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CHRISTMAS 1999

Well, another year has flown by and here we are again trying to remember what has happened to us over the last twelve months.   For us, this has been a year of mixed fortunes.  

In May Mandy’s sister Terri, who lives in Perth Australia, came to stay in Swindon for 5/6 months, bringing 18 month old Imajyn (Terri’s granddaughter) with her.   How lovely it was to see them.   Unfortunately Imajyn’s toe became infected, and then became gangrenous.   Imajyn (and Terri) then spent many about twelve weeks in three different hospitals until the toe had repaired and Imajyn was well again.   It was very difficult watching as doctors stuck needles into a very distressed Imajyn.   Thankfully the toe has grown back and all traces of infection have gone.   What a shame doctor and hospital appointments dictated to the holiday.

    At the end of May we spent a week in Bournemouth while Michelle took part in the Music and Dance Festival there.   Our main holiday was in August when we went to Criccieth in North Wales.   Our favourite place to be is on the side of Snowdon - we climb up a waterfall (which we have named The Ball Fall) and enjoy the tranquillity of being alone in such a beautiful place.   All was going well until the last day when Duncan decided to be silly and slipped while climbing down and fell on a boulder.   After many hours of waiting in hospitals, we discovered he had broken off about a quarter of the ‘ball’ bit in the elbow joint.   Ouch!   The next day we travelled home and went straight to Swindon’s hospital, who wanted to pin it back into place.   We persuaded them to wait until the next day, but in the meantime they changed their mind and decided not to operate.   As you can imagine this rather put a stop to the rest of our holiday.   Duncan spent most of it either at the hospital or sleeping at home.   Four months on it has greatly improved, but Duncan can no longer straighten the arm - the muscles are still too tense.   He is able to drive again now, but finds lifting heavy things with his ‘bad’ arm too awkward.

Mandy’s mother Pamela has had a rotten time of late.   During the year she had two operations, and in October (two weeks after a replacement knee operation) she had a stroke.   Pam is affected on her right side, and is now blind in the right half of both her eyes; at first she could not talk and her memory had mostly gone.   ‘Devastated’ isn’t a strong enough word for what everybody felt.   After the first 3-4 weeks Pam improved ‘in herself’ even though the body still didn’t respond.   Two months on Pam was moved to a stroke rehabilitation unit in Marlborough where they work their patients hard to gain maximum mobility.   Pam has had to re-learn skills we all take for granted.   She can now sit up unsupported and lean without falling, and is learning how to stand up.   The most frustrating aspect of all this is with speech.   Pam tries really hard to talk, but words just won’t come out.   She can say about a few words, and is improving weekly, but it is still frustrating for her.   Communication has to be by asking ‘yes’ and ‘no’ questions for Pam to answer.   Although we cannot be sure, it seems that the reading and writing skills have been erased from her memory, so she will need to learn to read all over again.   Pam is showing remarkable good humour throughout her ordeal.   John (Mandy’s step-father) is also having to learn new skills.   He is having to look after himself and so learning all about cooking and cleaning and doing the laundry!   We are proud of how they are coping.

Individually, this is what we have been getting up to:

Michelle has been continuing to do very well with her dancing - probably due to the 350 lessons she has had!   This year she has taken five I.S.T.D. exams and she was pleased with herself for passing the Elementary Ballet exam set by the Royal Academy of Dancing because these exams have a 75% failure rate, and she passed first time.   This pass meant Michelle qualified to become a student member of the R.A.D.   This year she has won twenty one medals at three dance festivals, and danced at the Sadlers Wells theatre in London.   Michelle also took part in the Janet Cram Modern Awards and the Grandison Clark Awards competitions.   This year dancing has taken us to Bournemouth, Paignton, London, Manchester, Birmingham (in the Bird’s Custard Factory!) and Bristol.   At the Judith Hockaday prize-giving evening Michelle was awarded the senior section’s Song and Dance trophy, and the senior Attainment shield, and was runner up for senior Modern.   Michelle has now started working Saturday mornings (and some Monday afternoons) in the dance school’s shop, where she thoroughly enjoys herself fitting shoes, leotards etc etc.   Michelle also helped at the National Summer School week in July.   In November she was lucky enough to spend a week at the Performers College in Essex for work experience; she thoroughly enjoyed the experience, even if she was exhausted at the end of the week.   The only down side was she was very homesick - the mobile phone bill reflected this!   Rehearsals have already started for the dance school’s show at the Wyvern theatre, which will take place next April.

Apart from dancing, Michelle has been working hard at Greendown School.   She has recently been taking her mock GCSE exams in preparation for the real thing next spring.   It has been very hard work for Michelle to do all her homework and fit in dancing - so much so that although she wanted to take her friends bowling as a 15th birthday treat, we never managed to find the time to organise it.

Mandy started the year well by passing a Medical Word Processing exam with Distinction.   This combined with the exams she took last year means she has gained a RSA Diploma.   In January Mandy became involved in copying a 600 page book.   The book is by John Aubrey and John Jackson and called ‘Wiltshire Collections’.   Mandy scanned the entire book and sent it to someone in America who put it on CD.   The CD (for use with computers) of the book is now being sold through the internet and should shortly be advertised in the Wiltshire Family History Society’s monthly magazine.   The book is made up of notes that Aubrey made as he travelled around Wiltshire in the mid 1600s; he visited all the churches, writing down inscriptions that can no longer be read, and making sketches of family crests and other interesting items.   There are very few copies of the actual book left, so the project has hopefully preserved this wonderful book for future generations.

Mandy spent a week and a weekend in Truro, visiting Imajyn and Terri while they were in hospital.   Mandy feels she has spent too long in hospitals this year, but is grateful that it is not her that has been ill!   Although she is quite used to acting as chauffeur to Michelle, this year she needed to drive Duncan around as well (due to his broken elbow).   She found herself driving to Trowbridge, Birmingham, Truro and Bristol, but didn’t mind the Trowbridge meetings because it meant she could spend the day in the Wiltshire Records Office, where she found some four hundred year old documents (Wills and house hold inventories) of her relatives.   One day she came home with about twenty three new documents (33 pages in all), which she had transcribed.   These documents have proved very useful in helping sort out one particular branch of her family.   All the family history research has had to stop recently though, as Mandy spends time Pam.

Duncan celebrated his fortieth birthday this year, but shows no sign of slowing down and has had a year of being extremely busy at work.   Although based in Bristol for Cap Gemini, he has been maintaining the computer system for a call centre in Swindon that receives ten thousand phone calls a day.   Although he has enjoyed this work, it has meant spending many extra hours at the office.   Duncan has therefore not managed to play cricket at all this year, only managed to watch a couple of Swindon football games, and has had to give up operating the microphones at church after some twenty four years.   The Swindon work looks as though it is coming to an end soon, so no doubt the New Year will bring changes to his location.   Duncan, too, has had to put his family research pretty much on hold as he hasn’t had any spare time.


We hope you have an enjoyable Christmas, followed by a happy and healthy New Year.


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