Portrait - the Grand Vizier and No. 1 wife!!

Hi to all,

Couldn't resist sending this to you. It was taken during a cruise on the Bosphorous (Istanbul) when we were in Turkey. We were persuaded to dress up in ceremonial Ottoman clothes and Jim was handed a large curved scimitar for the occasion!

It is now day 24 out of our total of 70 days (already just over a third of the total) - how time flies. Lorraine and Alan left the other day to return to NZ and it was sad to see them go.

We have been living a relatively quiet suburban life here at Normandy Island, Miami and Jean in particular has been enjoying the children. We have been riding Perry's and Tracie's bikes around locally and getting used to travelling on the right.

Another visit to Whole Foods yesterday where we bought some more provisions. Looked at their website and must say it is impressive. They have over 300 stores in the US and UK and are very staunch about refusing to stock various food additives including MSG!! Also NO GMO. This is in itself impressive in a country like the US which is absolutely consumer driven and our perception is that relatively few would ever bother about what is in their food!

A couple of days ago we all came down with quite a virulent stomach bug. It's taken a bit of time to get over, but we are all making strides in the right direction now. As usual with these things, we really don't have any firm idea of where or how this was caused, but it's been debilitating for all of us.

We are leaving for Medellin in Colombia in 2 weeks' time and looking forward to that enormously, although Jean will be missing the children. However, we are back here again 2 and a half weeks later.

More to come of course and we hope you've been enjoying our earlier blogs on www.tiaretaporo3.blogspot.com

Cheers, love and all best wishes from us......

Jim and Jean

Normandy Island

Miami

Florida.