Thank you gents,
Tom E, you must be in great shape with what you have to workout with then! I guess the neckline trim I had 2 weeks ago has helped keep it tidy, happily those edges are starting to grow in again now.

I think the beard makes my face more rounded - my wife thinks that it, along with having more hair than usual on top, makes me look more friendly which she likes, She isn't a huge fan of my usual buzzed look. She also thinks I should stop wearing the orange fleece now I have a ginger beard. Okay, maybe the red shirt is overkill...

Tom72 - I am very happy with things so far, I can't believe I've been doing this successfully for 9 weeks, the time has flown and I honestly thought I was just going to have slightly longer stubble beard than usual when I started out, before I came here and learned so much. I'm not 100% sure about my stache, it's as big as my nose! The rest is well behaved enough, but I still feel I'm waiting for the inspiration to do the right thing with the stache. Time will tell as usual.