|
|
|
|
We had a few days of good snow in January. The children at school were ecstatic - and as it didn't last too long, and melted almost overnight, we enjoyed it too. Here is Polesden Lacey, one of our local National Trust properties, looking very picturesque.
One of our Christmas presents was a credit card sized digital camera (from Marion and Vince). Quite a lot of the following pics are taken with it, including this, a view downriver from the bridge, towards St.Paul's.
We joined a newly formed Hash group, in addition to OCH3 - the Socially Up and Cumming Kent, or SUCK H3 (the name is no responsibility of mine..). We went on the run in Boxley. Here's the hare "Lighthouse" showing us the sign for an en-route beer stop.Unfortunately, we had to struggle to the top of the North Downs on a very muddy day to get to it! Lovely run though.
7 March 2003. Grandma - Louise Holmes, nee Squire - was 90! Unfortunately the celebrations were muted by the death of her son David Holmes (1938-2003) only a few days previously. He had been suffering from serious heart disease for some time, and the end came as a release, but we will all miss him. Towards the end of the year, in November, family friends Ann Johnson and Betty Newboult also died.
We took Ric and Nic to Heathrow airport on 1st March, for their flight from London to Bangkok, on the first leg of their World Tour. They had spent a few weeks previously with us.
On 22nd March we went over to Reading, to see our new great nephew, Thomas Pierce Hunt. Here he is, looking gorgeous. He has red blond hair, like his mother. Go to Thomas's page to see lots more pictures. Speaking of new babies; the news from Liverpool was that Ed's cousin Ruth has had another little boy - Darren Thomas, born on 8th July.
I'm still working at Woodside School. Life was enlivened in March by the threat of swingeing cuts to our budget allowance, along with all other Croydon LEA schools. Our school found itself with a £91,000 shortfall compared with 2002, and the headmistress couldn't make ends meet. She and other Croydon heads refused to set budgets until the situation was reviewed. Croydon blamed the Government funding changes, the government say Croydon knew these were in the pipeline and failed to make allowances. After much lobbying and discussion, more money was eventually forthcoming, and a budget was set, with nobody losing jobs or hours.
In July, our head of 18 years Chris Blackbourn, retired, so we started the new academic year in September with a new broom, Kate Magliocco.
I went with a group of children and staff from Woodside to see the Irish/Caribbean combo "Spud & Yam" perform at the Multicultural Resources Exhibition, usually held in Barnet, but this year handily round the corner in Croydon. The children sang, danced and played along, and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.
The London Marathon was run again, on 13th April. Here's Paula Radcliffe, running with her minders at the half-way stage of her great world record breaking victory.
And here's Peter at the end, wondering if he's got enough energy to take the other shoe off.
But 3 hours 35.05 mins, in your first marathon for about 20 years; it's something to be proud of! He was 4,716th, and finished well ahead of the other Locking in the race, 26 year old Thomas, who took 4 hours and 7.53 mins.
Peter was running for my pet charity, the 999 Club.
We went for a long Easter weekend in Barcelona. We really liked it. The highlight of the visit was Gaudi's Temple de La Sagrada Familia, a triumph of neo-gothic cathedral building. See all and read all about our Barcelona trip.
Here's my annual Bluebell photograph. I just love to see carpets of them in the woodlands at this time of year. Ed took this of me in Hatchlands Park, on May Day Bank Holiday.
After Easter, we went for a weekend in the Isle of Man, with Jen. Here's the Old Parsonage at St.Jude's, where we stayed. A lovely house, and very hospitable hosts, Rita and Michael Souter - we can recommend it! See the full set of Isle of Man pictures here.
Ed surprised me (and himself, I think!) in May by bidding for, and buying, a long-case clock at auction on ebay. It's a fairly rough country clock, made in Alnwick in the mid 19th century, but the makers' names, apart from "L & T...." and the start of a curly letter that could be a C or an O, possibly, have been rubbed off. The face is nicely painted, with picturesque ruins and buildings, and scene of cavaliers at the top. We sent it off to have it repaired and restored, and got it back at the beginning of November. Since buying his clock, Ed's been doing some research into English long-case clocks and their makers. So we went to the Clock museums in Colchester and St.Edmundsbury, to check them out.
