Aw shucks, Kat... gosh and goldarn it... I feel like Bashful from the Seven Dwarfs - thanks for the kind words.

I'm not the first one in the family to grow a beard - my mother's grandfather (a blacksmith) had one, and her two brothers grew beards in the Royal Navy in WW2 - but certainly the first one for many years. My son has one of those more-like-stubble beards that he keeps trimmed very close to the chin. Lord knows what the grandchildren will do...