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

It's been a rather interesting week. As I said before, I have been working as a postman. It seems my role is to do the rounds of regular posties who aren't around for one reason or another.

I've done three different walks so far. The first two were rather complicated - mostly big estates and rabbit-warren-like closes and retirement homes. Fortunately I only did the worst of them once. Unfortunately that was my first day. I needed to finish by 1pm (having signed in at the depot at 6am) because everyone goes home soon after that. Needless to say, being a very confusing route, and being new to the job, I took longer. When I finally finished (actually, there was a fair amount of mail to blocks of flats that I couldn't deliver because the "trades" button to unlock the door doesn't work after midday) and rode back to the sorting office, it was deserted. I rang the bell and waited a while, but nobody turned up.

I decided to phone home to ask my folks what I should do. We tried to leave the bike and mail at two post offices and the Co-Op where I left my second bag during the round, but the post offices were closed and the others refused for legal reasons. We ended up taking them home (with the boot open, since the bike wouldn't fit entirely ) and I called the depot first thing on Monday (I wasn't working that day because my brace was being fixed) to have them collect them.

Being June, and being (almost) on the south coast, it's been very hot and sunny. On Thursday and Friday I forgot to wear sunscreen. Needless to say, I got badly sunburnt. I also wasn't wearing a hat, so my scalp is sunburned too. I've now got a rather fetching floppy hat to wear in the sun, so that problem is solved. Today the redness on my forearms (which stops abruptly just above the elbow, and where my watch is) has nearly turned into a tan, probably my first since my holiday in the Mosel valley two years ago.

Friday was my dad's birthday. We went to Chichester Festival Theatre to see "The Gondoliers", a silly Gilbert & Sullivan operetta. I have to say "silly" here - the plot is quite absurd, but it's great light entertainment. The plot is that the heir to the island kingdom of Barataria was taken away by his nanny and became a gondolier in Venice. He's been pinpointed as one of two particular gondoliers ("There's no possible doubt whatever", says the Grand Inquisitor, that he is one of these two), but nobody knows which - only their elderly nanny can tell. In the first scene they marry by picking two girls out of a crowd at random. Unfortunately the Grand Inquisitor married the prince to a Spanish hidalgo's daughter when they were both babies, resulting in a bizarre love pentagram. And of course the daughter has her own boyfriend... When the two gondoliers go to Barataria to rule together, being republicans, they implement a strange "monarchy tempered by republican equality". So they do their fair share of the chores, and everyone is head of their department (e.g. the Grand High Maid).

Dinner was rather different that day - in the theatre cafe, a kind of Mediterranean buffet, with things like olives , capers (very bitter), artichokes, oddly-shaped but nonetheless delicious lumps of salmon, sun-dried tomatoes, beef (don't think I've ever eaten rare beef cold before), pasta salad, etc., etc.

Finally, yesterday we saw an amateur production of "Blithe Spirit", in which a twice-married man summons the ghost of his first wife during a séance, whom only he can see and hear. It's a very funny story, and was surprisingly well executed for an amateur production, though the acting was a little wooden.