Review of 2011:

In March, we attended the East Coast Custom Knife Show now held in Jersey City, NJ. Since we liked the venue so much, we signed up to do the November New York show - more about this later.

Early May brought a visit from sister Brenda and brother-in-law Gordon from England. We took a quick trip up the Maine coast to Bar Harbor. The one day we had to tour Acadia National Park, it rained and was foggy so the drive was a washout. The next day when we left to return to Peterborough was, of course, sunny and clear.

We had the pleasure of hosting knifemaker Bud and Toni Nealy in early June and enjoyed showing them "Our Town" and the area. We'd been planning this visit for years so were pleased that it finally happened. Our friend Stephen Lewis from S. Africa arrived the following week after the Blade Show and as always we had a fun time with him.

The summer provided its usual spate of culture: our local 6-week music festival, Monadnock Music and the season of professional theatre at the Peterborough Players. A friend of ours who lives in a nearby town appeared in 3 of the plays so that added to our enjoyment of the performances.

Our annual visit from sister-in-law Natalie Miller and nieces Victoria & Valeria was in August. Since brother Rick was kept at home in Virginia due to a primary election, Natalie brought her mother along. We spent a day whale watching out of Rye Harbor, NH and saw many Right and Finback whales up close and personal which made us all very excited. A friend from NJ came later for a few days and collector friends Larry and Marlene Marton paid us a one-day visit so we gave them a whirlwind tour of Peterborough. Other friends from Long Island were due to come for their first visit but Hurricane Irene decided to hit the East Coast so they had to cancel.

In September we attended a lovely wedding of friends held in a hilltop field with mountain and lake views. It was a glorious day and perfect for an outdoor ceremony and celebration. Then we headed to the Southwest for a tour of the major canyon parks (Grand, Bryce, Zion plus Monument Valley) with Bob Terzuola and Susan Weese. It was the first bus tour for 3 of us and we all enjoyed it greatly, especially staying at lodges within the parks and having others do all the driving and baggage handling. After the tour, we spent several days with Bob & Susan at their home in Albuquerque and got to meet their various critters - cats, dog and Susan's Girls - aka her hens.

A friend from NJ came to visit in October, just in time for the 18 inch snowfall on VL's birthday - the 29th. We'll never forget coming out of the Met HD broadcast of "Don Giovanni" to the heavy snowfall and having to wait for stalled cars to clear the driveway so we could head for home. Hooray for our Subaru Forester (jokingly referred to as the NH State Car) which allowed us to depart whereas others had to wait several hours for the town plow/sander.

In November we attempted to fly from Manchester NH to Newark NJ - the 1st time in 15 years that we didn't take the train to a NYC area show. After checking in online & printing our boarding passes, we arrived at the airport the find that our flight had been cancelled due to "weather." Since the options presented wouldn't have enabled us to get to Jersey City in time for the NYCK show, we aborted the trip. This has now confirmed that, as in the past, our future NJ show trips will be by rail even though it means a nearly 2-hour drive to the station outside Boston.

December brought the death of our beloved Birman cat, Buzzy. He gave us 17-1/2 years of joy, laughter and love and is sorely missed. We are now working on locating another Birman to share our lives tho' we well know that there was and only ever will be one Buzzy. As a friend said, he was one in a million and had many admirers who agree that he was a very special cat.

In 2012 we look forward to seeing you at upcoming shows in Jersey City, Solvang or Marlboro, MA. Check our "Show Calendar" page for details. We wish you a year of peace, health, friendship and prosperity.