Christmas and New Year greetings from Joy & Eric on behalf of the Foxley clan at the end of 2011.

We should start our news with the back end of last year, with our (late) 50th wedding anniversary party. It was too late for last year's letter. What a super party, with general dancing, and shows of morris and clog and Kathak dance. All to Freds Folks excellent band minus Eric with Hamish and Rory sharing the lead. BUT BUT we missed lots of our best and distant friends, because we had chosen one of the snowiest weekend of the year, when the whole country was paralysed. My speech summarising the history of our life together so far is here.

The family get older. It’s Angus’s 50th birthday next year, we look forward to welcoming him to middle age! There will be a Ceilidh in Bommersheim the following weekend on 12th May. The twins Heli and Naomi are now studying Joint honours Mathematics and German at Swansea University, keeping up volleyball and learning hockey. Suzie will finish school in 2013. Jean & Rory enjoy all their dancing and music and gardening and cats. Anita (a professional decorator) fell off a ladder and broke her collar bone, but is now back on form decorating (indoors!) for customers again, and playing clarinet in two bands including a marching band. Sean has moved to secondary school, but refuses to recognise big sister Jenna, now in the third form. Hamish creates beautifully designed web sites in between trombone (and other instruments) playing.

It was a snowy start to the year, so I missed my regular cycling for quite a while. I don’t go out in snow or ice. It’s all a bit more gentle (and slower!) nowadays, 25km rather than 40km. The highlight was definitely a Peak District ride in rain and gales with Jean & Rory, Rory had to carry my bike up the steep rocky bits, but the last 8km was on the Monsal (ex-railway line) trail through the recently opened tunnels, a smooth and gentle downhill, easy-peasy!

We walk most weeks with Russell, Lyndi & Jenny. It’s lovely to get out into the green countryside away from towns & buildings. The top picture is sowing winter wheat in the Vale of Belvoir. One week we were invited by Derbyshire County Council to witness the putting in place of a new footbridge over the Trent – lots of folks turned up, much hand-shaking and introductions, but the crane was missing a vital part didn’t work! It was put in place a day later with no on-lookers. Joy and I have walked the bridge since.

The clog and morris dancing continue. The morris (the morris danced all over the season) is losing members with age and general decrepitude, but the clog dancers have lots of new members. We’ve been with the cloggies to festivals at Lincoln and Retford. Two big events were St George’s day in the city centre, and the Robin Hood Beer Festival (biggest in the country) at the castle. For the latter we had the whole Foxley tribe here, it was just wonderful to have Eric, Angus, Rory & Hamish wandering around playing music and attracting the crowds – and Hamish with his new red trombone!

In the evening we had the extended family band for Joy’s annual "big bash barn dance" dance for her Bluebird Trust charity. And the band for the evening dance of 18 included all three daughters-in-law as well as Joy, me and 3 sons!

Holidays this year: We spent a week visiting the German branch in February (cold, not many photos). The stay included a ceilidh with Joy doing the honours in German, and Angus explaining the bits they didn’t understand. I take an accordion, Karen and Angus join me in the music, and Angus finds an assortment of local musicians to form a scratch band. We’re booked for another gig there during our visit for his 50th next May. Then we had a week's Brittany spring holiday with Mary, Joan & Gerry, gentle and civilised as is appropriate to our average age. And at short notice in September we arranged another visit to the German branch of the family in Bommersheim with Russell and Lyndi.

Our main summer holiday started with a week at Bommersheim which included the Hessentag festival (we played and sang of course), and with the twins (who’d finished all their exams) at home. We saw more of them than usual. Then we moved on camping past Nurnburg in hilly area called the Bayerische Schweiz, then in the Harz mountains near the old East-West border, finishing with a conducted tour of the Dutch Dickens museum (ask us why on earth we are interested in Dickens!).

In October there was a day at London’s South Bank of Joy’s brother Nicky’s (he died two years ago) music. We went with Russ & Lyndi, stayed a friend Marion’s, and attended two afternoon concerts and one evening concert. It was all very listenable and accessible, a good advertisement for his music.

We had a wonderful couple of days in Cheshire at an Indian wedding of our friend Sri Sarker. The atmosphere of ceremony and generosity was amazing.

I do as much pottery as ever. I’m in a porcelain phase at the moment rather than stoneware clay. We still hold “Clayplay” sessions for kids during school holidays.

Oh yes, and in July Eric attended a real Cricket match! It was a 20-20 evening fixture, and I was with friends including enough expertise to explain to me what was going on.

The new Nottingham Tram line was due to take the bottom of our garden in January 2012, but we’ve just received a letter giving us a year’s reprieve. That gives us a year to re-layout the garden to fit the reduced size. We should get on with it soon – New Year’s resolution! We are getting Angus's long time friend Martin (a professional gardener) to help.

Other photos: We watched the annual Nottingham fireworks show by the Trent. And we have general household photos of the year. .

I’ve at last lost my privileged place of having my website hosted at the University. At last they have realised that I haven’t worked there for over 10 years. I’ve had to pay for commercial hosting and transfer all my files there. Quite a hassle, but a chance to tidy some things up.

Use www.chezfred.org.uk (a change of address) for the new moved website, and you will find lots of up-to-date photos of all the above adventures. Phone is still 0115 9786858, snail-mail is chezfreD, Dunkirk Arts Centre, 31 Greenfield Street, Nottingham NG7 2JN, UK.

Statistics kept by Eric :-
walking 57 walks, total distance 370km, ascent 2380 metres;
cycling 40 rides, 1050km, 55000 kilo calories, ave speed 12km/h;
pottery 31firings, £276 electricity, 230 pots, 550 lbs of clay

This copy edited 16 December 2011.

Last year's Christmas letter is here.
Next year's Christmas letter is here.

This must still be the best version of White Christmas music .