The boxes are here! OK, for the record, it took right at 4 months to ship them over. They went to who knows where in the USA. Then over to London. Offloaded and repackaged onto the slow boat to China. But here they are, all intact without a single broken item, delivered to our doorstep. Amazing, really. Good thing we weren't waiting on the edge of our seats. In fact, at times I began to forget just what was in them - did we really need ANY of it?

But now, as we unpack, I pull out a load of stuffed animals and children's books...

There's a non-logical aspect to the cost of it - around two thousand dollars. Couldn't we have just bought half this stuff (and forgotten about the other half?)

Ah, but what about the signed Dynamo ball? The family collection of board games? Or the pieces of art that made the trip? Yup, there's Dickerson, and look, Honey Bunny made it. A Mary Fisher house came over wrapped in a sweater, along with turtle from the Foelbers and a bird from Terry Powell.

Terry, your piece now hangs over the stove, a perilous location where bird will take its chances.

That's OK Barb says, if it gets covered in, I don't know, bacon grease, she can always copy it.

Again.