As has become a tradition, we went to the Derby at the beginning of June. We walked over the Epsom downs from "The Blue Ball" at Walton on the Hill, and went in free through the public footpath on to the hill - along with dozens of others. Kieron Fallon brought Kris Kin home in the big race, to Ed's joy, and here he is with his winnings to prove it!
The fate of the boat. Bit sad
For anyone who was following the epic voyage of "Te Kore" across the Mediterranean with Don and Linda Laing in 2001, here is the sad post script to their doomed voyage..
E mail from Vivian Grimshaw to Don Laing, 12 Jun 2003
"Hi Don, I've just got back from Mahon, you got it right, Mahon harbour was hit by a 10m tsunami. Te Kore was smashed against the harbour wall, a 2.5m x 1m hole was made in the port hull & the port forard cleat was ripped out and she sank. I am trying to sort out the insurance now, she may be a write off, but I would like to rebuild her. I am totally gutted, she sank at an angle across the walkway it was so dramatic they used the picture of her for the front page of the newspaper!"
Mum and Dad were with us for a week in June. We went to the South Bank. Here's Mum in front of "Blockhead" the inflatable artwork outside Tate Modern.
And here they are posing beside the Millenium Bridge across from St.Paul's.
Mum, Dad and I went to the Museum of Garden History, in St.Mary's Church, next door to Lambeth Palace.
On Saturday we went to Hampton Court. Here they are admiring a prickly pear.
Me and them in the rose garden!
On Saturday 28th June, our niece Dawn married David Hunt. We went to Reading to see it.
Here we are - see all the pictures here.
Our friends Joan and Ted Johnson's son Keith married Katherine (Kate) White on 5th July. Here they are with the happy couple, bridesmaids and ushers. See their pictures of the day.
Still talking of weddings, Susan Cutsforth read my article about Wedding Dresses elsewhere on this site, and was kind enough to send me a picture of her own dress at her wedding in February this year. It was a rather beautiful dark green velvet gown (a re-used bridesmaid dress from 2000, apparently) worn with a matching, gold-lined trained cloak. I have been rather pleased with the steady response to that page - Susan's is the 2nd set of wedding photos I've received, and there have also been a number of comments and queries from students, about it.
We had a very nice week in Keswick, with Mum and Dad and P & J. Here are Mum and I at Levens Hall, with it's extended Pele Tower and wonderful topiary garden. Go here for a few more pics.
I've recently been enjoying a correspondence with a 2nd cousin, Susan Neboux, about our shared Winks ancestry. I was delighted when she sent me a set of pictures from her album, including one of my Gt Gt Gt Grandfather, Joseph Moore Winks, who lived 1825 - 1915. His was the picture I most regretted losing, when I failed to inherit my gt grandmother's photo album. So all's well that ends well, then.
Lissa came to stay during one of the hottest weeks of the year, but we still managed to get about, by dint of walking slowly and sitting in the shade a lot! We went to the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum in Sussex. This has been a stunning year for roses, and even though my little camera never does them justice, I can't seem to resist taking them. This one was at Bateman's, Rudyard Kipling's old home.
We went to Tenterden, mainly to see a very entertaining production of "A Merchant of Venice" at Ellen Terry's house at Smallhythe. But we looked in at the station to see the steam trains, while we were in the area. There we saw this wonderful steam roller, so I took its picture in memory of my great Grandad Jim Holmes, who used to drive one. The same day we saw a marvellous collection of old Morgan cars at a little one man museum in Rolvenden. We paid another visit to Ightham Mote, in Kent. They were doing a lot of renovation work, but the courtyard was as lovely as ever. We then moved on to Chartwell, or possibly Hever - I forget which day was which now!
We only went down to the South bank on a Saturday once this summer, to see what was going on. We enjoyed some African drumming at the Festival hall, and the "victorian" Gaiety Engine at the NT. All good fun.
