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Christmas '87 Newsletter

The time has come for my conscience to spur me into action to write again! So, here are the excuses as to why it hasn't been sooner...

Excuse 1 is that we have moved. We were able to move because of excuse 2, which was that after 9 months of looking for the "right" new job I finally found it - the salary increase meant that we could afford to buy the bigger house.

Our new home is conveniently placed, being closer to church (30 minutes walk) but further from town and its shops to spend money in! Also it's OK for the older children with schools and college. Going to work is now a 1/2 hour's cycle ride, so I bought a new lightweight racing cycle to get there even faster. The house is a step up from the old one, again built around 1900 but has more room. An extra bedroom means that we don't have 3 year old Julian sleeping in our room, which is good since he's a light sleeper. Another nice thing is having a hall, so the sitting room isn't a permanent corridor, as with the old place. What really 'sold' the house to us though, was that it has what the estate agents call "many original features". The two flights of stairs have turned banisters and posts, most of the rooms have the old cast iron fireplaces with tiled surrounds, and all of the doors, windows and woodwork in the house are original, having the fine detail you don't get in modern homes. Another plus is that it is semi-detached so we no longer have cycles making a daily through journey. We haven't missed the river from the bottom of the garden because we are still not overlooked, we back on to a company owned sports ground, and have the original brick walls to the garden so it's quite private. The garden has been neglected, and there will be work to do on it this summer, I have the time to do this though, because the house is in good general order, despite its age. The biggest project of all has almost been competed (thanks to a starting boost from my father) - that of fitting carpets in all of the rooms.

With all of the fuss and bother of moving we haven't had the time or money to think about a holiday this summer, what we're doing is staying for a week on Margaret's sister's yacht at Chichester. We will use it as a floating holiday home and they will come down for a weekend and take us out sailing.

Naturally, the children are growing fast. Julian is getting tall, and 1 year old Harry is still the very solidly built child that he started out as at birth. Because he is big everywhere the concentrated weight means that he feels really heavy to carry round. This, along with the fact that Julian has inherited my childhood aversion to walking, means that Margaret has quite a task in getting around town with them, a car would make things much easier, but that is not there yet in our list of must have purchases. We have had our fair share of dramas to accompany the 3 teenage children, who are rapidly wanting to do their own thing, though the increase in space with the house has helped to defuse a lot of the tension we were experiencing from living on top of each other.

Margaret is soldiering on as primary chorister; she still finds it a difficult calling to do, because of having to be the leading voice. However, she makes up lots of activities to go along with the singing, which the children all enjoy. I have my job as counsellor to the Bishop, chasing people to give them Sunday meeting talk assignments among other things. Having this job was not as exciting to me as my previous one on the stake Young Men's presidency, however it certainly presents different challenges, since it causes much more interaction with people. This contact has meant I have been led to care more for others thorough having to serve them, which has helped me a lot - I'm settling down to it much better now.

My youngest brother Graham has finished school; he's waiting for a church mission call, to make it 4 brothers out of 4 to have served missions. Martin qualified as a dentist recently, and Robin has settled into a job after completing his church Mission. It will be nice for our children to have uncles providing such good examples.