Christmas 2023 Newsletter

2023 seems to have passed very swiftly, and as Janet and I considered what we might write in a newsletter to bring our family and friends up to date, initially there didn’t seem to be very much to tell you.

At the end of March, we drove to Shipston for Janet’s sister Helen’s surprise 70^th birthday celebration and family gathering.

At the end of May, we drove up to Aylsham in Norfolk in our 14-year-old Avensis Estate to spend a few days with my brother Paul and his wife Carol, and repeated the trip again in September when we saw seals in the sea just off Horsey Beach.

In August we visited a Christian conference held at ‘The Quinta’ near Oswestry, enjoying catching up with friends of long standing and staying at ‘Ye Old Boote Inn’ in Whittington opposite a ruined castle.

We have to travel in short stages these days so as not to exhaust ourselves, and build in afternoon naps for Mike most days. Llangollen was picture book, down by the river in the summer sun.

Ye Olde Boot Inn
across the lake from Whittington Castle

In October we spent a few days at an Airbnb near Evesham so that we could catch up with Janet’s Uncle Tom, now a very sprightly 94, still driving his 30-year-old Volvo and living in his own home. We were also able to see Helen and Phil her husband and enjoy tea together at a teashop in Shipston where they live.

During the year, a number of friends of long standing came to stay for a few nights and Janet’s eldest brother Chris with Bev his wife, visited from Medicine Hat as part of their tour of family in the UK. We have also enjoyed many others who have popped in for just a coffee, or a meal and a chat.

Tim on a viewing platform
in New York

We have continued to coordinate educational sponsorship of their children for longtime friends in Uganda, Stephen and Harriet Dikan, and enjoy weekly contact with them via WhatsApp.

We attended a number of weddings and funerals, but increasingly used Zoom where attendance would involve distance, major cost or effort. We use Zoom also for a family group call once every four weeks involving Paul and Carol, our sons Tim and Ben, and ourselves.

Every week while the weather was clement, we ventured forth in little excursions to Henley or Hurley on Thames, National Trust properties, or merely to Garden Centres and other providers of light refreshment. We do this to regularly inject something different into our existence which could otherwise become very routine.

Earley Christian Fellowship continues with increasing numbers of families around Reading, often coming because their children have made friends with ECF children who attend Trinity Christian School locally. We also have more people from all over the world because of the numbers moving from Hong Kong, or Africa, or other countries, at this time of great movement of people.

Ben relaxing in Tim's house in Reading

Janet continues to enjoy the Community Bible Studies at Wycliffe Baptist Church on a Friday morning, providing her with contact with believers from many backgrounds, and structure to her daily program of bible-reading.

Having focussed on Aldi with top-ups from Lidl for the weekly grocery expedition, we often take an even more elderly gentleman from across the road because he enjoys his own poke around the groceries.

Mike in his Santa Claus hat

Like all aging people we pay occasional visits to the Royal Berks Hospital, inaccessible by car and bus, and with copious parking for millionaires, and Janet is rejoicing with hearing aids addressable from her smart phone. 

Having had a real TIA in January 2016, In April of this year I had a low-grade TIA the symptoms of which were loss of power in one leg, followed by leg spasms, whilst looking around and sitting on the pavement. Follow-up confirmed brain damage from the first TIA, but no perceptible damage from the second. Anyway, my energy and focus were much reduced in 2016, after a few months I was able to function more normally but on much reduced power.

We have decided on a policy of simplifying the garden as much as we can so we can maintain its appearance and enjoy it through the warmer months. It is a continuous delight with colour almost all the year round and provides gentle exercise if, during colder weather, we can overcome our desire to stay in the warm.

Our sons, Tim (41) and Ben (39), continue to work hard for National Grid and Dell respectively, their taxes no doubt keeping us in in the comfort to which we have all become accustomed. Naturally I remind them of this from time to time. (Keep going, chaps!)

Despite the evidence that, on many fronts, the UK is descending the plughole as people turn away from God, and follow unremitting nonsense from self-proclaimed/ignorant ‘experts’ everywhere, our grocery bills seem to have increased no more than 30% over 4 years. Benefitting from government/taxpayer largesse to subsidise our energy bills, we are still solvent, something for which we are very grateful to God.

Christmas is coming, and we remember continually that it is the life, death and resurrection of Jesus that is saving us from hell in this life, with the far greater promise of Life-to-come. Nonetheless we enjoy the fun and lights of Christmas at an otherwise dark time of the year. May God also bless and illuminate you.

With love,
Mike and Janet.

PS. From our days living in Scotland…  we were delighted to discover an authentic photo of ‘a herd of domesticated Scottish haggis… raised in Selkirk’.

