Our News - 2007

Year End

We ended the year with a much-needed holiday in Switzerland and France. We stayed a week over Christmas at Kandersteg in the Bernese Oberland, and then a week at Samantha and Mike's near Basle, and enjoyed the first two-week break we've had in nearly four years. We took the Hull - Rotterdam ferry and drove all the way, which is not as bad as it might sound as driving on the continent is much easier than here - mostly clear roads and motorways.

November / December

Jean's Kumon centre ran an awards ceremony in late November in conjunction with the other centres in the area. We filled up the Romiley Forum theatre and made it a really good do for the children.

October

Family - David & Lynne went to Cornwall again and Charlie enjoyed the beach - mouthfuls of sand, apparently. Jennie and Ian have been even busier than usual at their work - an office move and integration of another business with theirs and more besides, but despite this they've had an extension built on their house, moved the kitchen into it and the old one now makes a great dining room.  Sam and Mike's house is coming on great guns. The garden's now been landscaped and grass and some plants in. And they've got flood prevention measures in!

At home - We've been doing some work on our own house - remodelling the garden a bit as we at last got to take out three of the big old Lime trees, though we've planted some new semi-mature Hornbeams at the far end.

Us - Jean's been to Cyprus with her sister Christine to get a gravestone arranged for the grave of her brother John, who died last December out there. The weather was fine - mostly warm and sunny, sometimes hot, so she's a bit depressed at our increasingly wintry weather on returning home.

'Business' Jean's Kumon centre is continuing strongly, and keeping us both busy. We've just recruited new assistants from the local sixth form college at Marple and from Stockport Grammar sixth form, which will help to keep it manageable. We held an Open Day in late September and bought and paid to send out 10,000 leaflets in the area using a distribution company, but they messed up the job and we reckon they only actually sent out about 1000. After some pressure they've agreed to give us half our money back. That doesn't really cover the loss though, as we'd expected to recruit several more students from the Open Day and we just got one.

August

Two big events this month.

We went down to David & Lynne's for Charlie's first birthday party. Here are a few pictures of him enjoying himself:

We had another trip to see Samantha, Mike and Elizabeth at the end of August, and it was nice to see them. We went out on the ferry from Hull, overnight, and drove to them from Rotterdam. Even though it was a bit further than their previous home, it was still an easy drive and much more pleasurable than the airlines' cattle trucks. Their house is very nice indeed now, with only the garden really to finish (and something to stop future flooding!) We're hoping to see them again sometime around Christmas / New Year, but arrangements not sorted yet.

The middle picture below is a panorama of Thann - it was an exhausting climb to get it.

July

David, Lynne and Charlie came up for the weekend and we had a great time with them.

We're well into our fruit and vegetables from the garden - we've had a couple of kilos of raspberries and have just dug up all the potatoes. We  got lots out but have not weighed them. Should last us for many weeks. The peas are cropping and we've had a couple of meals using them, but the beans have yet to produce much and the strawberries were a washout this year. We've just got permission to remove three of our lime trees in the middle of the garden, and we've planted five hornbeams at the top. Flowers are not doing at all well this year, with the rain and cold, although the new lavender hedge at the front has at last bloomed - it looks really good despite the wet.

We went down to Dorset again to see Rhys' mother, and managed to get some sunshine there, so got in some good walking on the coastal path.

Jennie and Ian have been on holiday to Austria, driving; David, Lynne and Charlie had a week in Cornwall, Peter, Lianne and the boys have had their holiday in Majorca and Sam, Mike and Elizabeth just returned from the Vendee in France. And we're looking forward to our next trip.

May/June

We just got back from France where we spent a few days with Samantha, Mike and Elizabeth at their new house. It's very close to the Swiss border - just a couple of hundred yards - and there's even a Swiss tram to and from Basle/Basel that runs through their (French) village, which is great for getting about. Very hot weather when we got there, but degenerated in a few days and dumped a foot of snow on the nearby Swiss Alps. Still, we had a great time exploring and testing out the local restaurants, both sides of the border. (We'll have to swot up on our German again though - we needed the staff to translate a local delicacy that we didn't recognise into French - turned out to be 'escargots' - snails!) and lots of asparagus everywhere.

David, Lynne and Charlie went off on holiday to Cornwall, and Peter, Lianne, Jack and Tommy went off on theirs in Spain. It was strange not having Tommy about all the time. And Jennie's got a big birthday!!!

The potatoes, peas, beans and lettuces are all doing well and we've started eating our first crops of the year.

April

Samantha and Mike are moving in France, from near Strasburg to near Basle on the Swiss border. We hope to go out to see them in their new home soon.

March

We had a trip to Dorset in March to see Rhys' mother, Jean's Uncle Graham and niece Nicola so didn't manage much relaxation. We stayed at a lovely B&B at Kimmeridge which was far better than most of the nearby hotels, and better value for money.

February

More bad news, unfortunately. Jean's youngest brother Ron died on Sunday 25th February, suddenly, though after a long illness that had appeared to be stable. He was much loved and will be greatly missed. His funeral was Tuesday 6th March and at least 300 people attended - a great send-off.

We had a visit from Charlie, Lynne and David earlier in February and here is one of the pictures Rhys took of them. Charlie's moving on with his solids and seems to be doing well on them. He's got his second tooth giving him a bit of grief though. They've had a short break at CenterParcs to get in a bit of well-needed relaxation.

Beginning of the year:

We had a nice Christmas this year with Boxing Day at Jennie and Ian's, where we were treated to a hike over a nearby hill (seemed more like a mountain!) in the afternoon, followed by a few days at David and Lynne's and then Peter and Lianne and the boys over at the weekend. New Year was less energetic than usual - we didn't go up to Scotland because we were hoping to be moving house, so we just booked a nice black-tie dinner-dance at The White House in Prestbury, which was fun. Rhys managed to avoid slipping a disc while demonstrating how the twist should be done properly!

Unfortunately the New Year brought some bad news, as Jean's brother John had died in Cyprus at the end of December. It was obviously difficult for Jean and John's daughter Stacey sorting out his affairs and arranging the funeral in Cyprus.

On our visit to David and Lynne's we were delighted to see how well Charlie is coming along - like Bustopher Jones he's 'putting on weight every day'! No doubt this will soon come off as he starts crawling and getting about - he's already very active and it's nice to see how cheerful he is usually. He's started on some not-very-solid solids already!