Now I don't care.
We dance to Frank Sinatra, Enrico Inglaisis (?) Shaking Stevens, Bay City Rollers and some other really good stuff. Oh, I can see I am frightening you now

I shall be seeing what other words of wonder the Marx man is saying. I must admit, I have laughed a lot at some of the things lately.
Does that make me a yob or just common.....
Anyway, I did like your wednesday joke. Have you been modded today on Jeremy's board ? I replied I know I did, and so did Helen.
Oh look, Don's back. Must dash and shower him with kisses.

Bye, Neil,

Jen