Firstly ,you will be pleased to
know that we are all well. At least we
are all feeling OK. I have had quite a year health wise, having been
diagnosed with a gall stone at the end of last year. I finally went
in to hospital at the beginning of August and had my gall bladder
removed. It was keyhole surgery and I was only off work for 3
weeks. However during the operation my heart beat started going too
fast. So now I am having a series of tests for that and also they
discovered that my blood pressure has gone up a lot. Oh well, it wouldn’t do to
have a quiet life. The rest of the family have not been littering
the hospital and Stephen has just passed his flying medical, so is fine.
In between all this we have
managed to have two wonderful holidays this year. The first was a
week in Rome and Sorrento; so this means I have finally been to the Vatican and
also Pompeii and Herculaneum.
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| In our opinion, Herculaneum beats Pompeii |
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| Inside the rim of Vesuvius |
We also went to Vesuvius and Stephen climbed to
the rim. Although the hotels were only average it was still a great
holiday and the scenery along the Amalfi coast is breath-taking. It
was actually a guided tour so we travelled by coach between the two resorts and
were able to stop at Monte Casino and visit the monastery and also the War
graves cemetery; a very moving experience. Unfortunately this meant
we were out of the country when our nephew Gary got married, but it looked to
have been a fantastic day – congratulations Gary and Amanda.
Then in September we had a really
special holiday in America. We landed at San Francisco and stayed
there three days. This gave us time to see Chinatown, go on the cable
car, see the Golden Gate bridge and visit Alcatraz (and yes they did let us
out).
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| Looking out from San Francisco towards Alcatraz |
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| Cruising on Lake Tahoe |
We then drove to South Lake Tahoe, which is in the mountains
and stayed a couple of nights. We were able to go for a trip on the lake and
just relax. Driving out of Tahoe we travelled south through a
mountainous area, and had the thrill of a brown bear crossing the road just
ahead of us; it was amazing. Then it was down through Death Valley
and Yosemite National Park to stay at Lake Havasu, where they have the old
London Bridge. After this we drove on to Grand Canyon National Park
and stayed the night at one of the lodges.
We were able to watch the sun set over the canyon.
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| Waiting for sunset at the Grand Canyon |
Then we travelled to Bryce
Canyon and stayed there for two nights. The scenery was very
different and we were able to go for a walk down in to the canyon; it was about
4 miles in total and we went down 320ft into the canyon. It was also
about 100 degrees. Our third stay in a canyon was at
Zion and we both agree that it was our favourite. Instead
of being at the top, we were actually at the base of the canyon, with towering
cliffs above us. It was also the “greenest” of the three places we
visited, because of the small river that flows through it. There
were some brilliant walks. However the high point was coming out of
the restaurant at night and finding deer grazing on the grass. They
were totally unconcerned about us and Stephen was able to video them
grazing.
Finally we arrived at our final
destination - Las Vegas. It really is as brash and
glitzy as people make out. We were staying at the Luxor hotel
(actually in the Pyramid area) and on our first night were foolish enough to
walk about 2 miles up the strip, and then back again. There were
some amazing sights, such as the water ballet at the Bellagio casino and the
mini canal at the Venetian.
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| Our favourite - Zion Canyon |
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| True tourists - Margaret and Stephen pose with our pilot. |
The next day we had a plane flight back
to the Grand Canyon and then a coach tour to the rim. It was really
amazing flying over it all. On out final day we drove out to the
Hoover Dam and went on a guided visit down into the main generator
area. It really is the most incredible construction project. On the next day we had to pack our bags and
come home, back to reality. We really want to go back to the area,
but especially to Zion Canyon; it was just magic.
Nicholas has had a busy year
working in live sound and has been all over the country. However at
the beginning of December he started a new job. He is the UK sales
manager for a company called AUDIENT; they make and sell mixing desks and sound
equipment for the industry. He will be living in Basingstoke (funny
how that town keeps attracting members of this family) to begin with, but will
have to see how that goes. Congratulations Nick, we are really proud
of you. We are also very proud of the help he was able to offer the
parents of one of his close friends recently. We were all horrified
when his friend Charlie was killed in a car accident last month and Nick was
very supportive and helped arrange elements of the funeral and also a memorial concert
in Charlie’s memory.
Christopher has just started his
final year at university, having completed a year of work experience with a
small software house. He did some very difficult and complex work
and succeeded in everything he did. He did actually manage to go on
holiday and went back to Cyprus, staying in some apartments at
Pissouri. He had a great time and would love to be able to go back
again. I think the high spot was being able to still windsurf
without falling off the board, even after 10 years - it
really doesn’t seem that long since we lived there. Anyway he is
doing really well, so keep up the good work.
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| Small but terrific fun, Stephen's Avid |
For Stephen the main event of the
year was getting his own aircraft. It is a very small 2-seater,
called an AVID; although one of his friends calls it an APHID. At
the moment it is still down at Old Sarum airfield (Salisbury), but he hopes to
fly it back to near our home before Christmas. Because it is very different
from the aircraft he used to fly, he has had to undergo some additional
training. He had hoped to have finished by now, but the weather
keeps getting in the way. Still he seems to be enjoying it all.
My year seems to have been very
hectic. I still do my committee work for the children’s group from
my professional association and in January I took over as the South West rep on
the national committee. This means that I have to go up to London
four times a year for meetings, in fact I will be up there at the end of the
coming week (end of November). We had our annual
conference in Manchester in September and it was the first time I had been back
since being a student there, about 30 yrs ago – doesn’t time fly? I
have also just got back from a conference in Stafford that I attended for
work. So now I have got to write a report for our management
team. Other than this I have just been going to my embroidery group
and the WI whenever I can make it.
This year we have been able to
enjoy our back patio for the first time, although it got so hot I had to make
an awning to cover part of it. However it is so nice to be able to
sit out and enjoy the peace and scenery I the evenings, and even to have
breakfast on the patio. The next part of the garden project is
the shrub bed about half way up the garden. It is beginning to look
a bit overgrown, so we will probably take out the fuchsias and day lilies and
put in something different. Any suggestions from our gardening
experts would be welcome.
Well we hope that this Christmas
is particularly good for all of you and that 2004 allows all of us to slow down
and actually enjoy it.
