Christmas letter 2012!
Greetings from Joy & Eric and the Foxley clan at the end of 2012.
See here for Eric's cancer progress.
Back to family news. Joy has resumed lessons with her Indian dance guru at Leicester, Nilima Devi. Joy decided she needed some refreshment and new material for the dance classes she gives in our dance room.
The family get older.
It was Angus’s 50th birthday in May, we went over to Frankfurt for the celebration but he arrived home a day late, he'd had to go to Paris and look after François Holland's election as president of France. We partied when he returned home a day late. Then we did yet another local ceilidh with Joy MC-ing in German and me leading an excellent scratch band. Great fun! The twins Heli and Naomi are now well into their second year studying Joint honours
Mathematics and German at Swansea University, we see more of them now. Their newly formed volleyball team is winning everything! Suzie will finish school in Bommersheim next summer and will probably go to Frankfurt University.
Jean & Rory continue with dancing and music and gardening and cats, and coming up here regularly to make sure we're OK.
Anita continues with decorating and playing clarinet, Hamish
creates web sites in between trombone (and other
instruments) playing, Jenna is in her fourth year and Sean in his second at the same secondary school.
As part of my new lifestyle my regular cycling and walking activities are somewhat curtailed this year. We'll get back into routine eventually.
The clog and morris dancing continue, although I've passed over the morris bagman (secretary) duties to someone else. Both clog and morris danced on Boxing day, and I played while seated!
Our annual "big bash barn dance" dance for Joy's Bluebird Trust charity was wonderful - keeping the fantastic 15-piece band in order kept me busy.
Holidays this year: we followed the visit to Frankfurt for Angus' 50th birthday with camping down through Germany and Austria to Italy and back. The German part was cold at night (it was early/mid May) but wonderful daytimes walking in the hills through the wild flowers. Italy was warm and wet. We eat well in every country. And we squeezed a fews days break in Paris in between diagnosis and treatment -- very much appreciated, particularly as I needed to stop for a loo every hour, which necessitated another cup of coffee/chocolate and a bun!
I do almost as much pottery as ever. The kiln is getting old and decrepit and I've ordered a new one to arrive when my treatment is well under weigh (I'm happy to argue "weigh" versus "way"). All friends are invited to come and have a bash, it is VERY satisfying. We still hold “Clayplay” sessions for kids during school holidays. This year 260 pots, 560 kilos of clay, 28 firings, 1300 kwh of electricity, £300 of clay, £100 of glazes..
The new Nottingham Tram line formally took the bottom of our garden on 29th November 2012 (see photo here), but we now have a year or two with a temporary fence since they won't be doing anything with that land for a while. With the help of our friend Martin the garden has been re-designed to suit its new size and shape. It looks wonderful, and the damp summer helped with the moving of lots of plants and turf to make the new design. And with the help of Keith and Keith we have a fantastic new verandah from which to view it. We had several verandah parties during the summer. The old garden shed has been removed after many negotiations with the City Council.
Other photos: we have general household photos of the year.
Use www.chezfred.org.uk for the website, where you will find lots of up-to-date photos of all our adventures. Anf keep up-to-date with news on Facebook. Phone is still 0115 9786858, snail-mail is chezfreD, Dunkirk Arts Centre, 31 Greenfield Street, Nottingham NG7 2JN, UK.
Last year's Christmas letter is here.
This copy edited Monday 07-Jan-2013
