January

With only days to go it is hard to summarise all the events of this month.
John has adjusted well to the commute to London and we are considering having only one car...
Hannah celebrated her 13th with a party at home. Way too many girls, mobile phones, squealing and dubious music, but it was a hit all the same! We are aiming for a small intimate (quiet) gathering next year.
I have been busy job hunting and am still reasonably bouyant about the total lack of interest in my skills in this town.....it just all seems to take so long and that includes being told, 'no thanks'! John is the one who helps here. Lots of boosting. He is good at that.
The weather has been dismal. We both look at the garden all the time, but even after a dry weekend, it is too soggy to dig. Still, we have selected our potatoes for this year....very conservatively we have gone for Maris Piper.
Em and Adam are both well. Em is not playing in the orchestra this term as it clashes with netball....and she is thinking about moving on to clarinet after many years with the recorder.
Adam had his GCSE mock examinations with good results. It bodes well for the summer.
We have had the kitchen looked at for a major renovation to be done mid year. It will be costly and messy, but we think worth the effort.
The girls' obachan comes from Japan next month and we have all sent our wish lists. We now tune into the online TV news every morning and get all the updates. It is good for our Japanese.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to one and all. The holiday is over, the Christmas decorations put away for another year and the children back at school! We celebrated in Whitley Bay, John's home town on the north east coast of England. A lovely place with long beaches to walk on and lots of countryside. It was a short trip. We drove up on Dec 30 and were back here on January 2, which is in fact, John's birthday. The few days away were spent walking, eating, drinking and talking to family and friends. The perfect holiday.
Back to reality and I am on the hunt for a new job. I love the garden centre, but it is not very viable financially. The weekends are not a problem for me, in fact the weekend is not a bad time to be working as we tend to be busy and time flies, but it makes it a bit harder to organise family life. As we are only ever all together at the weekend, I see a lot less of everyone.
So I will be peddling my CV around town and will let you know how I get on.

Pussy cat bank

Bosley, our lovely big cat, has been fighting in the neighbourhood again. He has been off his food and has a nasty wound on his left foreleg. We had to take him to the vet today. The wound was washed and cleaned and he was treated with painkillers and antibiotics. I asked if we should insure him for the future, as pet insurance is quite common here. We were told, with his track record of fights, he would not be covered!! They advised we open a bank account in his name and put a little money aside each month to cover the cost of his next fight!! We may have to do that as today's bill was 84.00 pounds!

Season's Greetings

David, Emily, Hannah and me.
John, the girls and me.

I want to wish all of you the very best for the holiday season, wherever you are and however you celebrate. May you all have a safe, healthy and happy 2008.

Liz

(These photos were taken on the pier at Worthing today. We went out for a wet drive/walk. Nothing like the bracing sea air!)

Bathroom complete

The bathroom is finished at last and we are all loving the new power shower. Not to mention the streamlined look of the room itself. Pictures to follow. Now plans are afoot to start work on the kitchen (yippee) in the Spring.

We went to the Palace Theatre in London on Monday night to see Spamalot. This is a musical comedy that is so completely silly it is not really possible to explain, unless one is a die hard Monty Python fan. (Bristish humour). Adam, David, John and I had a really good chuckle though. Well worth the trip.

http://www.montypythonsspamalot.com/

Finally got out to Standen today after weeks of being absent. The task was to start planting the 7,500 mainly hawthorne 「クラタエグス・モノギナ（ヒトツブサンザシ）」saplings that will become the hedge around a field. I then got a message from the school asking me to go and get Hannah who is ill. This is her third day off this week. Sadly, I had to pack up my wellies and spade, but was relieved to see her looking only a little pale and relatively upbeat. Another day of rest at least.

To make up for not getting to dig this morning, I uprooted a mahonia tree [ヒイラギナンテン]that John had cut down earlier this year. We are going to use the space for our vegetable patch. It won't be long before we have seed potatoes in at work, so I want some of those and some garlic and onions to start with!!

Frost

The bathroom is looking better, the cabinets are in and so is the sink. I did not post a photo yesterday, will see how things look at the end of today. We need it done asap, you should have seen the frost this morning. It was like snow. Emily thought it was. The roof of the shed is still white with ice, as is the back lawn. I put feed out for the birds today. They need it. My heart goes out to anyone living on the streets in weather like this.

day two photos

Things could not get worse. There was a hole in the wall and we could see the garden!