What we did in 20042004 was the year of Weddings and other Events! The first was going to see Part 3 of the Lord of The Rings trilogy, with Jen and Marion, whilst we were staying at Marion's over the New Year. It was brill! The holidays finished with a trip to Reading, to visit Glynnis and family and go to the Pantomime at the Hexagon (Snow White this year). 
February was the time to sort out Christmas pictures! Richard sent me a batch of his holiday season in Australia. Unfortunately, he only features on this one. But see the others here. He says this is "Me, Pete and Dave at Dave's on Christmas Day."
1 Feb marked Auntie Peg's 90th birthday. Her family went to visit, and granddaughter Claire sent this picture of her celebrating, in a special crown made by her gt grandson Adam!
We had a lovely surprise at the end of February. We were just about to leave the house, when the phone rang. "Is that Liz Davies? This is Jack Getman!" Our very good friends from our Cairo days were at Heathrow, en route from Bucharest to Newark NY. Jack phoned at 10.15am, and their flight left at 2.35pm - could we possibly meet? So we rushed to the Holiday Inn at Heathrow - we couldn't talk fast enough for all we wanted to say and share. It's so nice to discover that some friends are forever, even if you haven't seen them for seven years. We all failed dismally camera-wise, so it was just as well they passed through again in June! This time we were able to spend a whole day with them. We took them to Hampton Court.
A very sad postscript to this story. On Friday 19th November, Jack Getman died suddenly, whilst working on another volunteer assignment in Eastern Europe. He apparently contracted Hepatitis A, and died before he could be medi-vacced to Stockholm. We will miss him - there was only one Jack.
The first wedding of the year is a family occasion we didn't attend in Aukland, New Zealand, but the bride's mum, my cousin Jenny Griggs, sent photos. Here are the happy couple, Rebecca and Mark, at their reception.
The Bride, looking beautiful.
Grandpa Jim Cherry has been very poorly recently, so everyone was delighted he made it to the big day. We get a glimpse of bridesmaids in lime green in the background, too.
The next Milestone birthday was William's, who is 18! He pleased us all by gaining 5 good A levels in the summer, qualifying him to go to Newcastle University to read architecture in September.
Where have all those little children gone? If he's 18, that makes me -
I forgot what I was about to say.
I have been corresponding with a new found cousin, Jeanne Locking Macdonald in Canada. Here she is with her husband Jack. We have been swopping data on the Locking family.
In April we went to Australia, to see Richard while he was still at Airlie Beach. Here we are, about to be taken down under, Down Under!Go here to see all the pictures (there's only about 80!) of our wonderful trip.
Linda emailed the proof that Richard passed through Clontarf on route from Airlie Beach to Fiji. It was the end of a great few months for him in Australia- luckily he seems to like Fiji even better.
22 May finally arrived and we went to Yvonne and Graham's wedding. Here they are, husband and wife. What a stunning gown! Red silk, beautifully tailored, with a gold sunray inserted at the back as a train. The bridesmaids contrasted in ivory satin. See all the pictures here.
In June we said Goodbye to Leonard Newboult, a family friend for as long as I can remember. Poor Len died of a broken heart, having lost his beloved Betty in 2003. We miss them both.
Saturday 5th June was Derby Day, but we missed it this year, as we were having the new porch installed. Here it is - not too different from the old porch really, except this one is plastic and not rotten! We are pleased with it anyway. Just to compare, the old porch is on the left - this was taken in March 1995, when I'd had the windows put in and the garden gravelled.
This was the house in March 1988, just before we bought it - notice the old windows and the porch minus any kind of door. The strange angle is the picture slipping in the scanner!
We also had new decking in the back garden, which has been a real improvement - you can see the pictures of that on my garden page.
4th July was our Gt nephew Tommy's Christening Day. And here is the young man.
Here we are dressed in our best for the event.See the rest of the pictures on Tommy's Page.
Hard on the heels of Tommy's Christening, we attended Phyllis and Allen Dennis's Golden Wedding Celebrations. Here they are cutting the cake in their garden. It was a barbeque party, so of course we had a thunder storm just as Jeremy was half way through cooking. We were OK under the awning, but he got soaked even though he was cowering under a brolly.
