Whee at last I have returned.

Its been a long, long time since my last post, so much has happened and it was such a long time that I had even forgotten the password to get into my account!! Imagine; but luckily I have a secret place where I record these things and so found it again. Needed to look at all my pix that I have taken since my last posting.

So much to record: so here it goes; my last post was in Feb. when we went to Christina to fetch the marmalade she made for John (at my expense!)

Since then I finished my Altered Book # 6 entitled Faces and Families here is the front cover; the back is the same but not with the face (of course) and one of my favourite pages. I think in earlier posts I did give some glimpses to titillate. But now it is finished, was handed in on the 19th of March and is at present exhibited at the Wey Valley Workshop Exhibition at the Guildford House Gallery at the High Street Guildford. This Exhibition opens on Saturday 3rd of May, I shall be stewarding there in Tuesday afternoon so can see it all for myself, and it runs till the 24th. I also entered a sampler I made for John's great niece Nell. This one is NFS and awaiting to be presented to her later in the year. My Faces and Families book is for sale @ £475 no less. Lets see if it will go for that price. Guildford House Gallery is a very good venue; but I not bothered if I don't sell it. Have 2 more future exhibitions to which it can go.

On the 20th of march I flew off to Portland with BA to Seattle and then caught a local flight from there with Alaskan Airlines. And although BA took off an hour late and landed at 6 pm instead of 5 pm I still managed to catch my booked flight to Portland even if it was a tight squeeze; and I arrived with all my luggage at 8.45 pm where Louise was awaiting me. We went straight to their lovely house, but the grand kids and Darren were already asleep. The only one awaiting me was Milo who was looking through the curtains of the sitting room window. And what a welcome he gave me, he obviously had not forgotten me the mad dog. It was lovely to see him again as well as Owen and Morgan next morning when I woke up; It was hugs all around. Owen has grown nearly as tall as myself.

The children had a last day at school before their week's spring break so Louise and I hared of to the Apple shop where Louise had booked me a personal shopping appointment. When we arrived there I was overwhelmed with the friendly service of all those lovely guys who work there. Louise and I had a ball selecting the AppleMacPro laptop with all sorts of extras. The £ being so very good against the $. I was able to upgrade the RAM to 400 Mb, if that says anything. I also acquire the .Mac so that I can go on the Internet and have a new email address there. And I bought a Time Capsule in order to go wireless at home and as an extra hard drive for storage purposes. Don't ask how it all works because I still don't know. It all is a completely new learning curve. But I did get a one-to-one training course for a year and as such can go once week for an hour with a personal trainer. The first one of all I had that same morning after we had had lunch and they had upgraded the laptop. Boy did I need this. And am still going once a week here in London to the Regent Street Shop having also acquired a senior rail card for a good discount for my weekly train journeys. The Apple Store is quite something with a glass stair case.

It is however not as amazing as the New York store which is a huge glass cube out on the street.

I will need to go for many a week till next March 'cause there is so much to learn. I do know already that like all Apple Mac users I am totally in love with this terrific machine. Even though I also use my Mesh PC which is behaving quite well touch wood. This means running from one to the other, quite tiring that and no wonder I haven't much time.

Back to my Portland adventures: For Owen's birthday party we went to see the Portland Blazers (Basketball) team play the Washington Wizards, they beat these by 102 - 82 if I remember correctly we had seats quite high up so had an excellent view of everything going on. this came up in the screen in one of the intervals.

Even this floated past our amazed eyes at one point, the atmosphere was electric and we all had a ball. Came home quite late, and one of Owen's pals stayed for a sleep-over and the next day, when it rained. It rained a lot while I was there. but luckily not all the time.

To be continued:

That's it folks must go and feed the Jellies. Nellie awaiting her grub!