Travels: real, virtual and imaginary

Does time speed up or expand in the waning days of a wonderful vacation? My Mum's been staying with us since early December but leaves next week. So now the days are flying by, but what days! It feels like we've hardly stood still (or sat still) this week (except in a car). Time speeds and we race across the miles, packing a years' worth of visits into two final weeks. Luckily, time seems to carry a suitably expandable suitcase. Anyway, here's a brief record of our travels, with apologies to all the friends we've not visited, emails we've not answered, invitations still languishing in inboxes, facebook comments unread, phone-calls unreturned, etc...

Real visits: 

to a wonderful friend with two wonderful cats.

to Tillamook (with another wonderful friend) to enjoy the scenery and Mum's yearly taste of the world's best ice-cream

with another friend (we are blessed with such good friends) to Annie Bloom's bookstore where we  admired another cat and bought a few books...






to Newport and the aquarium, and

to beaches, views and wonders of the glorious Pacific Northwest;

Virtual Visits:

to Brenda Youngerman's Fiction with a Purpose Tuesday Spotlight, where you can read my interview with a friend just as real as any other even if we've never met

and to Lee-Ann Graff Vinson's Writing Commando's Author Sunday interview, where you'll find my interview this coming Sunday;

and Imaginary Visits:
 
I'll post the book reviews soon, but in words and imagination I've shared in:

1. The life of an amazing young man with Aspergers Syndrome in Joshua Muggleton's Raising Martians
2. the lives of Romans and Britons in Joe Tackett's A Roman Peace in Briton
3. the stretched to breaking point world of two young people rebuilding their lives and trying to bury the past in Pamela Thibodeaux's The Visionary
4.  the wounded world of slaves and slave-owners in Katrina Parker Williams' Trouble Down South and Other Stories
5. the delightful world of Christine Cunningham's First Snow as two lonely people dance around each other's needs and concerns
6. the disturbing worlds of Phillip Thomas Duck's short stories in One Quick Kiss
7. the scary world of monsters, humans, and the curious creatures in-between in Sherrilyn Kenyon's Firebound
8.  and the confusing world of Grabarchuk's 14 Valentine Puzzle Quizzes.