Whimsical Kitten

Whilst surfing the Internet for a banana bread recipe I discovered a fascinating website at http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/ 

h2g2 is an unconventional guide to life, the universe and everything, an encyclopaedic project where entries are written by people from all over the world.

Inspired by the Douglas Adams novel, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, the guide has thousands of entries on all sorts of subjects such as the bogeyman, curved space and the fate of the universe and the Hanger Lane gyratory system to name just a random selection. 

So the next time you need to know how soap works or some handy Mandarin Chinese phrases go check it out.

It has been a while since my last post, my excuse, well I have been otherwise occupied with:

1. Spraining my ankle;

2. Moving office, resulting in an even more excruciating journey to work each day leaving me so tired of an evening I can no longer be bothered to blog. Oh the *joys* of NHS reconfiguration;

3. Celebrating my friend Kate’s birthday;

4. Celebrating my friend Phil’s birthday;

5. Celebrating my friend Rebecca’s birthday;

6. Pricking out and potting on hundreds of vegetable and flower seedlings for my garden;

7. Knitting more squares for the throw;

8. Fretting about Simba, my lovely German Shepherd, who has hip dysplasia which is rapidly getting worse;

9. Enjoying the Essex Young Farmers Show, particularly the ‘Golden Galloping Horse Carosel’ and the ‘Big Wheel’;

10. Watching the antics of a pair of geese that have made their home in the back field for the past month;

11. Watching the BBC RHS Chelsea Flower Show coverage – I loved the ‘Shinglesea’ garden it was perfect;

12. Marvelling at two sightings of a Buzzard hunting over our house;

13. Drinking gin;

14. Navel gazing.

This fella kept me in awe for ages on Sunday, isn’t he great!

He is a house spider Tegenaria gigantea (T. duellica), a very large and active spider, with long legs, that has a habit of running about rapidly in houses! Well Archie as I named him was having a day off from activity because despite having a human peering at him and taking numerous photos, he stayed stock still only once raising a leg to warn me to back off when I got a bit too close with the camera. I’m not scared of spiders and frequently rescue them from the bath and the dogs who like to slobber them to death if they have the temerity to scuttle across the front room floor when we are watching TV, but this one made me go slightly gooey, I think it was the really hairy long legs and rather large looking mandibles!