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Christmas '96 Newsletter

The most startling news to report this year is that I now get up and go to work early. This radical departure from previous habits is due to Julian leaving the house at 7:30 in the morning to get to his new school on time. We are all getting up to have breakfast with him, and so I am normally surprised to find myself at work by 8:30. Since I still work late to avoid the bad traffic this means that I have accumulated enough hours to finish between 3 and 4 on Thursday and Friday. The only losers from this are Harry and Oliver, who have to walk to school rather than have a lift in the car.

The story of last year's Salmonella poisoning for Margaret, Julian and Harry finally ended a year after the event with a £50 compensation cheque from Safeway. I still get the odd rude comment from Margaret about my cooking expertise.

Yet again our summer holiday was on our friend's farm in Cornwall. Margaret's comparison of our Camping holidays to Outward Bound expeditions, was borne out by the nervousness of another friend at having to take the steep cliff side path up to our tent with her young family after our beach barbeque ended in the dark. Since we had not thought to take any lighting with us it was not a very enjoyable walk for her.

I have started another different project at work, quickly learning a lot of new things, this was hard but rewarding, since I did it quicker than I expected. Helping at Cubs still keeps me busy, I was camp leader again this summer. We had a "back to basics" camp, with only a water tap in our field - no kitchen, toilets or drains. Margaret was "volunteered" into being camp cook, she actually preferred not using the rather hygienically suspect facilities of an on site kitchen, instead cooking in a large marquee borrowed from the district Scout organisation. I have reluctantly become Quartermaster for both the church's Scout stores and the Stake Youth Camp equipment. I am slowly getting things organised and overdue repairs done. I am finding it difficult to work out how to issue and check back the stores without being too bureaucratic.

Our current project with the house is decorating outside. At Easter I had my Father renewing all the putty in the bottom rebates of the windows, this is a big job to do because we have nice sash windows all around the house. At the age of 73 he was still game to manoeuvre himself to sit outside on all our windowsills. He learnt this skill from re-glazing windows after bomb damage in London, and still gets a professionally straight and flat band of putty. After a busy summer when I put off painting the windows I am desperately trying to catch up before any hard frosts spoil his work.

In the Easter week we took advantage of a cut price ferry offer to France. For the princely sum of £14 we packed our car with Margaret and myself, the four children and my parents, drove to Portsmouth and caught the 11pm night ferry to Cherbourg. After a lot of excitement we settled down to sleep (some on uncomfortable seats, some on the floor) and arrived in France at breakfast time in a blizzard. Undeterred by this, we drove to Caen to see the Bayeux Tapestry, then on to Arromanches to see the remains of the D Day Mulberry harbour which my Father had helped to make in the London docks. We got back to Cherbourg with 15 minutes to spare, then discovered that Eleanor was not included on either of our passports, so we had some quick explaining to do before we were let onto the boat. We returned to Reading at 11:30 that night, with some exhausted children and perhaps even more exhausted adults.

This year I have been able to realise a long held ambition to learn how to sail. A friend of ours runs a water pursuits centre at a gravel pit just 10 minutes drive away. In exchange for my three boys and I doing some work we have had about 7 hours sailing in a single handed "Topper" dingy, which has been good fun. The one time it was not such fun was when I didn't check the main buoyancy chamber drain hole. Without its bung in the boat started to behave like a submarine, with its front ploughing under the water. The boys were not too keen about this, so I continued sailing by myself, eventually it became so unstable that I capsized. There was a lot of laughter once they saw I was safe - and especially when we found the empty drain hole. Sailing is also something that my Father has long wanted to do, so this Autumn half term I had him sailing around the lake dressed up in a full wet suit and life jacket. He thoroughly enjoyed it, even more so because we managed to do this without capsizing.

