Christmas Letter 2008

Firstly, we hope that you and your loved ones are all safe and well. Especially at this time of year as our appalling economy takes it toll on our wallets and our personal financial security. However, health and happiness doesn’t cost a penny (except in the US), so we would like to wish you health and happiness before filling you in all we have been up to since our last Christmas letter.

The new years started with us having to replace our boiler after our old one died on us leaving us freezing cold at the height of the winter for five days. Thankfully that was the only real panic to befall us (touch wood). However, half way through the year I started decorating the spare bedroom and six months later it’s almost complete. All we need to do is install a new curtain rail and some curtains. We also almost completed painting our hallway and landing, and insulation in our loft. Not a great year for DIY.

We’ve caught up with some old friends. However, it seems this was restricted to old Schiller colleagues. Dawn met up with Mavis and Margaret, who both worked at the London campus in the spring, and more recently had lunch Nick and Keith who work at LCC. The two of us also met Cathy Eberhart from the Florida campus for lunch a couple of times this year, too.

In March, we took Dad to the RAF museum at Hendon, and in September to the Royal Imperial War museum for his 81st birthday. We were also lucky enough to enjoy his company for lunch at The Gatehouse and The Landseer a couple of times, as well as The Fire Station at Waterloo and The Spaniards Inn at Hampstead where we spotted Ricky Gervais. Dawn and I also found a pub called The Tilbury in Datchworth that does excellent food. In May, for our 11th wedding anniversary, we caught Eurostar and spent the day in Brussels. More recently, thanks to a couple of complimentary tickets from work, we enjoyed a nice meal in the legends lounge at White Hart Lane before watching Spurs beat Bolton.

At work, Dawn’s PAF department relocated buildings twice, while in February my company relocated from Hertford to Enfield. Now we travel to and from work together catching the 6:31am train out of Hertford North in the morning and the 16:54pm that leaves Enfield Chase in the evening. Dawn has visited several universities around the country, and attended a couple of environment award ceremonies, too. Sadly at one of there she missed out on an award for her travel plan. As we write this Dawn is still a PA. However, she recently applied for an opening as Environmental Office at City University. As for me, a shrinking order book coupled with cash difficulties resulted in the closure of our northern office and staff at our welsh office being laid off for a month. There have also been several redundancies at the Enfield office and I may be on a 4 day week soon.

However, despite all this we both look back on 2008 with appreciation for the positive things that have come our way. Recently, I registered with the University of Bath and am now studying an environmental management course. We’ve had the company of my daughter Hayley at the house a couple of times, and visited Dad once with her, too. Dawn passed her UK driving test in Stevenage on August 26th and even has a silver plated plague to commemorate the occasion. Tiny started a new diet following she had several bouts of being sick and not eating. And finally, Dawn utilised her right to vote by adding her voice to the millions who felt that the US had lost its way over the last 8 years, and that Barrack Obama was the its best hope for the future. And, finally on the 17th of December Dawn’s mum, Brady, and Jim will be arriving from Flowery Branch, Georgia, USA to spend the Christmas holidays with us. Like we said, we have so much to be thankful for. We hope that you do, too.

Paul & Dawn
Christmas 2008