Clearly I've failed...

... on the previous post's promise of posting more, given that was in January, and it is now May.  In my meagre defence, I have kept up fairly well with my family's blog even though my laptop died.  It took a month to decide upon and get a new one, which in turn only last 2 weeks before the hard disk died.  Today it has been returned, with new hard disk, so I'm finally back.