Margaret still childminds baby Bunty 3 days a week and teaches the home study seminary programme to youth aged 14 to 18, this year studying the New Testament. She enjoys the teaching very much, her week starting and ending with Tuesday (when she teaches the lesson). Sundays are now free and can be enjoyed at a leisurely pace. She says that she has never learnt so much in a short space of time. Last year she completed the Old Testament, which she loved very much, this year, having taught the life of the saviour from the four Gospels she says that it has been a special experience comparable with nothing else. She teaches a small group of 5 students who she looks upon as her little flock. We celebrated her 50th birthday this year with a trip to London, to spend a few days with the grown up children. This included a day sightseeing and shopping, a very good meal at an unusually refectory style Japanese restaurant called Wagamamas, and a visit to the theatre to see the Mousetrap. Margaret thought was so amazingly awful that it was laughable. She had such a good time that she would like to be 50 again next year.

Kelly graduated from the City University with a degree in Speech Therapy, she now works at a hospital near to her flat in Streatham. Her husband Tim has taken over Damion's job arranging residential letting at an estate agents near the British Museum.

Damion, having finished a year at work, is now back at university doing a 1 year Master's course in Political History at the London School of Economics. Sam has left home and moved to London to live with Damion, who now has the questionable privilege of keeping a brotherly eye on him. Sam works as a waiter at TGI Friday's, he still has some maturing to get under his belt, we are hoping that this will come in time.

Kirstine is still at home in Reading with us. She had a good paying job as a credit controller for 9 months, but did not enjoy it, so she decided to go back to studying. She is doing a 1 year foundation course in Social Sciences that will qualify her for a University course. She really enjoys the work, has managed to get a grant to help with living expenses, and supplements this with a part time shift work job answering Railway timetable phone enquiries, fitting this between lectures and in the evenings.

Julian (12) did not pass the test for Reading Grammar school. We feel this was for the best, since the boys are worked very hard there, and he does not cope well under pressure. The school we chose for him is 10 miles away in Maidenhead, which may sound rather strange. However, Desborough has a lot of good points. It is a boys only school, has a good academic reputation and just 900 pupils. A big bonus is that it is close to the train station and only 15 minutes by train from Reading West station, this is just 3/4 mile from home. Julian is finding settling in very difficult, he finds life lonely there because he does not make friends easily, so it is quite a battle for him to go to school every morning. It took him two terms to settle into his last school, wanting to leave it for the same reasons, so we are doing our best to encourage him to keep going. He remains a very conscientious and self motivated boy who reads his Scriptures and writes in his Diary every day. He enjoys cross country running, he ran for his school at a County event in November, coming 38th out of 148 finishers in his age group.

Harry (10) is finding homework harder now, he is having to stretch himself rather than relying on his natural abilities, as he has done in the past. He enjoys sport and cubs, where he is a sixer. He is not an unduly modest child, so, many people heard about his winning goal in the Cubs District cup final. They are finding the opposition stronger this year, losing two of their games so far, which has kept them a little more humble (probably a good thing). He is much more careful with traffic after a bruising from being knocked over on a visit to Damion in London. Damion suffered more from the shock of seeing him lying in the middle of the road and thinking the worst. He offers the most resistance of all the younger children to the idea of working in the home, often spending more effort on making up excuses than actually doing the job.

Oliver (almost 8) finished Primary school in the summer, for being a consistently good boy he won the "Best Behaved Leaver" cup. His Headmistress was amazed to hear that sometimes he is not so good for us; our standing joke with him is that any bad behaviour (and consequent red report stars) is saved for home, 105 Wantage Road being "Red Star House". He now goes to school with Harry, where he has settled in quickly. He has an air of quite confidence about him which makes other children look up to and respect him. We have not noticed this at home and wonder where it has come from. Oliver is our most reliable child, starting work quickly and without complaint, then continuing steadily until the end. He has just started Cubs, which he really enjoys.

Eleanor (4½) is progressing very well with reading, the head start that girls have over boys is very evident with her, she is quick to grasp situations and listen to instructions in a way that the boys seem almost unable to do. She is a girl who is difficult to reprimand, getting deeply upset if told off, she is also most particular about clothes, driving Margaret to desperation about what she does and does not like. I cannot imagine our family without her, her feminine influence is good for us all. Margaret does enjoy having a girl at the end of a long line of boys, her games are so very different - dolls in beds, tea sets and little houses made in various places around the home. Pretty things are very much noticed and admired and shopping is a positive treat because she enjoys it so much.

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