Dear reader

It will not have escaped the attention of regular readers that lately we have not been as up to date as we would like. We will be posting to catch up in the next few days and then we will slot posts back into chronological order after there has been a chance to read them.

Many thanks for emails enquiring about the blog and thanks too to our thousands of regular readers who persevere checking the blog for new posts every day. Reader loyalty has taken us well past 2 million visits and 3.5 million page views. As they say on television stations when they lose the transmission: "We are sorry for this interruption...". Thanks as always to the many friends of the blog who help with so many things, including info, links, pics and translations. Happy reading! Although most of you will already know it all, we like to keep the record of events and happenings straight.