And here's Mum at the party, surrounded by Peter and his family. He retired after 30 years in the Fire Service that week, and he and the rest of his watch dyed their hair blond for a laugh!
August 14th was the wedding day of Carol Blackwell, daughter of my friend Gill, and Matthew Ashton. Here are the happy couple posed in the park with their bridesmaids. Carol looked lovely in a draped organza gown, with a skirt softly flaring into a train, the whole sprinkled with diamante glints. Gorgeous!
We were there too and had a very happy day. Go here for more pictures.
Lissa arrived for a short visit on a Sunday night in August, and we got stuck straight in on Monday with visits to Petworth House on our way to the main visit of the day Goodwood House , home of the Dukes of Richmond. Both only showed state rooms, with pictures. Petworth had shabby rooms with finer pictures, but I much prefered Goodwood's glossy state of repair and family and royal portraits. On the way home we visited the Roman villa at Bignor , which was impressive too. A good day, though dull weatherwise.
On Tuesday we went to the South Bank and toured the Globe Exhibition, prior to watching their excellent production of "Measure for Measure", with Mark Rylance and Sophie Thompson in the afternoon. We sat in the seats this time - much better than being a groundling at the side.
We had a quieter morning on Wednesday, as the temperature had been gradually hotting up and we didn't feel too much like rushing. We lunched at Knight's garden centre in Woldingham, then went on to Titsey Place, where Ed and I enjoyed our visit so much in the Spring. The gardens were superb this time, and the house just as nice. This is the view from the summer house, where we watched some black swans on the lake. Ed cooked at dinner time - we ate at the Fox!
Thursday was hot again. We went to Syon Park , another of our fairly recent discoveries. This is my favourite room, the Long Gallery, but the picture doesn't do it justice.
We went to see the beautiful gardens at Nymans on the Friday. Here's Lissa in front of the entrance to the remains of the house, where Lady Rosse spent her last years in the salvaged portion of her burned down parental home. The main part of the house is now mere picturesque ruin.
Here's Lissa again, in amongst the stunning hydrangeas.
And here's me in amongst the even more stunning summer borders.
We had a good week later in August in Keswick with Mum and Dad, although the weather wasn't as good as it might have been. Here they are about to circumnavigate Buttermere.
The rain meant the water was running well in the falls. The lakes and rivers were up too - the campers in Keswick had to evacuate to the school for one night when their site flooded, but luckily no real damage was done.
We also went around Derwentwater, but cheated a bit - we went part of the way on water via the Keswick launch. Mum and I got off at Hawes End, and walked up and over Cat Bells on our way to Grange. (Dad and Ed took the lakeside route.) Here we are on the top.
On the way back, we walked to Lodore to look at the Falls there. I couldn't get a good picture of the falls because of the intervening greenery, so photographed the resting walkers instead!
We visited Hawkshead, which is reputed to be the prettiest village in the Lakes. We saw the Tudor Grammar School, the church and Methodist Hall, and of course, Beatrix Potter's watercolours, displayed in her husband's old solicitors' offices. We went on to the Lakeland Artists' Centenary Exhibition in Grasmere, to see some modern artistic works. Nothing I particularly covetted this year though.
Peter and Jackie came to join us at the weekend. We had the best day of the week, weatherwise, for a lovely walk over Glaramara and Allen Crags, with spectacular views over the central fells. A contrast to our day last year when we only saw mist and rain.
It really is turning out to be a year for weddings. Jeanne MacDonald sent this picture of herself and husband Jack with all their descendants (except grandson Tyler) attending the wedding of Jeanne's granddaughter Sarah to Jeff. Jeanne is the one in the green and blue ensemble, looking extremely smart as well as proud of her "clan".
September came and it was back to school for a new year. Georgia left Little Acorns Nursery and started Big School at St.George's. Here is Georgia (fourth from the left, back row - terrible picture of her!) as featured in a local newspaper, running an item on the area's newest schoolchildren. Meanwhile, I went back to Woodside.
