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

Hello
Have some free time and a comp, so just thought I might try to use this medium. It seems good to speak to all of my friends at the same time.
We've spent a week at the dacha and are back for a couple of days - big daughter has had her next exam, and now I'm trying to paste her to the chair and brutally force her to revise for her Chemistry exam which is due on Friday,
Mum is back from hospital with some new prescriptions (no doctor can make her younger, but each one tries to impose their favourite new medicines, which are not always better for Mum, and given their number, are bound to disagree with each other - so I feel it my duty (mind you, I am not a doctor - but someone has to look after the naughty tribe) to sort them out, consulting yet another doctor etc etc ,
to cap it all I did miss the big boys, who go a bit wild and even more hungry when they live alone as one doesn't buy food trying to save the money for a new guitar, and the other is too engrossed in Counter Strike to go to the shops so just drinks kefir (kind of sour milk drink) with bread and jam and has to be reminded of the sad necessity to go to school most days of the week ,
finally, I seem to miss hubby, too,
and the little ones were invited to their friend's birthday party.
Bad luck for Pusha - she had to travel all the way back to Moscow (train + bus), and she does hate it!
Victory! The biggest son has just come over, saying contentedly, 'Wow, I've started to cook for myself'
Just a week home alone did it!
to see what he's cooked - might do with a bite myself

Hi there!

Not much new to report on my end, I've just been hanging around YouTube.

Nice to hear from you! What's the time where you are?

It's 2am. I'm a night owl, but I am trying to work my schedule around so that I am up during the daytime.

What's the way out? Have a nap during the day? A kind of siesta?

Yes, I usually sleep during the day. But I'd like to change that. It makes it hard to shop for groceries and to go out with friends.

It sounds like there is plenty going on in your life, and the whole of the tribe, Lady W07. It actually sounds far more exciting than my day-to-day stuff.

As for the 'lads' learning to cook, I can relate how I finally learned. I was employed for about 45 days, working 17 or 18 hours each day, preparing apple orchards for the spring growth. I worked with 2 adult men (they in their 40's, I was 17) and lived in a sort of communal barracks thing. They each made their own meals, and for a time, I tried to get along on tinned soups and stews, the occassional frozen dinners. (Remember, this was 1977, ... frozen dinners were few and horrid) After a couple of weeks, my morning 'passing of water' proved quite red. THAT scared the bejaysus out of me. The first thing I thought of was scurvy!!! I quickly began to have fresh meat and veggies, and fruit with every lunch break. Some of my first meals weren't very tasty, perhaps even a bit under-done, but with practice I learned that cooking can always be a fun experiment.

Hi, Nick
Incidentally, we have a tiny apple orchard at our dacha - little daughter says there are 11 trees. The land was reclaimed from a swamp 50 years ago, and some of the trees are that old. We have only had this place for 5 years and I'm a very inexperienced dacha-owner. Used to rent a summer-house before my mother-in-law gave us this one. I'm afraid if my big daughter doesn't take over, we'll let the place go to the dogs slowly but surely. The trees are so big and shady, they must need some trimming, but they look beautiful, and I feel reluctant to start cutting ...
Did you do the cutting in those orchards back in 1977?

Ah sounds like paradise apple orchards in the country sure you’re not in the grounds of Car Paravel

So how long are you off work for?

We discovered today that a tree next to the house was struck by lightening and dropped a huge branch to the ground on fire it obviously burned for quite a while judging by the scorch marks

Just heard on the news they might have got a good lead on finding the little girl that went missing in portugal I sincerely hope for hers and her parents they find her... Well I am off to bed hope you have a lovely stay in the country.

I wouldn't have popped into this thread if I'd had proper warning about Nick's charming scurvy story!

Oh well, evenin' all. Life is not too hectic here in Eastbourne and none the worse for it, it's pleasantly warm now, although I am looking at 5 days straight at work before back to business as usual. The weekend disappears in a blur of customers and before I know where I am it's tuesday. Can't complain though, having a good time.

You must've had some experience of learning to cook for yourself while at uni - hope it wasn't as spectacular as Nick's! Or were you the lucky one who had been taught how to cook by your mum...

Yes I started cooking at home when my mum went back into teaching, so I was alright. I had a flatmate in my first year who's tea one evening consisted of an orange and a jar of nutella, but I got by okay.

*finally I seem to miss hubby too*
Came way down the list there honey.I'm sure he understands

I really am sorry if my little tale of personal experience was 'too much info'...

What I was doing during that season in the apple orchards was removing all of the 'suckers', ... new growths that were purely draining the sap of the tree but would never produce fruit. They were readily identified as any limbs or shoots that grew purely vertical. Anything else, sprawling, irregular, were likely to blossom and bear ... Oh, and much of the time was fertilizing the different breeds of apples, different measures of the mixes depending on the type and size of the tree.

No problem Nick, you know, I hope, better than to take anything I say seriously. Accept for that thing I told about the investment, that's a surefire winner. Otherwise, pay no heed, I just type whatever occurs to me, sometimes I form sentances, other times I do not.

About that investment, ... I have sunk the grand-kids inheritance into it. But now I wonder, ... Did you say black licorice or red licorice, as the basis of interstellar rocket fuel? I really have no head for this stuff ...

RED! Don't back the black stuff, it's terrible.
No, wait, maybe it was the other way around...

Did I atleast get the right company? "West-by-SouthWest Korean Licorice and Carburators, Inc"?

That's them. Very easy to deal with, I find, since you only have to remember the name of that one bloke. Sometimes his dog answers the phone though, then it gets confusing.

That has the oddest accent though ... Mexican, with a hint of Hawaiian, isn't it?


Do you think we've totally lost everybody?