[AnnieBL]

Oh, Annie, please...you simply must try to join us! It would be so much fun! I want to meet you!
Honestly, I am so hoping that many of the girls from here will come. I want to meet all of you... Lotus, Flame, Kari, Eva, Lenneth.everyone. Elisa asked about it so I am hoping she decides to came. And Karren wants to, don't you Karren...tee hee. I was even hoping Heather and Myboobs might hop across the pond. It shouldnt be hard for MissedMiss to get there, right MM? And all the newer girls...everyone! It would be so awesome to have a whole platoon of BN girls all there together.
I mean, after everything we share with each other here and to such a personal degree, it would be like a big family reunion.
Please try to come!

How much time do you think I have before the hotel gets booked up? I must have O&O approval, and I still have a long way to go. Also I believe that if I get that far she would feel less insecure if I did at least ask her to come (I see there is provision for SOs) and I don't know what either she or the group would think about that. If she ever did agree to come, I think she would be good value and might even enjoy it. She has accompanied me on a few of my more interesting adventures. I'd largely given up on these whilst we were bringing up the family, and when left with an empty nest, she wanted to give me as a special birthday present one of the tours she found out about to two of the more decrepit Latin American railroads that fascinated me. I jumped at this provided that she would come too, so off we went to Ecuador. It turned out to be as exhilarating and sometimes scary an adventure as Southern Comfort seems to promise I can assure you that a party of lunatic fringe railfans is quite as oddball a collection as we are, but she got on very well with them and the whole thing was a big success for both of us. The tour leader eventually admitted that it was the first time their charter train had actually managed to complete the entireamazing journey from Guayaquil up the Andes and on along the Avenue of the Volcanoes to Quito (it took 5 days and four derailments). The one thing J wouldn't do was ride on the train roof with me.

I may be over optimistic, but J invited me to bed last night after supper and we had a ball - and I hope we may also have made a little progress towards at least acknowledgement of my changes.

Hugs!