Long time, no contact!!

Yes, it has been a while, hasn't it? Also my blogging was anything but regular prior to going on leave - still I have now returned from a fantastic trip to California and aim to get right back into the blogging, well I do have loads to tell and as usual, I have returned full of ideas and inspiration. So watch out over the next few weeks.

California was wonderful and we all agreed that one of the highlights had to be the black bear that ambled across the road in front of the car as we drove down from one of the tremendous view points in Yosemite. We had seen loads of animals on our trip but as you might expect most were in the zoo or at Sea World in San Diego. On our first evening in Yosemite we had seen squirrels but there were so many of them I became rather blasé, and they were all grey as opposed to the red one I saw when walking in the Isle of Wight.

We also saw a deer at quite close proximity and on the last day the chipmunks that Ellie so much wanted to see. We also heard about Cougars being spotted by the staff on the Sugar Pine Railroad but here was a wild animal and we were in its territory. I still have to pinch myself.

Throughout the States there are many bears in the wild and they put the coward in me off walking some of these long distance trails as you do have to camp out but perhaps I shall overcome that one. Interestingly when we were away the newspapers ran a story about a number of people who had holiday homes in the Lake Tahoe area arriving to find their homes inhabited by bears! It was all put down to the fact that people do feed the bears although all signs we saw warned against this and also the close proximity of food overall.

I started the year off aware that I needed to blog more and I was very successful, keeping it up until I went off in May to Peru. This time it is my intention to be even more successful - keep in touch to see just how I do.