We had a brilliant end to the hols with a 4 day trip to the Edinburgh festival, staying with our friend Norma. It was a feast of drama - notably "Shimmer" a new play by Linda McLean, with Lesley Hart, Una McLean et al, about relationships and loss. Go and see it if you get the chance.
We also saw a very good "Under Milk Wood", and several other good things too. In comedy, we enjoyed another Shakespeare for Breakfast show, "The Musicals" - ! - and the characterisations of Ben Willbond and Caroline O'Connor. Musical highlights included Theatre Slava's Doderskratt, who were brilliant. For a full list, see my lists!
We'd started August with a good weekend of Edinburgh Fringe comedy previews at the Warehouse Theatre, of which we liked Jenny Eclair's "Andy Warhol Syndrome" the best, closely followed by the very funny Chris Addison and "Civilisation".
Friday 22nd October was Corie Langenberg Harris's 80th birthday. We went to Shelley's for dinner to help her celebrate.
We suddenly remembered we had lots of Airmiles and Marriott Hotel Points, and decided to go to Glasgow for a weekend to spend them. We had a lovely two days. We bought tickets for the open-topped tour bus and started off with Glasgow University, home to the Hunterian Art Gallery (some good Whistlers) and the Charles Rennie MacKintosh House - a reproduction of his Glasgow home 1906-1919, complete with furnishings designed by himself and his wife Margaret MacDonald. We admired it (here is the studio cum drawing room) but weren't taken by it.
Hopping back on our bus, we visited the very good Transport museum, then went back in to the city, where we briefly looked in at the Willow Tea Rooms, and decided that was far enough on the "MacKintosh Trail" and moved on to the much more interesting Tenement House. This was where a spinster lady lived, at first with her mother, for over 50 years, from 1919, and the place is more or less as she left it in 1965, with all her furnishings from 1919, which bore no relation to what Mackintosh was doing at the same time
We looked in the main gallery, where the treasures of Kelvingrove museum are being displayed at the moment, and in the Glasgow Museum of Modern Art (where there was a lovely L.S. Lowry seascape). In the evening we went to the Tron Theatre, to see "Standing Wave", a biography of Delia Derbyshire, composer of the theme to Dr. Who and a pioneer of electronic music. It was very interesting - two actresses playing Delia, and a sole actor playing all the other parts!
In the October half term break, we went away again with Sue Cousins and a party of mixed Hashers and Running Sisters. This year there were 19 of us, and we stayed in Minori, on the Amalfi coast of the Sorrento Peninsular, Campania, Italy. Here we are about to set off on our first walk. We are all here, except Janet, who kindly took the picture so I could be in it. We are, starting top left; Dave, Debbie, Eamon, Ed; Harvey, Linda, Fiona, Marion, Sue W., Gordon; Les, Sandra, Joan; Brenda, Mary, Sue C., Kate and me, Liz. All pictures are here.
Richard went on holiday too, as he had a week off. So he went diving! He sent a picture of himself and the group he swam with.
We saw Norma at the end of November. She was breezing through town on her way to Bristol from Cairo, and we went with her to see Handel's "Semele" by the ENO at the Coliseum. We had seen this production together before, in 1999, and loved it so much we thought we'd do it again. This time Carolyn Sampson sang the title role, with the brilliant Ian Bostridge as Jupiter, so we enjoyed it even better than before. A good evening.
We went over to Glynnis's to take the Christmas gifts and see our newest Gt Nephew, young Ryleigh. I took loads of pictures, but in my haste to download them from the camera, I pressed "delete" instead of "copy" so consequently I didn't get many. But here is the little man. And he has his own page now there are photos to go on it - see 
This is the only picture I saved of big brother Tommy - but Dawn gave me some nice studio ones they had taken, which I will scan in soon...
And here's young Sky-Louise, too, who will also have a page when I get a photo worth putting on it!
Here's our Christmas tree this year. We've now got decorations from across the years and around the world, as I add new ones from our travels to old ones from the trees we had as children, and from when Richard was little. It's always quite a nostalgia trip, setting it up! The newest pieces are the Australian blue bell, and the angel bell from Winchester Cathedral, both near the top of the tree, and bought this year.
