Well Christmas is over again for another year (all bar the indigestion!) and we thought we'd take the opportunity of a few minutes peace and quiet to let you know what has been happening to us over the past year.
Michelle has been very busy indeed and Mandy feels more like a taxi service than a parent! She enjoys school, especially organising all the other children during playtimes, but her teachers seem pleased with her progress. It's after school that her life becomes hectic. On Mondays she has swimming lessons in town and during the year she has learnt to swim and also gained seven badges for her efforts (Puffin, Waterskills grades 1 & 2, 5m, 10m, Red and Yellow). On Tuesdays it's dancing lessons, she now does ballet, modern and tap; she passed her first ballet examination with Honours (her examiner's reports stated "she made a convincing fairy"!) and she has just taken her first modern exam, also passing with Honours. Wednesday is trampolining at the local sports centre and she has passed the British Trampolining Association's Preliminary examination (twice due to clerical error!) but we have lost some bed springs where she has been practising. Thursday is gym club at school which is run by the headmaster and again she seems to enjoy it. Fridays is swimming again, only this time it's with the school during the afternoon. In the evening she goes to a singing group which Mandy runs at Church. Saturday she recovers!! Sunday is Church and if there is no school the next day she often goes to the Austin Rover Social Club with Nanny Pam and Grampy John where she dances the night away.
As you can see she has a hectic social life and we fit ourselves around it. Mandy has been particularly busy at Church in the past year as a Sunday school teacher and Youth Group leader. Within the Youth Group she runs the tuck shop and on days when she has been to the cash and carry our house resembles the corner shop until it's all put away. As mentioned above, she also runs a singing group called Central Sounds on Friday nights at the Church. The singing group was asked to organise the evening service for the Sunday before Christmas and, as you can imagine, it meant a lot of work for Mandy. The service seemed to be enjoyed by those attending, although we haven't been in Church since then to hear other points of view! Besides all the Church activities she has also typed the texts of two booklets, the annual report for the Church, maintained the Church telephone directory, as well as doing work for the school.
Well that only leaves Duncan and his time has mainly been spent in his primary activity of family fund raiser! He's still working for the same company but they have recently merged (just before Christmas) with another computer company and is now called Maindec. This means he will now have to travel to Wooburn Green (just north of Maidenhead) each day instead of Reading; its about 136 miles a day instead of 96 but time wise it's only about 15 minutes longer each way. The next few months will determine if it's feasible for him to work there or if he will have to look for a job closer to home. During the last year his job took him back to the company where he had spent the previous seven years in Swindon; he found it strange working there again but enjoyed it immensely, especially as he knew he didn't have to stay there! The cricket season was a bit of a disaster this year with the Church team being relegated to division 3 of the league for the first time in its history, but hopefully it will mean Duncan will find the opposition's bowling a little easier to deal with next season.
We spent a week in South Wales in May this year at Broadhaven. The hotel was ideally placed for Michelle with the beach literally across the road from the hotel and our room looked out onto the bay. We had a very enjoyable week there but we are sure several people in Pembroke thought Duncan was rather odd as he wandered around the town with a transistor radio glued to his ear on the Bank Holiday Monday when Swindon were playing at Wembley. Goodness only knows what they thought when he cheered out loud at the final whistle! In August Duncan had a week off work and we went away for odd days, visiting the Cotswold Wildlife Park amongst other places. In November we had a weekend away on the south coast whilst Michelle stayed with Mandy's Mum; it was our first time away together without her since she was born 6 ½ years ago, so as you can probably guess, we enjoyed it!
During November our new Church building was opened and whilst neither of us have been particularly involved in the detailed work for the building, it was a great sense of achievement when we finally moved in.
We took Michelle to an ice hockey match at the local sports centre recently, and when Swindon scored the very loud cheering and shouting frightened her so much she burst into tears! Still, she seemed to get over that, and the next time we took her she even joined in some of the cheering. We had planned to take her again at the start of December but the match was postponed due to the weather (it was the weekend of the blizzard and the opposition couldn't get here!).
In general our health has been pretty good over the year although Michelle had chicken pox during June; she enjoyed it so much she gave it to Duncan and he had to have two weeks off work to recover. Michelle had an asthma attack in November which we now 'keep an eye on' and has meant that the house has now become a no-smoking area. In January Michelle has to go into hospital for a minor operation on her ears (she is having grommets fitted) and she may also have her adenoids out. We are hoping all will go well but at least she doesn't seem too concerned about the operation.
We hope you are as well as you would like to be and that the coming year will be peaceful and happy for you.
