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

I just checked those leaping lemurs. Where does Mister D find these obscure treasures? eh? .

Hullo Peanut luvvy . Quantum leap! Ohmigod, I just remembered Sam Beckett. Clear as daylight! Hullo Sam! Take me to your hunky leapy world.

I need a drink now.

19th November NaJoPoMo

Hullo NaJo! I've just been making up some chords to express my plastic fried egg non-story, and I want to share it with you because you have fried egg smileys, and more than that, of course.

Luckily for you, you won't have to hear the chords.



One of the best gifts I ever received was a plastic fried egg. It was given to me by my parents for my birthday, when I was just a kid, in the 1960s.



I loved my plastic fried egg.

Some might say it was no more than a joke with a plastic yolk, to be placed on someone's breakfast plate. And yet I couldn't accept its fate. What if someone cut it with a knife, and didn't find it funny? My egg might split apart and die, and so would I.



So I kept it safe in my biscuit tin treasure box, along with a sugar cigarette, a knitted white mouse, a silver sixpence and a tiny plastic astronaut that I found in the cornflakes packet.



And what if I should receive the same gift today, these fifty years on?

I would no doubt store it my desk along with feathers, treasures, tickets and trinkets, and spend my days writing words of praise to its perfect plastic glory.

[Amy P]

20th November 2014 NaJoPoMo

Morning NaJo!

So amazing, the Christmas market is set up in town, right beside the cathedral, and I just love the Christmas market. There's mulled cider and candles and pine and mistletoe and sparkly petals, knitted hats and scarves and ponchos, carved wooden ducks and mushrooms, and spicy stew. And quite a lot of other things.

And there's a loudspeaker blasting out the old favourite Christmas hits from the 70s onwards, which sound better and better as the mulled cider gets through. hahah.

And there's a jar of sugar fried eggs on the sweetie stall.



E flat major 9th

Silvery shiny crinkly metallic fragments. Not like a metal I have ever seen before, very shiny. Light. Crinkly. Like crinkle cut crisps, but not edible. Damn.



I guess if my chord sounded like crinkle cut crisps I might try to eat my piano.



I wonder what music tastes like? Perhaps it tastes like sugar fried eggs? . Hope not. . mmmm. I guess all chords and notes taste different, depending on how hungry my brain is at the time.

Well, how interesting is that, NaJo? Erm, OK, byeeee. See you tomorrow.

Our Christmas market is starting this weekend, but the little houses have been installed for a few weeks already.

[Amy P]

Just to say I'm still reading!

Here's some kisses for Willem.

Hullo Superfrenchie! So your Christmas market has little houses also! Ours has little timber houses, they arrived flatpacked on a big truck, about ten days ago, and now it's all built. Now I'm excited about your Christmas market, as well as mine. heheh.

21 November 2014 NaJoPoMo

Morning NaJo!

Queasy last night , better now, just light headed.

I have an allergic reaction sometimes to a certain kind of oil, or oil combination, I think that's what it is. It's been happening for a few years.

Someone told me it was a pH balance thing, because I start to crave lemon and acidic things for hours afterwards, but I don't know about that.

It's impossible to isolate an ingredient, though. We eat a very simple vegetarian diet, but I think perhaps this time the oil in the tub of coleslaw from the deli might have done me in. Stange.

I think I'll find out more about pH balance.

A few queasy hours in the bathroom is nothing though, compared to some peoples' allergic reactions, I know this. I know people who get really ill.



I'm having a moment, now, to think about people who really suffer from allergies.



Piano sounding bendy yet lovely, through the dizzy haze.

G flat suspended 4th (with extra bendy bits)

Ahh splendid. Lovely warm sunlit pasture with thousands, more like millions, of buttercups, and a wide skyscape with fast moving white clouds, like in time lapse photography.

A dancing delight of pastel coloured words flipping and spiralling out of the fast moving sky. I can't read them, stop being so cryptic, little words. As if. .



Well, that's that then for now, NaJo.

Think I'll go indulge in a glass of water.

Byeee and see you tomorrow. I'm going to miss you when November is through. Perhaps you'll come back to haunt me sometimes, and we can talk about old times.

Or not.

CC, I think somewhere there's an Ikea factory dedicated solely to making Christmas Market houses.

Hey there CC, sorry to hear you have being feeling crook, I am making a special Perculiar , it has ginger and secret spices plus lemon as a nod to your cravings

I am wondering if you are intolerant (in todays language) of a certain ingredient rather than allergic you should be able to narrow it down with a bit of detective work.