We had a brilliant time at the Edinburgh Festival again this year, rushing around like mad things trying to squeeze as many shows as possible into our 3 and a half days, and staying with Norma. We didn't see quite such a variety as last year - nothing at the Book festival this year, no poetry and not so much keyboard music, but it was still wonderful. Our Palme d'Or went to "Nine Parts of Desire", written and performed by Heather Raffo (above) about contemporary Iraqi women, their struggles and fears. Deeply moving, she was strong and dynamic in the roles she played, revolving around the models painted by artist Layal.
See my list for a comprehensive list of what we saw.
We went to several exhibitions this year, including to Greenwich to see David Starkey's Elizabeth I at the Maritime Museum. It was excellent, with many great portraits, artifacts and documents, including letters written by Elizabeth that are quite legible to the modern eye, with minimal effort.
Of course, no trip to Greenwich is complete without a pilgrimage to the Harrison clocks...This is H1.
September came and the holidays were over for another summer, but we had a lovely day in Winchester. Here is the cathedral (people of our generation feel free to sing the song here) which we loved. We spent ages in the choir stalls, and saw the Winchester Bible and the medieval library, and the graves of King Canute and St.Swithun, but somehow missed Jane Austen and Isaac Walton. A pleasant city, with interesting museums - we need to go again.
In September, we took advantage of the opportunity of London Open Weekend to see inside important buildings that are usually closed to the public. We started here, at Marlborough House. Built for the first Duke, and subsequently lived in by dowager Queens Adelaide, Alexandra and Mary. It was lovely. Other highlights of our tour were the Crown Offices at Carlton House Terrace; the Banquetting House; the Foreign and Commonwealth Offices - interiors by George Gilbert Scott and Matthew Digby Wyatt - and Australia House. A very pleasant day out.
At the end of October, a group of us, instigated by Mary Brooks, decided to take up the Long Distance Walkers' Association London Group's Founder's Challenge for 2003 - a Marathon length 26 mile walk around the Surrey hills, taking in 3,000' of ascent. We had to complete it in 9.5 hours for it to count. Here we are at Peaslake, ready to set off. The rest of the pack were already disappearing by this point - we hadn't realised the challenge was to see how quickly you could do it!
At first we just followed the crowd, but that was a mistake, as we discovered when we rounded a corner to find them gone. We had missed the trail, which wasn't marked, only described in our instructions. We ended up off-route in Albury, a very pretty village, and had to find our way back to the official route via a loop which added to our distance and time.
But all ended well, and here we are, almost exactly 9.5 hours later, back in Peaslake, with our certificates, planning to do better next year!
Jenny sent a few pictures from a recent trip to Liverpool. Here are Georgia and Jake, fascinated by their second cousin John Foster.
In October, we had a lovely walking holiday with a group of friends, in Liguria, Italy. See the other pictures here.
We were hashing near Westerham in November and the autumn colours in the woods were lovely.
Norma came down for a flying visit in November, and we were pleased to have her stay overnight and join us and the Van Lits for dinner. Lots of shared memories to recall and news to catch up - a good evening was had by all.
As usual, we hot-footed it up North to spend Christmas with the family. On Christmas Eve we went to Lissa's, where they'd had snow a couple of days before.
Ed bought me a new improved digital camera, and here is my first picture, Christmas morning. Ed is looking at his new London A-Z, and Dad is playing with his new mobile phone, whilst Mum unwraps the next parcel.
After opening our presies, we went to see Grandma Holmes. She was in good form.
Then it was home for Christmas dinner. Mum and Dad pulling crackers...
and reading the silly jokes. What's mint flavoured and furry? A polo bear.
How come I always get photographed in a party hat?
We went to Peter and Jackie's on Boxing Day.
Phyllis and Allan were there.
Oliver and Holly, showing off her new engagement ring! A new hat for 2004 then!
Mum and Dad.
Me and him.
William and girlfriend Brinny, back at Mum's.
And another one of Mum and Dad.
Georgia's page
Jake's page
Thomas's page 
Read my 2002 news here.
bravenet.com
