Oct 06 2009
Christmas 2004
My darling husband has dug his heels in this year and stuck to his guns re refusing to join in our usual pre-Christmas ritual of sending out cards and a newsletter. I kept telling him how good he was at doing it but all to no avail so I’ve had to get my backside into gear if you were to have any word from us whatsoever. I’m not as efficient as Bill is so Christmas may be long gone by the time some of you are reading this – particularly those in foreign parts – but at least I made the effort ….. I swear as far as Christmas spirit goes, Bill has definite Scrooge tendencies this year ….
So, what news? “Where has 2004 gone to? “ I ask. What have we been up to? The year really does seem to have sped by. It’s amazing how awful my memory is these days – I can’t remember what I did last week, let alone the rest of the year…..
I guess the highlight was Bill’s 60th in April. We booked to go on a week’s Caribbean cruise…just the 2 of us….treat it as the honeymoon we didn’t get last year (when we took Carla and her friend, Dominique, camping with us in France)…….. BUT ….. we felt too guilty …. so … we asked all the girls if they’d like to come with us…. And 3 of them (Jo, Alisa and Carla) took us up on the offer…. We were really pleased they did as we all had a great time and visited (albeit rather briefly) some interesting places – Jamaica, Mexico, Cuba, Grand Cayman… Bill’s birthday was pretty special but the highlight for me was swimming with stingrays on the penultimate day…
Our other holiday – again camping in France with Carla and Dominique – was a bit of a washout to put it mildly. It literally hardly stopped raining (or thundering and lightening!). It was a lovely part of Brittany but it was just too wet! After 8 days of almost non-stop rain we’d had enough (and we’d practically run out of dry clothes) and decided to return home early and perhaps treat ourselves to another break later on….
Holidays seem an absolute luxury for us at the moment. We are sooooo busy with selfcateringhols that we can hardly spare the time to take a break. It seems to get busier and busier and the more we do, the more there seems to be to do. My 2 sisters – Les and Di – started working for us part time in February mainly putting properties on the site (we’ve now got over 500 properties worldwide …so, if you – or anyone you know!! – are looking for self-catering accommodation, make sure you take a look at what www.selfcateringhols.com has to offer…(Bill says I never stop selling!)). They also do weekend cover so that I now only have to work 1 weekend in 4. It’s a real family business – what with Bill, Doug (Bill’s younger son) and I owning it, James (Bill’s elder son) doing the website development and Di and Les (my sisters) putting on the properties, etc…. even our travel writer is an Andrews – but that’s a pure coincidence, no relation!! 2004 has seen the business really progress well – culminating in a major site upgrade just this last week – and we have high hopes for 2005.
Doug and Jo moved out of central Barcelona this year to a lovely place in Colserolla National Park in the hills behind Barcelona yet still less than 1/2 hour right into the city centre. One of the consequences of being in business with Doug is that we have to have the odd board meeting. Our last one was in September and we spent a very pleasant (but hard-working!) week with the family in Barcelona. We did allow ourselves a day off on the Sunday and spent a particularly lovely day on the beach with Doug, Jo and the 2 grandchildren – Gabriel (4) and Olivia (2). Olivia can be a little madam but is adorable and I can tell will shortly be able to twist her doting granddad round her little finger…
James and Rachel are currently in San Francisco nearing the end of a 6 month “house swap”. James has recently been totally tied up with delivering our long-awaited site upgrade but we believe it’s been worth the wait. Rachel, too, seems to have had a pretty successful year with several exhibitions both at home and abroad.
Nicola continues to build on her second attempt at further education at Newcastle College honing her office skills and earns much of her spending money as a cashier at Asda. Jo also earns for herself as a waitress at the local golf club and she and Alisa are enjoying their 2 year Travel and Tourism course at South Cheshire College. Jo did particularly well last year by being the first student on the course to ever get distinctions for every assignment. Jo is just recovering from a 5 &1/2 week separation from Russ (her boyfriend) who has just returned from an enviable, long holiday in Thailand….
Carla continues to play hard and work not so hard. Most of her time seems to be taken up with friends whether it be visiting them, going out with them, having them round, chatting on the phone to them or MSNing them. Somehow she still fits in netball, RAF, music and some school work but has little time for music practise, tidying/cleaning her room or basically doing anything around the house/with us. 2005 will have to see some changes with GCSEs looming large.
Leisure-wise we’ve managed quite a few trips to the theatre, a few weekends in Wales, the odd weekend with friends (here, there or in Wales), quite a bit of tennis (Bill has played regularly throughout the year, Sue hardly at all- but I have started swimming), yoga, etc. Bill did organise a trip to Old Trafford for the 1-day cricket international, but that, too, was rained off – they had a great day out!!
Yes, in summary, 2004 has sped by, been very busy and very wet!
2005 promises to be busy too. We’ve already got a week’s holiday (to make up for the curtailed French trip) and a board meeting in Barcelona planned for January… a major building project – dividing our house in Criccieth into 2 apartments – starting beginning of February hopefully…. Several theatre trips already booked…. I just hope it’s not going to be so wet!