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

It's little 's 8th birthday tomorrow. He won't be getting a proper party this year. Maybe I should have thought of a virtual party for him. I'll provide jelly and and (although actually he hates that - apple juice would do much better). There's got to be jelly, thoughh.

And games!

And I just shipped off my little, towel-carrying to start his fourth year at college.

Oh, for the good old days. Enjoy them, they don't last long enough.

Wish him happy birthday from me- tell him I'll buy him a pint if he comes to a meet, when he's old enough, of course

Ah, I see the didn't come out as a heading!

FT, Fourth year at college! What's he studying? Yes, I'm enjoying mine, even though I might moan at times.

KA, I think he'll have to wait a bit, then! I'll let him know. He disapproves of alcohol. Even when I have one glass, he says, 'Mum, why do you drink alcohol?' It's not as though I do it all that often, these days.

I'm having a cake made for him with a Babylon 5 logo (sorry, KA, not Blakes 7).

I was planning to take him to Chessington World of Adventures on Saturday, but someone tells me that he may be too short for most of the rides, and that would be a pity. I'll have to make enquiries.

Ahh, B5's okay. Tell him JMS is a huge Blake's 7 fan anyway, and that's the truth. A lot of kids his age disaprove of alcohol- I think it's something to do with the unsettling feeling of seeing adults behave like children

How tall is he? 5' 2" is the level at Alton Towers, I guess it'd the same elsewhere.

I think he's about 3'. Thanks for reminding me. I'll get out the measuring tape and mark his height on the wall.

He's never seen me behaving while under the influence! I don't drink enough to do that. The most I would have would be a couple of glasses. (I can hear you saying, 'Boring sod!')

He's never seen Blakes 7 (yet). These days he's into B5, Star Wars and the Karate Kid. He also seems to be a Clint Eastwood fan (A Fistful of Dollars). I thought he might be a bit young for this, mind, but he did watch it with Merlin.

My darling little

A very happy birthday for tomorrow. I would love to be able to see you and help to spoil you. Perhaps you can ask Mummy to arrange to come out to Sevenoaks again. There are some wonderful parks at various places including both Hever Castle and Pentshurst Place.

I hope you have a wonderful day and I shall try and send you a birthday card.

With much from

Grannie Kim and K.
AR1

Hi AR1!

I shall give him your greetings when he gets back from school. His birthday's today.

Yes, I'm looking forward to bringing him to see you and K again.

Very dear pierced Zarquhon

I have decided not to try and fight the powers that be and get onto hootoo during the weekend. So here's wishing you all a happy weekend. Do phone if you can come out. I had a lovely time on
Thursday - had three uninvited guests to lunch - passing friends who had popped in - and yesterday four. I am happiest when feeding my friends - and even strangers!!.

Hope you are still feeling comfortable with the "stone" (what is it?

Fond to you both

AR1

Happy Birthday dear little

Fondest wishes and lots of s and s.



from Katrine

Slip a little rum into his cake.
He won't be a little Puritan again after that!
Tell him Dorothy Sayers says Guinness Is Good For You!

Don't wear your H2 t-shirt. He might get a little urpy on some of the rides... like the one with four wheels...

We've just come back from Chessington World of Adventures where little has had a lovely time. I've read him all this birthday messages and he says 'Hello' and 'Thank you'!

His favourite ride was Tomb Blaster where we sat in a car together and has a 'gun' with an infra red beam and we had to aim for lights on ghosts and goulies. I got the biggest score! Next was Merlin, then little .

And no, tonsil, he wasn't sick, but then he wasn't wearing his h2g2 'T' shirt. Sensibly, I clad him in his bright green 'Who Me' 'T' shirt, which AR1 gave him . It made him much easier to find when he wandered off.

Little is at present eating his birthday . A friend at work made it for him and has hand decorated it with a picture of R2D2 and C3PO from Star Wars. Before it was cut, it looked beautiful - it still does - even though it has some pieces cut out of it. R2D2 is still intact.

Feeling very tired now. He went to sleep in the car on the way back.

I'm glad you all had such a great day, ZSF!

Azara

He's full of himself this morning. We gave him back some Star Wars DVDs which had been confiscated until he learned to look after them properly (sticky fingers, not putting them back in the boxes, not looking after the boxes). He's a very happy little boy at present.

The other thing we did was to space out his birthday presents so he didn't get them all at once and so helped to combat the feeling of flatness that comes after all the excitement is over.

Enjoy him while he's this age- soon he'll be a teenager, and he won't be so easily satisfied...

I'm not even thinking about it! There's a lot of work to do yet to get him into good habits.

He's not that easily satisfied these days! He looked at the (admittedly small) number of presents and said, 'Is that all?' It was a good idea, though to stretch out the presents over the whole weekend. There didn't seem to be the withdrawal and bad behaviour that sometimes happens.

We got him a mini digital camera that he took to Chessington and all his pleasure seemed to be in snapping. He kept deleting the pictures, so as still to have some to take. You can't do that with an analogue camera!