Here is the tree on St.Stephen's Green, in Dublin, where we went for a very pleasant weekend break to celebrate our Wedding Anniversary - early, as the actual day was Holly and Oliver's wedding day.
We stayed at the famous Shelbourne Hotel, where the Irish Constitution was drafted in 1922, in room 112. We stayed in room 264...
Ed consorted with Mollie Malone - the famous 18th century "trollope with the scollops" featured in the eponymous song.
Here's the Temple Bar - originally a toll bar, but now a public bar, in the medieval heart of the city, now a thriving area for night life.
We took a tour round Kilmainham Prison, where many Irish freedom fighters were imprisoned, and executed, over the centuries. It's last "guest" was Eamon De Vallera (spelling?) who later became President of the Free State.
Jeanne MacDonald sent this picture of herself beside her Christmas tree, along with some very snowy pictures of her neighbourhood in Ontario.
The wedding we've been waiting for finally took place! We went up to Lincolnshire to see my niece Holly Locking marry Oliver Hall at Louth town hall, the week before Christmas. I only took about 90 photos, so William gave me some of his...
Cut straight to the bride! Here she is, in her sensational Vivienne Westwood outfit, all ready to go, outside the family home.
Isn't she lovely?
Here are the happy couple.
And here we are, with Rick and Mum, all in our best clothes and ready to enjoy the fun. Go here for the full set of pics!
It was wonderful having Richard home for the holidays, sharing Holly's Wedding and Christmas with us. He went off to Thailand soon after Christmas, to spend New Year with his new girl Kristin. She was already there - luckily off the East Coast, so escaped the devastating effects of the terrible Tsunami that struck Asia. What a horrific year end for so many thousands. Let's hope 2005 will bring succour and recovery.
Richard is now back in Fiji, and delighted to be there - he tells us he intends to stay for the foreseeable future, and certainly looks fit and happy from his life there. Pity it's about as far away from here as it's possible to be, without going off the planet...
Here's Christmas lunch in Cleethorpes: Ed and Rick get stuck in to the turkey.
Ed, Rick, Dad and Mum enjoy a post-lunch joke.
Me and my three favourite menfolk.
Georgia's page 
Jake's page 
Thomas's page 
Read my 2003 news here.
February was the time to sort out Christmas pictures! Richard sent me a batch of his holiday season in Australia. Unfortunately, he only features on this one. But see the others here. He says this is "Me, Pete and Dave at Dave's on Christmas Day."
1 Feb marked Auntie Peg's 90th birthday. Her family went to visit, and granddaughter Claire sent this picture of her celebrating, in a special crown made by her gt grandson Adam!
We had a lovely surprise at the end of February. We were just about to leave the house, when the phone rang. "Is that Liz Davies? This is Jack Getman!" Our very good friends from our Cairo days were at Heathrow, en route from Bucharest to Newark NY. Jack phoned at 10.15am, and their flight left at 2.35pm - could we possibly meet? So we rushed to the Holiday Inn at Heathrow - we couldn't talk fast enough for all we wanted to say and share. It's so nice to discover that some friends are forever, even if you haven't seen them for seven years. We all failed dismally camera-wise, so it was just as well they passed through again in June! This time we were able to spend a whole day with them. We took them to Hampton Court.
A very sad postscript to this story. On Friday 19th November, Jack Getman died suddenly, whilst working on another volunteer assignment in Eastern Europe. He apparently contracted Hepatitis A, and died before he could be medi-vacced to Stockholm. We will miss him - there was only one Jack.
The first wedding of the year is a family occasion we didn't attend in Aukland, New Zealand, but the bride's mum, my cousin Jenny Griggs, sent photos. Here are the happy couple, Rebecca and Mark, at their reception.
The Bride, looking beautiful.
Grandpa Jim Cherry has been very poorly recently, so everyone was delighted he made it to the big day. We get a glimpse of bridesmaids in lime green in the background, too.
The next Milestone birthday was William's, who is 18! He pleased us all by gaining 5 good A levels in the summer, qualifying him to go to Newcastle University to read architecture in September.
Where have all those little children gone? If he's 18, that makes me -
I forgot what I was about to say.
