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

Thank you for the thoughts about our recent 20th anniversary. If you would care to see a few of the pictures that we took, I have put some on-line at http://RevNick.Fotki.com ... There, you will also see some of my world, my family, just the stuff that makes me who I am.

In any case, having met you a number of times in the journals of mutual friends, I thought I should visit and say "Hi".

Nick

Hi Nick,

thank you for sending me those lovely photographs of the family.. What a handsome one as well. !!

Including les chats!

Incidentally, why is it that although there are Canadian researchers we never seem to have anyone who is a Mountie?

So glad you enjoyed your vacation in the U.K. and Ireland. It was a really good idea.

Bad luck with your long time exchanging your Canadian money in London.

I am intrigued with the Rev. any speical reason for it? - I would not have thought so except for the the quote which was quite arresting.

Which bit of Canada do you come from.? I have a brother who lives in Ottawa - and various nephews who live in various other places.
My late husband and I spent one Christmas in Canada and I was so cold I swore I would never go there again!!.

Keep well, and I shall enjoy talking to you 0 if you can put up with the grumbles and mutterings of an old crone!!

with kind regards

Christiane
RJDV.
fformerly AlsoRan

Thank you very much. I am very pleased and proud of my daughter and her family. It is very saddening to us both that we so rarely see them. You see, she is from my first marriage and lives in Newfoundland, some 1,350 miles away. And money just doesn't allow us to visit as often as we would like. Also, my wife's family is 750 miles away, my own about 200 or so miles ... So we must be careful with our vacation time and travel budgets.

I grew up in the farming areas of southern Ontario, in a teeny village named Formosa. It doesn't show on many maps, but is only a few miles from Walkerton, Ontario ... made famous by tainted water and some very sad deaths. My 21 years in the military took me to Newfoundland, Manitoba, Alberta, Nova Scotia and a couple of parts of Ontario. We are now about half-way between Toronto and Ottaws, right along the shores of Lake Ontario. I have also visited New Brunswick many times, as that is where my bride of 20 years grew up.

The "Rev" bit was just a little lark one day, to see if I could find an ordination on the internet. You can find anything else. And indeed I did!!! When I came to h2g2, there were quite a lot of folks just called 'Nick', so I chose to use the 'Rev' ... just to separate me from the crowd.

And dear Lady, while I cannot recall where you live, I do know that I have seen you around as anything other than 'old' or a 'crone'.

Hi my dear Rev. Nick

Thank yuo for your lovely long letter.

Very good reason for choosing Rev.!!

My brother.who is a psychiatrist and his family were living in London Ontario when my late husband and I spent that icy Christmas with them. The distances are indeed great - as great as they are in Africa where I grew up.

Goodness, I have a married daughter who lives in Perth Western Australia. Another married daughter and several grand children and great children who live in South Africa.

Apparently they are planning to co e and help me celebrate my 80th birthday next May. Hope I shall still be on this earth!. I am hoping that the move to the Coast will make a big difference to my state of health.

I still have so much to do, and resent the fact that I get tired easily. The fact that I cannot get out any longer - and what is more really do not want to - does not really matter. Fortunately I have had a really wonderfully interesting life and done a lot of travelling.

Apart from wanting to have paid a visit to the Himalaya and wanting to visit the Antartic there is nothing much else that I would like to do!!. I remember Sir Edmund Hillary lecturing to us after his climbng the summit of Mount Everest. I was so thrilled and impressed to have seen this wonderfully brave man. And now, it seems that the foothills and the the slopes are covered with litter. It fills me with such sorrow that we care for our planet so little that we cannot treat it with care, affection and love.

Ah well, I must now go and attend to my chores.

With good wishes,

Christiane
RJDV
AR1

A quick reply

I live in Sevenoaks, Kent, England, and my son and I are moving to live at Folkestone, on the Channel shortly. However, my parents were French, and I was born and brought up in South Africa where I lived for the first 62 years of my life. Indeed I lived in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe for 21 years. !!

'Bye.
CME

You DO have family scattered all around the world, haven't you? My own is all in Canada, but literally from coast to coast. My daughter and her family are in St John's, Newfoundland ... as far east as you can be, ... and I have both a brother and a sister living very near the west coast of British Columbia. The rest are still in various parts of Ontario, though none very close to where we are.

While it was a bit more of a lark and a joke than anything else, I do kind of like the distinction of actually being ordained. It's a totally non-denominational church, neither Christian nor Protestant, nor even any other formal sect. It's only precept is very similar to Wicca in that it encourages one to do what they will, but do no one any harm.

And I was fairly certain that you were "Somewhere in England" as George Harrison put it. I recalled seeing attempts for you to attend a recent h2g2 Meet in London. A shame that didn't come to pass.

With the number of places, people and things you have seen around the world, have you begun a 'biography'? I expect your children and grand-children would be fascinated and love to discuss much of it with you.

Just a very quick note, to wish you and all of your far-flung family a very happy, healthy and safe Christmas.