Another year has departed, filled with a medley of sadness, joy, things done, things not quite got round to, but as trainee wrinklies with an enthusiasm for life I think we have managed to keep our end up…
Hospitals have been a bit less of a feature than in 2002. Graeme’s recovery has progressed well and he is back to holidaying (if not partying) hard. Judith accompanies him to the gym every Saturday to make sure he actually gets there and makes sure he remains fit enough to organise her holiday schedule.
The BIG news of our year is Fleur’s engagement to Keith Mitchell which was carefully stage-managed during our family trip to Edinburgh in August for the Festival. Outside of India, rarely can the parents have been so intimately involved by the wannabee fiancé in the proposal process… A venue has been found (Vaulty Manor, in deepest, darkest rural Essex) and a date set for September 2005 so get ready to help welcome Keith into the family. And a big thank you to our old(est) friends Terry and Rita Holliday in Weymouth for helping to source a Scottish engagement ring. As you might guess, there is likely to be quite a bit of tartan in evidence at the wedding and maybe the odd bagpipe to aggravate the neighbours, though in the interests of cultural balance there will also be an opera singer (very posh tottie, Ed]. In the meantime Keith has been designated a trainee Scot…
Judith retired from the university (at last) at the end of April, but was back at work within ten days. She expected to have so much leisure time to cook, sort out photographs, tidy her study and read all those books piled up beside her bed but this has not quite happened. She is now working three days most weeks and has filled the slack with much more interesting things such as tai chi, art history and French classes. Even so, we managed to get a fair bit of use out of our National Trust membership over the year plus a few days for culture and theatre; well, to be brutally honest, we averaged better than two theatre (or ballet or opera) performances per month and about one art exhibition per month throughout the year; not counting a lot of literary events, local parties, Guilds, the Rotary Ball, several quiz evenings, a tour of Clarence House and the stunningly repulsive Body Worlds exhibition in Brick Lane early in the year. And our village had probably the best Open Gardens year ever. If we really need an excuse for all this activity it’s that life is there to be lived, especially before we become crumblies rather than mere wrinklies…
And it has been a cracking year for holidays. In March we organised a Luncheon Club trip to Padstow for two nights of seriously alcohol-fuelled Rick Stein over-indulgence and managed to fit in Buckfast Abbey, Dartmoor and the Eden project as well as trips to see Louise (Judith’s goddaughter) and Terry and Rita. In April it was the annual WEA trip, this year to Ghent, Bruges and Lille; lots of art and culture but we were so knocked out by the sheer beauty of Bruges (not to mention the quality of the hot chocolate and the beer, Judith is now officially a Bruges Blonde) that we went straight back again in May. And in between the two Bruges trips we managed a week in Tenerife and enjoyed that so much that we added another week of timeshare to our portfolio… In July we visited Weymouth to check out the engagement ring and then drove up to Chester for (niece) Karima’s splendid 21st birthday party. August brought the Edinburgh Festival week, made extra special by Fleur’s engagement and, as before, we visited Neville & Lorna Huxtable on the way up (good to see them both well and enjoying life) and Chester on the way back. Whilst in Edinburgh Rory joined us as an illegal immigrant to our rented apartment in Fountain Court; to everybody’s amusement they had given us Room 101, the room Graeme lived in for six months when exiled there by IBM to consult with the Bank of Scotland. And Graeme took the opportunity to collect his kilt, there now being a growing number of enthusiastic kilt-wearers in our village… In September we celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary and treated ourselves to an extended holiday; a few days in Barcelona enjoying the delights of Gaudi and the Ramblas, not to mention the tapas and sangria (and sangria, and sangria), followed by a long Mediterranean cruise and a few more days on the Ramblas to finish off with. As cruise virgins we were not quite sure whether it would be our sort of thing, but now we have no doubts; it was just ace. The ship was wonderful – a fair bit larger than the QEII and just over double the gross tonnage of the Titanic. The weather was almost perfect and the itinerary ideal for us. So much beauty to enjoy along the Mediterranean and Adriatic coasts, fun landings in picturesque ports, excursions to interesting places, the exuberance and bonhomie of new friends on board, fine food and cocktails, great service, good natured entertainment and new experiences. And in Venice Judith broke the UK all-comers record for handbag buying – six in twenty minutes… We’ll be back…
Early in the year Graeme was invited to become a trustee of the Chelmsford Counselling Foundation and also their treasurer; nice people to work with and nice for him to be able to keep involved in business planning and system changes, so he has not completely stopped being a computer nerd…
The big sadness in our year was the death of our young niece Natalie in Linlithgow. We all knew that it could happen but that never does prepare you for the event itself. Samantha and Neil organised a beautiful, moving service for her at an overflowing St Michael’s Church in Linlithgow, full of colour, song and poignant anecdotes, and a nice reception after the interment; it was nice to see the entire family present, even though for such a sad event. She is never far from our thoughts.
As before Rory has supplied his own his perspective on the year, but before you get to that we want to wish you a very happy Christmas and another happy, healthy and prosperous year in 2004.
Graeme & Judith ([email protected], [email protected])
From the desk of the young laird…
[too much Monarch of the Glen, Ed]
Hello all.
Yet again I haven’t been up to much this year. On the work front I have been very busy – I am still at T-Mobile looking after Radio Performance and on-line tools. I was promoted to Senior Engineer and have a small team of two engineers at present (currently recruiting a third if you know anyone with VB, SQL & GSM experience and enthusiasm). As part of my exciting new duties I was parcelled off to Vienna and Frankfurt to tour the airport, hotel and a selection of dull meeting rooms.
I have also bought a new car – the old Fiesta was starting to fall apart, and rather than pay to have it fixed and MOT’d, I bought an X-Reg Peugeot 206 (in a nice vegetarian green colour) with all the trimmings; I had never heard of automatic windscreen wipers before, so they came as a bit of a surprise…
Squash has consumed a fair bit of time as well; we have five regulars now and the powers-that-be have obediently built a new gym right next to work. Am also busy intimidating people at chess – I am not that good, but people seem to think I’m a Grandmaster or something so desperately over-think everything I do and miss the basics. Eventually I will be found out, but never mind…
I was planning on moving up the property ladder this year; around May I had a look around and couldn’t find anything I liked. I am after much the same as I have now, maybe a bit bigger, with a garden and perhaps a garage. What I realise now is that I needed to specify that I wanted a garden large enough to fit me in it. I was also put off by the hassle of having people traipse around my flat, but I will have to get over this and will probably have another nose around the market in January (this is all part of my master plan to move steadily up the property market until I can afford to sell up and do a self-build eco-friendly house, sandals included).
Had also planned to do a sponsored walk around Nepal (raising money for Marie Curie), however my grand plan to rope in several others of ran out of time so I will be looking to do the same sort of thing next year.
Rory [email protected]