OK Guys,
I have acquired another GB of RAM and the process is now much better.
I see that the Render settings also makes a huge difference in speed, but also in quality.

I will search for a tutorial or two about this options and just experimenting till I get the best recipe.

I don't mind rendering say 800 X 600 until I am satisfied and then do one bigger super slow but good quality bigger render.

Thanks anyway for the interest and support.

By the way, with this one topic I have seen that this forum get more knowledge in answers than most other.

Regards
Johan