Hope you all had a good summer, already the leaves are turning here, and last night London saw its first snow! Before our planned trip to see family in Madrid I had a call from BBC Radio Scotland asking me to visit the famous Alnwick Castle in Northumberland. Built as a medieval fortress in the 1300's it was where, many years ago I filmed 'Mary, Queen of Scots'. The programme was about various people's recollections of filming there and as soon as I arrived I remembered the location and how I used to gallop around the castle on horseback. The castle is a favourite with film companies, and some other films include the 1998 'Elizabeth' and two 'Harry Potter 'films.

From the bitter weather of northern England to the sunny climes of Madrid was a bit of a shock. It was great to see Ned & Jossie again, and a highlight of the visit was a trip to the Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo. This was a monastery built by Felipe II in an amazing 21 years (1563-84).

The visit started off in quite an unexpected way. The monastery is huge, and before we had purchased our entry tickets 2 year old Jossie had ducked under the security rope and at great speed headed off into the interior of the monastery. We had no tickets, and had to pass through security screens, and begged to be let through. As the monastery had so many different corridors it took us around 30 minutes to find him. He was quite happily playing with three little Spanish girls in an empty fountain. They did not understand a word he was saying, but thought he was funny - we had other ideas! Anyhow all ended well and his Mum & Dad were very relieved.

Jossie & Ned were very happy to see us. We don't get to see them so much now with them living in Spain. We have one family in Ireland, one in Spain and one occasionally living in Tuscany. Help what do we do for Christmas? Well here's a cute Christmas present.

Next stop Canada for the Manitoba Comic Con held in Winnipeg. We arrived pretty late at night and when we got to the Marriagi hotel we were in for a surprise. It is a themed hotel and each room is designed for a specific country/city. We had chosen Rome and were greeted with grapes, candlelight and a giant jacuzzi along with a steam room - wow. Great for the evening, but next morning we found there was very little daylight and opted for the Japan room next door which had many windows. It was huge fun staying there, and on Sunday evening the promoters held a party in the Jakarta suite.

The promoters Violet and Mike had arranged for us all to have a dinner in the Royal Crown revolving restaurant which gave us magnificent views of the city and a good start to the event. The show was very well attended, and had a good mixture of guests. I was sitting next to Charlie Adler who has voiced many characters since the 1980's including 'Smurfs', G.I. Joe character 'Lowlight' and many, many others - he kept us amused over the weekend.

Below are some shots from the convention:

Another gift I acquired for my collection was this little paper Boba kindly given to me by Joey Heck.

As we were travelling to the US for another convention we had a couple of days to explore Winnipeg. We visited the Manitoba Museum of Man & Nature and were lucky enough to have Scott to give us a personal tour. It is quite an amazing museum, and covers history and culture right up to the modern day. The Dioramas were so lifelike one imagined how it must have felt for the Metis hunter.

This interesting Inukshuk is thought to be part of the caribou hunting strategy, and served as land and water navigation aids. Human-like versions are symbolic of the North and the enduring culture of the Inuit people.

I was quite surprised to see Emperor Palpatine lurking in the shadows of the museum.

We spent the whole morning seeing wonderful things, and then came across the 'Nonsuch' This ship sailed into Hudson Bay in 1668 to explore the possibility of opening a fur trade. The venture was very successful until 1870. The 'Nonsuch' in the museum is one of the world's finest replicas, and was built in England to celebrate the tricentenary of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1970. She was sailed 8,700 miles before finally berthing at the museum.

Winnipeg is a very old city with wonderful buildings and is used quite a lot for filming as the architecture resembles1930's Chicago. Also I believe there had been a graffiti competition in 2007 and here are two examples.

On our last night we were invited to Violet & Mike's home for dinner. Mike had been a professional chef so we were in for a feast. A nice way to round off our trip to Winnipeg. Thanks guys for a great weekend.

The following weekend we were at a show in Niles, Ohio called Screaming Tiki Con. This was a new event for organisers Peter & Dawn and they had worked very hard to get it all together. We were met at Pittsburgh airport and were very impressed to have a deputy Sheriff, Shon, driving us to Niles. It was quite a long journey, and maybe Shon thought he was in Slave I. As we approached a ramp onto the freeway, a 'stop sign' suddenly loomed out of the darkness - a very strange place to have such a sign? Anyhow it was too late and suddenly a police car appeared , flashing us to stop. With a few exchanges everything was fine, but we thought the whole incident was quite amusing. We arrived safely at the hotel thanks to Shon's careful driving!

The next morning we arrived early at the venue to check everything out. The guests were in a futuristic tented structure which suited the sci-fi theme. We made friends with the robot from 'Lost in Space' and also an accordian playing rogue pirate.

On the table to our left we had the Midwest Base Garrison of the Rebel Legion who made me an Honorary member and presented me with a glass plaque.

There was lots to do, and I met up with around 50 children having a Star Wars lunch in the Pizza parlour. There was even a helicopter (batcopter) on hand to give people rides. Although the following morning it looks as though Eugene (the pilot) has his work cut out to defrost the bubble.

On the last evening we all went for a meal at De Marco's who served delicious and gargantuan portions of Italian food.

Many thanks to Peter & Dawn and all the helpers who made this first show such fun.

We were due to be at Chiller in New Jersey the following weekend. Somehow our planning did not work out - we could have in fact had a leisurely drive from Pittsburgh to Parsippany (where the Chiller event was being held), taking in the wonderful autumn colours, but ended up flying home and back out again a few days later. Trying to get back to the US was a story in itself. We turned up at Heathrow Airport a good three hours before our flight to Newark. On checking in I heard the word CDG (Charles de Gaulle) I assured the gentleman at the check-in desk that we were flying to EWR (Newark) and not Paris. He gave me an odd look, then explained the plane had shrunk and that 60 passengers would not be able to get on that flight - instead we would have to fly to Paris, wait for 4 hours and then fly to JFK. This was particularly exasperating as we had a car meeting us at Newark at 2.00 pm, and the flight via Paris would not arrive until 7.30pm at JFK miles from where we needed to be. To cut a long story short we eventually arrived at Parsippany very late and very cross - I very rarely lose my temper, but the airline should have let us know in advance about the change. No names mentioned, but below is a clue - spot the culprit!

When we arrived at 9.00pm at the event there were fans waiting for me, so we set up a table until the event closed at 11.00pm. Luckily people had heard about our problem and knew we would arrive eventually. Where I was sitting was in another tent like structure which was fine until the heavy rains set in on Saturday, but we survived the drips. The show was non-stop with many amazing guests. The fans were out in force, and I believe on Saturday that some had to be turned away because of the numbers. I had my own bodyguard - Darryl, one of the very good Boba Fetts (in voice & movement)

After a very long day we were off to have dinner when I met up with this character - he obviously was hungry too.

Chiller is always a fun and very busy show - thanks Kevin.

That's all for now - speak to you all again before Christmas.

The Fett