Wishing you and your family a very happy Christmas and peace and joy in the new year!
This is becoming a thing I suppose… No posts for a whole year and then one big update. Though I am a bit of a sucker for a traditional family Christmas letter. So here is ours.
Firstly, we hope you are well. If we’ve not seen you IRL this year, then know that we are thinking of you. Given where we were this time last year, despite the current uncertainty, we’re grateful to have been able to spend lots of time with friends and family.
In general, we are all very well. Somewhat unbelievably, none of us have had Covid yet. At least not that we know of. If you’ve been unlucky and had the virus, we hope it wasn’t too brutal and didn’t disrupt plans too much.
The beginning of the year, we were of course all still in a full lockdown. Which meant home schooling and home working. Like everyone, we were exhausted, despite the kids only being in reception year and the expectations of what they should achieve at home were generously low.
As restrictions eased through the spring, we spent increasing amounts of time outdoors, grateful as ever to have the allotment and to be close to the sea. Speaking of which, Anita continues her sea swimming throughout the year, and has a gaggle of other hardy / unhinged buddies to swim with. I consider our first season at the allotment a moderate success. Whilst I don’t feel like a naturally green fingered grower, it’s a lovely space to be, with a fine view back to the sea. We managed to make most of the space productive and our plot came with some well maintained apple tree, most of the fruits of which we pressed for juice this year.
The kids finished an odd first year in school, but have done amazingly well, and continue to do so in year one. The autumn term has been a bit more normal, and they both have great friendship groups and enjoy pretty much all aspects of school life. In addition they have joined gymnastics and dance classes, and attended a seemingly never ending run of friends birthday parties.
In addition to our local patches of nature, we’ve spent some time at Wilderness Woods this year, becoming members, volunteering on projects and hosting the kids birthday party there in November.
No bike tours this summer, sadly. But Hatty & Wilf both enjoy cycling, and have recently moved on to bikes with gears. I’m hopeful that we might be able to plan something for summer 2022… We did however spend a wonderful few days in London in during the October half term, which was brilliant – the kids delighted by many train and bus journeys and the usual museums and touristy things.
One big bit of news is that I have quit my job. It feels odd and a little sad, leaving behind the festivals which I co-founded, but I’m excited to be moving on to new things next year.
I’ll leave you with some photos from the last twelve months. Please do share your news with us – we love hearing from everyone. Or, better still, come and see us in sunny St Leonards sometime soon.
With love,
Stuart, Anita, Hatty & Wilf
In no particular order, a selection of photos from the year…
