Greetings from the Big Apple,

Sorry the first entry has been a while coming but life has been a bit frenetic and Pete had to learn how to work the system - hope you haven't lost interest already!

By the way GO THE BLACKS!!!!!!

Was great to catch up with Paul and Julie in London even tho' it was just a short visit. Pete was happy as he got to see an authentic thatched cottage (just reroofed the week B4) and an english cottage garden.

Then on to NY where we have experienced magnificent hospitality from Laura's family. The apartment in right near Central Park and the subway system so we have had easy access to all the sites, and have we done the sites!! Pete has given you an idea of that with the photos. In between those a fair amount of shopping has been packed in. We have become guns at the subway altho some of us haven't quite got the knack of swiping our metro cards yet.

New York is amazing, so big, so much variety, and such an incredible number of people evrywhere no matter the time of day. And such a spectrum of colour, clothes, ethnicities, architecture, food types, etc etc. Next time we come to visit it will be nice to just slacken the pace and soak up more of that ambience (not that we haven't enjoyed what we have done this time.) For those in the vet industry it also has an amazing number of dogs that live everywhere even the most up-market apartments. And in the mornings and evenings they all come out for walkies so one has to be a little careful wherethe feet are placed. Got to see some authentic NY dog walkers.

Miguel and Laura are really settled, and have a lovely little place that will soon be full of the reminders of their travels.

Well, it is on to Washington today, where we won't have family to help us out so we will start to see if there are any hiccups in the system - nothing we can't cope with I am sure. The weather so far has been great of course.

The Clarks