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Christmas '92 Newsletter

This year has been a very busy one for the Jests and Jacksons, that is our excuse for a late Christmas letter, and we're sticking to it!

Kelly (22) graduated in Linguistics and Spanish at Hatfield Polytechnic, and is now living in Reading with friends, working hard to pay off her overdraft. She is planning to go to university next September to train as a speech therapist with an aim to working with autistic children. She has a new man in her life, called James, he had the benefit of a staggered introduction to our large family. In order to avoid giving him too much of a shock. He met the children first, our turn came later.

Damion(21) came home in September from serving two years as a missionary, spending one year in South-West England and one year in South Wales, he came back with a nickname of 'Action Jackson', which would be a major surprise to anyone who remembers his laid back attitude before his mission! Margaret says that experiencing the return of her missionary son made the two years without him completely worthwhile. He had a month at home before the start of term at Kings College, London University, where he is taking Classical studies.

Kirstine(20) is still at home with us and working in Reading while saving to go on her mission next October. She has made some new church friends in Reading, Newport and London, and has enjoyed some weekends away with them.

Sam(14) has started to work at school, his teachers always maintained that he could do it if he tried - he has moved up two groups in English and one in Maths. He gets up at 6:30 and goes to church to attend a study class most mornings and will be starting Venture Scouts with the same group of boys that he studies with.

Julian(8) waited until Damion came home for his baptism, combining it with Eleanor's blessing, which we held together on September the 6th. In addition to this he had his Cub Scout investiture on the following Tuesday and the start of his new school. After three years at a small Infants school the new one seemed quite daunting, not so much the academic but things like remembering his PE kit, homework book, etc. and persuading his parents to get up on time so that he won't be late in the morning and get a minus house point.

Harry(6) is a very determined character, always wanting to keep up with Julian, this motivated him to ride a two wheel bike at three and now to cast aside his arm bands and plough through the water with his eyes shut and arms flailing like mad. He is happy in the top class of the school that Julian used to go to, although staged a one man sit down because he was not a happy music and movement tree, rebelling against taking part in this activity with the other children.

Oliver(3) Is the latest to be liberated by riding a 2 wheel cycle without stabilisers, he was an unhappy walker to and from the other children's schools, but now just zooms backwards and forwards. He is a large child with a large personality which needs squashing from time to time (but not too much). He sends Eleanor into fits of giggles with his bouncy personality. At home he exhausts Margaret but in the church Nursery the teacher calls him her little angel, he is so unbelievably good that it is sickening!

Eleanor was born on the 1st of June, and is much loved by all, even Oliver who is impressed at being a big brother. She now is sitting up, and looks set to be Margaret's first dark haired daughter. She is a very peaceful child, but enjoys the company of her large family, already taking part in the boy's games, being nominated the starring role of Princess Eleanor.

Tony thought he was safe in his job, but these were very much "Famous last words", he was called into the boss's office in the morning, and had his desk cleared with a goodbye to all in the office by the afternoon. Fortunately a contractual 2 months pay in lieu of notice helped the search for a new job. Now he is working for a company 40 minutes to the South of Reading where the attitude of the management is so genial that it is almost disconcerting! He says that the one positive thing about the job loss was the experience of 22 interviews prior to the new job. He is teaching the 8 to 9 year olds in Primary, and his Cub Scout leader name is Baloo in the Church scouting programme. Along with Margaret he is also teaching Temple preparation lessons.

Margaret's challenge for the year was to get through her pregnancy and planned caesarian birth, a blessing given last Christmas gave her the assurance that all would be well. According to the promise of the blessing the birth was peaceful, the baby healthy, and a quick recovery was made. The only surprise being the non arrival of our baby son George, Tony waiting outside the operating theatre ignored the nurse's happy announcement of a baby daughter and carried on reading his paper. Rushed off of her feet would probably be Margaret's summation of the last half of her year, all of the above events more than contributing to this. After a year's maternity leave she is now back in the church Nursery as the leader for the 2½ to 3½ year olds.

We have almost come to the end of a marathon redecoration project in our bathroom, survived a drip through our bedroom ceiling that was sorted out most economically by a friend from Church, and Tony has enjoyed the arrival of a surplus computer from his new job. Although not at the forefront of technology, it is good enough for typing in this letter (printed off at work). We will now be looking for some educational games for the children to play on it, which will hopefully counter the influence of Sam's shoot-them up arcade style Sega games.

Our end of August family camping holiday probably deserves censoring from our memories, rain and wind is the summary for most of the 10 days before we threw in the towel, better luck next year.....!

We hope all is well with you and wish you a happy new year, with lots of love, the Jest Family.