In yesterdays language an ingredient would 'disagree with you', for my Grandma it was leeks, I remember being absolutely gobsmacked when I about 6 my Grandma told me this, over a conversation about what vegetables we liked and disliked

Grandma ' loved leeks but they disagreed with her something rotton and gave her terrible wind' honest to Bob I never imagined that Grandma would fart not even in private. It was a bombshell I tell you.

Still loving the chords, cactus cafe. I hope you're feeling a lot better today, it sounds to me as if it'd be worth keeping a food and symptom diary for about a month to see if you can pinpoint the exact culprit(s).

FWIW the difference between an allergy and an intolerance, is this:
Allergy provokes a histamine response;
Intolerance is more usually linked to a lack of the right enzymes, causing inability to digest that particular food or inability to process one of the things in it.

I'm not particularly bothered whether I'm allergic or intolerant to the food which triggers a migraine, it's enough that I've got a very good reason to avoid any contact with that trigger. So I use the A word to get it into the head of twits who insist that *just a trace, just this once* will be no big deal.

[Amy P]

heheh I think so, Superfrenchie. A guy this morning was telling me about the amaaazing Christmas market in Bristol, which also has timber cabins.

Ikea! I think we're getting an Ikea in Exeter, soon. Habitat and Cargo Home Store both closed down. Although, is Cargo closed down? Perhaps the premises just moved.



Hullo Peanut luvvy! That's interesting. Intolerant rather than allergic. That's so funny about your Grandma and her explosive tendencies. . I love it. . It's the way you tell them, luv.

mmm Nice tea, great mix.

Hullo Herenna! Thanks! And further insights into intolerant rather than allergic. I never knew about the difference.

That's a good idea, the food and sympton diary.

Oh heavens, so you suffer from migraines? That must be so tough. I feel for you. I wonder what ingredient brings one on?

I know what you mean about the 'just a trace won't do you any harm' argument. I knew this lady who, even if she ate one tiny tiny crumb of brazil nut, she would end up in hospital.



I've run out of time to say hullo to NaJo! Oh no! We're just off to the estuary to check the birdies. Ah well, later this evening, I can make up a birdie chord. haha.

Laters, gators.

I hope we don't see any gators in the estuary.

22nd November 2014 NaJoPoMo

Good evening NaJo my friend,

Better tonight, I don't look like a ghost. I look like a ghost when I'm ill. Kind of see-through and pale, with tendencies to try to walk through walls. . .

I'd love to play a ghost on stage, if I was theatrical. I always did love the ghost of Hamlet's father. I couldn't play him though, because I'm a lady.

Hmm, it would be good though to be a skilled actress who was famed for playing a famous ghost.



Amazing afternoon out on the estuary. The light was so silvery and the tide was low, exposing the mud flats, and we saw an egret, godwits, and a flock of at least a hundred avocets!!!! Amazing. Never seen such a big flock.

We got very sociable on the birdwatching platform. It was quite crowded with fellow birdwatchers. We don't know anything, but we're learning the talk.



F minor added 6th

A huge silver pyramid, with a dazzling white flame suddenly appearing at the top. Looked like a pyramid shaped candle, only the light was brighter than flame. It was as if all these lines of energy were somehow converging at the top of the pyramid.



Reminded me of the time I thought I had a purple flame coming out of my head. Someone said it was something to do with my crown chakra, but I thought I was turning into a gas cooker.

That would be a good stage ghost, a presence with an energy flame coming out of their head.



You think NaJo? NaJo? Where've you gone? Out to the pub, eh? Oh, well, better shut up then. See you tomorrow

[Amy P]

A hundred avocets? That's amazing! Over here, it's a species I rarely see. What is much more common here in South Africa is its relative, the Blackwinged Stilt.

Hullo Willem! Yes, it was amazing. I've never seen a flock that size. Although this lady standing beside me on the birdwatching platform said it was quite common. Depends on the tide.

Apparently, if you go to the bird hide a little ways up the road you can see them closer at high tide.



We're both getting into the birdwatching aren't we? You find it a source of joy and sociability and so do we.

I've not heard of the Blackwinged Stilt, going to check it out. Next time we're out on the estuary with the birdwatchers, I'll drop it into the conversation. 'My friend in South Africa, well, he says the Blackwinged Stilt is a relative of the avocet', and they will wish they knew me, and you.