I have been corresponding with a new found cousin, Jeanne Locking Macdonald in Canada. Here she is with her husband Jack. We have been swopping data on the Locking family.
In April we went to Australia, to see Richard while he was still at Airlie Beach. Here we are, about to be taken down under, Down Under!Go here to see all the pictures (there's only about 80!) of our wonderful trip.
Linda emailed the proof that Richard passed through Clontarf on route from Airlie Beach to Fiji. It was the end of a great few months for him in Australia- luckily he seems to like Fiji even better.
22 May finally arrived and we went to Yvonne and Graham's wedding. Here they are, husband and wife. What a stunning gown! Red silk, beautifully tailored, with a gold sunray inserted at the back as a train. The bridesmaids contrasted in ivory satin. See all the pictures here.
In June we said Goodbye to Leonard Newboult, a family friend for as long as I can remember. Poor Len died of a broken heart, having lost his beloved Betty in 2003. We miss them both.
Saturday 5th June was Derby Day, but we missed it this year, as we were having the new porch installed. Here it is - not too different from the old porch really, except this one is plastic and not rotten! We are pleased with it anyway. Just to compare, the old porch is on the left - this was taken in March 1995, when I'd had the windows put in and the garden gravelled.
This was the house in March 1988, just before we bought it - notice the old windows and the porch minus any kind of door. The strange angle is the picture slipping in the scanner!
We also had new decking in the back garden, which has been a real improvement - you can see the pictures of that on my garden page.
4th July was our Gt nephew Tommy's Christening Day. And here is the young man.
Here we are dressed in our best for the event.See the rest of the pictures on Tommy's Page.
Hard on the heels of Tommy's Christening, we attended Phyllis and Allen Dennis's Golden Wedding Celebrations. Here they are cutting the cake in their garden. It was a barbeque party, so of course we had a thunder storm just as Jeremy was half way through cooking. We were OK under the awning, but he got soaked even though he was cowering under a brolly.
And here's Mum at the party, surrounded by Peter and his family. He retired after 30 years in the Fire Service that week, and he and the rest of his watch dyed their hair blond for a laugh!
August 14th was the wedding day of Carol Blackwell, daughter of my friend Gill, and Matthew Ashton. Here are the happy couple posed in the park with their bridesmaids. Carol looked lovely in a draped organza gown, with a skirt softly flaring into a train, the whole sprinkled with diamante glints. Gorgeous!
We were there too and had a very happy day. Go here for more pictures.
Lissa arrived for a short visit on a Sunday night in August, and we got stuck straight in on Monday with visits to Petworth House on our way to the main visit of the day Goodwood House , home of the Dukes of Richmond. Both only showed state rooms, with pictures. Petworth had shabby rooms with finer pictures, but I much prefered Goodwood's glossy state of repair and family and royal portraits. On the way home we visited the Roman villa at Bignor , which was impressive too. A good day, though dull weatherwise.
On Tuesday we went to the South Bank and toured the Globe Exhibition, prior to watching their excellent production of "Measure for Measure", with Mark Rylance and Sophie Thompson in the afternoon. We sat in the seats this time - much better than being a groundling at the side.
We had a quieter morning on Wednesday, as the temperature had been gradually hotting up and we didn't feel too much like rushing. We lunched at Knight's garden centre in Woldingham, then went on to Titsey Place, where Ed and I enjoyed our visit so much in the Spring. The gardens were superb this time, and the house just as nice. This is the view from the summer house, where we watched some black swans on the lake. Ed cooked at dinner time - we ate at the Fox!
Thursday was hot again. We went to Syon Park , another of our fairly recent discoveries. This is my favourite room, the Long Gallery, but the picture doesn't do it justice.
We went to see the beautiful gardens at Nymans on the Friday. Here's Lissa in front of the entrance to the remains of the house, where Lady Rosse spent her last years in the salvaged portion of her burned down parental home. The main part of the house is now mere picturesque ruin.
Here's Lissa again, in amongst the stunning hydrangeas.
And here's me in amongst the even more stunning summer borders.
