Happy New Year!

Another year done gone. It went by so fast and a lot was packed in. Highlights were the trips to Norway in January for Hazel's exhibition at the Kunstbanken in Hamar and our trip to Boston and New York in August to visit our dear friends Sylvia and Jonathan and see a bit of America for the first time ( for me and Archie anyway ).
Other highs were Archie getting Grade One piano much to our amazement as he hardly did any practicing. Also our Silver anniversary of togetherness. 25 years just seems to have flown by! My small exhibition at the local library wasn't really a highlight but my first showing of work for a while so it counts for something.
Also a week in London with our old chums Jane and Graham and to Basildon to stay a couple of days with my sister Barb and her other half Des.
Archie did well again with his animations. "Landlubber" his short for Big Al Davies song got him into the Cornerhouse "Exposures" Film Festival again for the 5th year running.

Last night Archie set off his domino effect match event which lit up the bottom of the garden for a few seconds and spelt out "09". The loud chatter in the background is one of our polish neighbours in the back garden shouting to relatives in Poland we imagine - his phone being just a baked bean tin and some taught string reaching to Krakow!
Hazel lit some amusing fireworks and filled the back gardens with smoke and the Poles retreated indoors. They came out again at midnight and sprayed champagne over each other and shouted something polish at us. We think it was Happy New Year but could have been something very rude for all we knew. We were expecting a very loud party but it was very restrained thankfully and we managed to get some sleep after drinking some cava and orange and watching a bit of Jools and the Hootenanny. Nice to see Dave Edmunds still going strong.