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It’s Hildie’s birthday today.

Everyone should know by now how special - how essential - she is to our little disparate group of wanderers and seekers.  Hildie is the wanderer and seeker par excellence.

She’s also, of course, my special and essential friend.

I could wax lyrically and elaborately about her many lovelinesses - but, on scanning the blog for her birthday two years ago, I realised that it couldn’t be bettered.

Nothing has changed over the two years that have passed since I wrote this…

‘Today has been Hildie’s birthday. As I draft this posting, she’s out with ‘the girls’, and I know we all hope she’s having a great time. No-one deserves it more than Hildie does.

Ever since the unpredictable and frankly wayward hours of The Nightshift, Hildie has always struck me as a ‘model’ truckshunter. She has the necessary senses of wonder and curiosity - and the even more obligatory sense of humour - in waggonloads.

Consequently, she regularly responded to quirky queries and puzzles, often by supplying her own! I received countless internet print-outs through the post, often taken from weird websites full of wondrous ‘trivia’ - information which truckshunters believe to be the most useful useless information on the planet.

In these and other ways, Hildie ‘fed’ the programme some of its juiciest and most interesting titbits, and often started inter-listener discussions that lasted weeks.

The minx!

In fact - and she probably didn’t know it at the time - it was Hildie’s way of encouraging the involvement of other listeners that helped give birth to the truckshunting idea after I retired in 2009. And it’s substantially due to her efforts that it’s still going so strong after all this time.

Since I retired, Hildie has become a true and trusted friend. I have shared my bad times as well as my good with her. Even so, she probably doesn’t realise how much I value her sensitivity and thoughtfulness, as well as her scrumptious sandwiches and her ability to make me laugh.

Each member of our unique truckshunting community is important and essential to all the others - and not just those who leave Comments on this blog, attend AGMs or send me emails. The blog - and thus the community - has more ‘followers’ than it seems.

But I make no excuse or apology for singling out Hildie on this special day. And I know you won’t mind, either. That’s the sort of people truckshunters are.

Happy Birthday, Hildie.

From all of us.’

Happy Birthday, Hildie.

From all of us.

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AGM XXXIX
In many ways, the fact that AGMs continue to exist at all is a tribute to Hildie.  So let’s make the next one a goody.

It all happens at 1200 tomorrow, Wednesday 9 January at either the Lit and Phil or, shortly thereafter, at The Milecastle pub up the street.  Take your choice.

One way or another, though - see you tomorrow!

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CONTACT ME
Post comments on this blog or email me:  truckshunters@googlemail.com