We had a good week later in August in Keswick with Mum and Dad, although the weather wasn't as good as it might have been. Here they are about to circumnavigate Buttermere.
The rain meant the water was running well in the falls. The lakes and rivers were up too - the campers in Keswick had to evacuate to the school for one night when their site flooded, but luckily no real damage was done.
We also went around Derwentwater, but cheated a bit - we went part of the way on water via the Keswick launch. Mum and I got off at Hawes End, and walked up and over Cat Bells on our way to Grange. (Dad and Ed took the lakeside route.) Here we are on the top.
On the way back, we walked to Lodore to look at the Falls there. I couldn't get a good picture of the falls because of the intervening greenery, so photographed the resting walkers instead!
We visited Hawkshead, which is reputed to be the prettiest village in the Lakes. We saw the Tudor Grammar School, the church and Methodist Hall, and of course, Beatrix Potter's watercolours, displayed in her husband's old solicitors' offices. We went on to the Lakeland Artists' Centenary Exhibition in Grasmere, to see some modern artistic works. Nothing I particularly covetted this year though.
Peter and Jackie came to join us at the weekend. We had the best day of the week, weatherwise, for a lovely walk over Glaramara and Allen Crags, with spectacular views over the central fells. A contrast to our day last year when we only saw mist and rain.
It really is turning out to be a year for weddings. Jeanne MacDonald sent this picture of herself and husband Jack with all their descendants (except grandson Tyler) attending the wedding of Jeanne's granddaughter Sarah to Jeff. Jeanne is the one in the green and blue ensemble, looking extremely smart as well as proud of her "clan".
September came and it was back to school for a new year. Georgia left Little Acorns Nursery and started Big School at St.George's. Here is Georgia (fourth from the left, back row - terrible picture of her!) as featured in a local newspaper, running an item on the area's newest schoolchildren. Meanwhile, I went back to Woodside.
We had a brilliant end to the hols with a 4 day trip to the Edinburgh festival, staying with our friend Norma. It was a feast of drama - notably "Shimmer" a new play by Linda McLean, with Lesley Hart, Una McLean et al, about relationships and loss. Go and see it if you get the chance.
We also saw a very good "Under Milk Wood", and several other good things too. In comedy, we enjoyed another Shakespeare for Breakfast show, "The Musicals" - ! - and the characterisations of Ben Willbond and Caroline O'Connor. Musical highlights included Theatre Slava's Doderskratt, who were brilliant. For a full list, see my lists!
We'd started August with a good weekend of Edinburgh Fringe comedy previews at the Warehouse Theatre, of which we liked Jenny Eclair's "Andy Warhol Syndrome" the best, closely followed by the very funny Chris Addison and "Civilisation".
Friday 22nd October was Corie Langenberg Harris's 80th birthday. We went to Shelley's for dinner to help her celebrate.
We suddenly remembered we had lots of Airmiles and Marriott Hotel Points, and decided to go to Glasgow for a weekend to spend them. We had a lovely two days. We bought tickets for the open-topped tour bus and started off with Glasgow University, home to the Hunterian Art Gallery (some good Whistlers) and the Charles Rennie MacKintosh House - a reproduction of his Glasgow home 1906-1919, complete with furnishings designed by himself and his wife Margaret MacDonald. We admired it (here is the studio cum drawing room) but weren't taken by it.
Hopping back on our bus, we visited the very good Transport museum, then went back in to the city, where we briefly looked in at the Willow Tea Rooms, and decided that was far enough on the "MacKintosh Trail" and moved on to the much more interesting Tenement House. This was where a spinster lady lived, at first with her mother, for over 50 years, from 1919, and the place is more or less as she left it in 1965, with all her furnishings from 1919, which bore no relation to what Mackintosh was doing at the same time
We looked in the main gallery, where the treasures of Kelvingrove museum are being displayed at the moment, and in the Glasgow Museum of Modern Art (where there was a lovely L.S. Lowry seascape). In the evening we went to the Tron Theatre, to see "Standing Wave", a biography of Delia Derbyshire, composer of the theme to Dr. Who and a pioneer of electronic music. It was very interesting - two actresses playing Delia, and a sole actor playing all the other parts!
