Hi All, Just back from the Gathering which turned out to be a busy and interesting week. I have to record with thanks the warm welcome that I was given. Not having an Maclean ancestors, I was made an honorary Maclean to attend the event. Together with fellow list member Jean Whimp from Australia we answered genealogy questions from the 600 attendees. A few more than attended MUGG last year. A blog was maintained by Maclean.org for the event to allow those not able to attend in person, to keep up to date on what was happing on Mull. Jean and I got to feature on the blog. For those interested you can see us taking to an attendee at :- http://www.maclean.org/nucleus/index.php?itemid=6#more You might even see me sitting under the Tobermory clock enjoying a meal from the world famous fish and chip shop. That's me next to the dog. At nine p.m. on the Wednesday evening Jean and I presented a talk on 'Researching your family tree'. Even at this late hour over 70 individuals attended. See http://www.maclean.org/nucleus/index.php?itemid=7#more for more pictures. Between us we manged to bring together two sets of two attendees who shared a common ancestors from the 1700's. The exact relationships have yet to be established. Two of the attendee took the opportunity of their visit to get married in Duart Castle. We were promised a broadband connection in order to help answer queries. This turned out to be a very weak wireless link to the shop (The Gallery). Owing to the thick stone walls of both buildings it proved to be unusable in the Aros Hall. Got some strange looks from folk whilst I stood outside the Hall trying to receive emails. Sending emails proved to be near impossible. After the event I was invited to stay on for a few days with another list member (Christine Leach of Pennygheal in the Past) . This proved to be a good move on a number of accounts. First I think it would have been a little dangerous for me to drive home straight from the event and had I not stayed on I would have not got to spot my first otter (seen others but these were found by others). I also got to see a sea eagle chick being ringed. The chick was born on 2nd May and already weighed 5 kilos. Some baby. Must away as a mountain of washing, ironing and emails await. Ian