This is the end of my attachment. 

I have enjoyed it.  I realise how lucky I was to receive it.  Not every institution would have taken on someone on the wrong side of 65. Everyone has been incredibly kind to me and put up with my clumsiness with remarkably good humour.

Carolyn Bamborough has been marvellous, the real mainstay of the time, organised and always ready to help with practicalities,

Simon Mills' teaching in graphics inspired me to explore the subject further so that my e-mail letters to friends and relatives are now more interesting and so are the letters I get in return.

Leonie helped me to feel more at home with html - I now feel almost ready to tackle dhtml. - almost but not quite.

Helen's Whitehead's sense of humour and her down to earth advice on my journal has been greatly appreciated.

Sue Thomas of course organised the whole scheme and has gone out of her way to make it work in a business like way.

So with all these people helping what have I learned - what progress have I made?

To help me answer that question I looked back at the part of my original application, written on January 9th this year, - this is what I had written

Why am I asking for an Attachment?

• 1.To receive help in creating an online journal where I record my own learning progress

  The keeping of the journal is cited in the advertisement for the attachment, not as a benefit but as a contribution to be made in return for other gifts. However in my opinion an obligation to maintain the record would be of great benefit to the practitioner .

• 2. To have my learning needs diagnosed by someone else:

  This is a rare opportunity. If one could successfully diagnose one's own needs one probably would not need to learn. (Was this not one of the topics in the old mailing list?) I suspect though that if my request for an attachment were to be granted I would be diagnosed as being in dire need of learning to Moo. I would hope this would not overshadow other aspects of my education.

• 6. To broaden my knowledge by listening to conversation between academics. may even become comfortable enough to queue up for books about Deconstruction, Jacques Derrida and aspects of literature I have not yet heard of.. I am not altogether certain understanding literary criticism would make me a better writer but |I will not know until I have tried.

• 7. To learn how to put together reasonably intelligent Web sites by working with experts and to get myself into the habit of updating those sites on a regular basis.

First expectation I was right in my expectations about the journal. Having to produce something every week and trying to show what skills I had gained that week was a great incentive to learning. Training myself to update has worked so far on my personal web pages - at least I have been keeping my vow to update my gardening pages each month.  (I still have three days left to put in May's haven't I?)

The results of my tutorial with Simon and the public session I had with Leonie were that I make more efficient use of graphics packages when creating web pages and I can work better in html.

Second expectation - I was the first person to receive an attachment. The procedures  for diagnosing needs had not been finalised when I started and a lot has been learned from my experience. It is not easy to diagnose the needs of someone who does not know herself what she wants.

Third expectation - Brilliant. I had received no tuition on computer skills before except from books. I am not good at learning in group situations and have a horror of holing up a class while I fumble around.   My son would not help me. (He has enough of computers at work - he comes home for a rest)  All my friends have even fewer computer skills than myself. 

Fourth expectation - as I foresaw. 

Fifth expectation - in Britain I didn't have as many conversations with writers as I expected but that was more than made up for by the conversations in Albany

Sixth expectation - I have been so busy learning graphics and html I have not had time to do the reading I intended.   I have noted though that academic writers have different notions of 'good writing' from people who write romantic novels although both would agree on a simplification of language and a general shortening of sentences. There is a writer John Gardener, (Gardiner?) who  is greatly influential in America but I haven't found anything by him in our local library.  I will have to try Leicester University although if he is only on short term loan there I daren't risk the fines.)

Seventh expectation - answered already when referring to the first expectation

Mooing - no, I am not yet addicted although I might become so if I install Screaming and change the company to whom I pay my telephone bills.

• Most important of all 

Has the attachment made any changes in my life, enabled me to do things I would not otherwise have done?

Yes. I know even more about how much I don't know.

On the practical level on the strength of this attachment

• The librarians at my local library asked me demonstrate to groups of older members of the public how useful the internet and e-mail can be in their lives.
• I have also been asked by an adult education college to teach workshops next year on Writers and the Internet.

To mark the end of my attachment, to welcome Bernard Cohen and to say farewell to Dan I am holding a party for all trAce members and their partners in Leicester on Friday June 11th from eight o'clock onwards.  If you would like to come please mail me and I will send directions on how to get to my house