In the October half term break, we went away again with Sue Cousins and a party of mixed Hashers and Running Sisters. This year there were 19 of us, and we stayed in Minori, on the Amalfi coast of the Sorrento Peninsular, Campania, Italy. Here we are about to set off on our first walk. We are all here, except Janet, who kindly took the picture so I could be in it. We are, starting top left; Dave, Debbie, Eamon, Ed; Harvey, Linda, Fiona, Marion, Sue W., Gordon; Les, Sandra, Joan; Brenda, Mary, Sue C., Kate and me, Liz. All pictures are here.
Richard went on holiday too, as he had a week off. So he went diving! He sent a picture of himself and the group he swam with.
We saw Norma at the end of November. She was breezing through town on her way to Bristol from Cairo, and we went with her to see Handel's "Semele" by the ENO at the Coliseum. We had seen this production together before, in 1999, and loved it so much we thought we'd do it again. This time Carolyn Sampson sang the title role, with the brilliant Ian Bostridge as Jupiter, so we enjoyed it even better than before. A good evening.
We went over to Glynnis's to take the Christmas gifts and see our newest Gt Nephew, young Ryleigh. I took loads of pictures, but in my haste to download them from the camera, I pressed "delete" instead of "copy" so consequently I didn't get many. But here is the little man. And he has his own page now there are photos to go on it - see
This is the only picture I saved of big brother Tommy - but Dawn gave me some nice studio ones they had taken, which I will scan in soon...
And here's young Sky-Louise, too, who will also have a page when I get a photo worth putting on it!
Here's our Christmas tree this year. We've now got decorations from across the years and around the world, as I add new ones from our travels to old ones from the trees we had as children, and from when Richard was little. It's always quite a nostalgia trip, setting it up! The newest pieces are the Australian blue bell, and the angel bell from Winchester Cathedral, both near the top of the tree, and bought this year.
Here is the tree on St.Stephen's Green, in Dublin, where we went for a very pleasant weekend break to celebrate our Wedding Anniversary - early, as the actual day was Holly and Oliver's wedding day.
We stayed at the famous Shelbourne Hotel, where the Irish Constitution was drafted in 1922, in room 112. We stayed in room 264...
Ed consorted with Mollie Malone - the famous 18th century "trollope with the scollops" featured in the eponymous song.
Here's the Temple Bar - originally a toll bar, but now a public bar, in the medieval heart of the city, now a thriving area for night life.
We took a tour round Kilmainham Prison, where many Irish freedom fighters were imprisoned, and executed, over the centuries. It's last "guest" was Eamon De Vallera (spelling?) who later became President of the Free State.
Jeanne MacDonald sent this picture of herself beside her Christmas tree, along with some very snowy pictures of her neighbourhood in Ontario.
The wedding we've been waiting for finally took place! We went up to Lincolnshire to see my niece Holly Locking marry Oliver Hall at Louth town hall, the week before Christmas. I only took about 90 photos, so William gave me some of his...
Cut straight to the bride! Here she is, in her sensational Vivienne Westwood outfit, all ready to go, outside the family home.
Isn't she lovely?
Here are the happy couple.
And here we are, with Rick and Mum, all in our best clothes and ready to enjoy the fun. Go here for the full set of pics!
It was wonderful having Richard home for the holidays, sharing Holly's Wedding and Christmas with us. He went off to Thailand soon after Christmas, to spend New Year with his new girl Kristin. She was already there - luckily off the East Coast, so escaped the devastating effects of the terrible Tsunami that struck Asia. What a horrific year end for so many thousands. Let's hope 2005 will bring succour and recovery.
Richard is now back in Fiji, and delighted to be there - he tells us he intends to stay for the foreseeable future, and certainly looks fit and happy from his life there. Pity it's about as far away from here as it's possible to be, without going off the planet...
Here's Christmas lunch in Cleethorpes: Ed and Rick get stuck in to the turkey.
Ed, Rick, Dad and Mum enjoy a post-lunch joke.
Me and my three favourite menfolk.
Georgia's page Jake's page Thomas's page Read my 2003 news here.