I have not fallen off the planet!

Greetings,

It has been a very busy few weeks as I wrapped up my term as AWC President, organized the installation of officers ceremony at the home of US Ambassador Levin, attended our annual volunteer appreciation luncheon and then headed to the States for a visit with family and celebrated my birthday and then to Brussels for a weekend-long board meeting with the FAWCO board of directors (I was elected as the board secretary in March) - and a subsequent editing of 30 pages of minutes....and learning the rest of what the job entails.

ANYhooooo....

While in the States, we purchased a MacBook as my old laptop died just prior to my trip to Marrakech, so once we returned to Holland I began the transition from PC to Mac. So it has taken me a while to get up and running as normal (taking one's head out of "PC mode" and getting into "Mac mode" takes some adjusting!). The best part of the transition is that working with my photos is now much, much easier and faster on the Mac than it was on the PC (but the conversion from one to the other has taken some time and had a few lessons along the way).

But before all that, in mid-April Alex and I went to Wales to visit with family and attended a family gathering by the sea at Uncle Peter's new beach hut in Rotherslade. Here is a film I created from our day at the beach - you can see that, despite some rain (it is Wales after all!), we carried on with our BBQ and enjoyed a lovely day.

More Marrakech

Here are a couple more films from my week in Marrakech. We work hard, we play hard. And we are beautiful, in every single way!

A Celebration

So, the conference began on Wednesday afternoon, and on Wednesday evening there was a celebration of FAWCO's 80th anniversary. The gala was held in the So Restaurant in the Sofitel Hotel, and for most of the evening I was the acting photographer. Here are some great pics of my many FAWCO friends. The video is put to a song called "Close to Home" which was written for and performed for FAWCO by Robin Meloy Goldsby.

More in Marrakech

On Wednesday morning we had another scheduled tour, this time to the Ben Youssef Medersa, an Islamic school attached to the Ben Youssef Mosque and home to some beautiful art and architecture.

We also visited the Marrakech Museum, housed in Dar Menebhi Palace. The house represents classical Andalusian architecture, with fountains in the central courtyard, a hammam and intricate, beautiful tilework and carvings throughout.

Our tour took us through another Souk and through Djemaa El Fna Square and included a visit to a local spice shop where many of the uses for the herbs and spices were explained and demonstrated and we had a chance to purchase local remedies and spices.

That afternoon the conference began with meetings throughout the afternoon and the celebration of FAWCO's 80th Anniversary. The song in this film was written and performed by a FAWCO Member, Robin Meloy Goldsby, to celebrate this important milestone.