Index to contents

Christmas 2024 News

Christmas 2023 News

Christmas 2022 News

Christmas 2021 News

Christmas 2020 News

Just a Simple Belfast Boy (book)

Christmas 2019 News

Genesis and Creation, the facts! (books)

Christmas 2018 News

A Guid New Year to Ane an’ A’

Today Janet gave me the go-ahead

Three Cups of Tea (book)

Promised Land: the future of Israel revealed in prophecy (book)

The Ekklesia of God

Don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing

Disposal of things we no longer need

How to read a non-fiction book

God's Golden Acre (book)

God's Undertaker: has science buried God? (book)

Christmas 2009 News

It's Our Turn to Eat: the story of a Kenyan whistleblower (book)

The end of the (World Outreach) line

Christmas 2008 News

Funding the Family Business (book)

Christmas 2005 News

Christmas 2004 News

Christmas 2002 News

Christmas 2000 News

Christmas 1999 News

Christmas 1998 News

Malawi, Central Africa: Jan 1993 to Jan 1995

Gunfight in Mapanga, 05 Dec 1993

Start of the Rainy Season, 06 Nov 1993

Our First AABC Teaching Seminar, 19 Sep 1993

A weekend near Nsanje in the Shire Valley, 04 Jul 1993

A Change in the Weather, 18 Apr 1993

Visiting the Customs, and Easter, 15 Apr 1993

A dawg, a visit and St Andrews, 06 Apr 1993

Grasshoppers, funerals and neighbours, 02 Apr 1993

Civil unrest and school trips, 30 Mar 1993

Fear, and an introduction to AABC, 23 Mar 1993

Its normal to be robbed, 20 Mar 1993

Christmas 2022 News

It’s the start of December, and 2022 is not yet over. But it’s time to write another newsletter filled with all the exciting things we have done this year. Unfortunately, we don’t have too many of those, so we must go with what we have.

What a relief not to be walking around with those smelly self-infecting elasticated face pads mandated over the last couple of years! What a relief that, slowly, we are getting a handle on what has been going on around the world. How many people in authority have been found to have made uninformed decisions perhaps because they were afraid of appearing to do nothing. A conversation with a friend who lives near Cardigan on the Welsh coast, revealed that, last year, for a time, he could not go for a walk with his wife along the sea front because the council had closed the carpark ‘to stop the spread of Covid’.

Enough of that topic; we hope we are starting to see the back of it.

Our year has fallen into quite a regular pattern with meeting with friends from our church one of the mainstays. Several times a week friends drop in for a cuppa and a chat, and about every couple of weeks an elderly neighbour from across the road joins us on our weekly Aldi top-up trip. We don’t need to tell anyone about rising prices, but perhaps the vicissitudes of life we have experienced in the past help us to be economical now. We see grocery prices rising weekly but not the 100% we have noticed in other stores we browse.

In the last newsletter we said how five dear friends had died. The figure for this year has been seven, but what a joy to know that though they have passed on, it is to Glory rather than to Judgement. The increasing chaos in the world flows plainly from the abandonment of God and the embracing of humanism and evolution, both such irrational ideologies when a loving God has demonstrated that He has removed us from judgement if we chose to commit ourselves completely to His loving care. The ‘good news’ is freely available yet continuously rejected by the world.

Janet, Ben, Tim and Mike

Zoom runs on with a valuable Cross family linkup every Sunday fortnight. We have met up with Ben and Louise, who live in Swindon, at irregular intervals during the year, and Tim has dropped by one evening a week to refuel. Tim enjoys his own home near M4 Jn 11 where he continues to overwork for National Grid and Ben still overworks for Dell.

The travel industry having become marbleised over the last two years, overseas holiday spots have lost their attraction and we have failed to arrange a full holiday anywhere in the UK. However, we visited Paul (Mike’s frère) and Carol in Aylsham, Norfolk during June and October, and Terry and Fran, Alec and Angela around Hastings in September. Until the National Trust manages to burn down or rewild their properties, and drape them all with rainbow ribbons, we have thoroughly enjoyed what previous generations have ground the faces of the poor to build in the way of glorious estates.

When, in 2016, we converted much of the ground floor of our semi into more gracious living accommodation (who does he think he is?), we lost the use of the integral garage for storing spare bedding and the (unused) exercise bike. Accordingly, we converted the front bedroom upstairs into a replacement garage store room which has been highly successful.

We still have a spare double bedroom at the back of the house and have enjoyed a number of visitors over the year. About three nights is our maximum before we begin to flag. My brother summarised it with the words “Its so nice when you come; its so nice when you go”. In our earlier years we often had visitors to stay, but something has changed… our energy levels we think.

The summer was hot for a few days (though no more extreme than we remember in the past) and we enjoyed our garden, attempting to look like gardeners for a few days, but having to retreat into the house and the relief of a portable air conditioner when temperatures really rose. It seems to be either too cold, or too wet, or too hot to do too much in the garden. Or are we picky? We pride ourselves on keeping British garden centres around Reading in business by checking on coffee quality at regular intervals, and buying dying plants at rock-bottom prices so that we can continue with a good conscience whether we rejuvenate them or kill them (the odds being 50% for either).

Throughout the year we have continued to cut starchy foods and most sugar out of our diet for health reasons, Janet doing sterling servicing driving the chuckwagon into unknown territory, and our weight has been maintained at a respectable level, though still higher than we would like. According to a learned article on a medical website, all diets plateau in the end, so we suppose that, unless something revolutionary happens to our diet, that is as far as we can go. But we will persist.

Friday mornings, Janet persists with a ‘Community Bible Study’ at Wycliffe Baptist Church, and enjoys the content, and contact with a wide cross-section of ladies. This is an opportunity for Mike to escape and go for a walk or coffee with a male friend of which there are a number to choose from. However, he can be a stick-in-the mud, like most older males and needs encouragement. Getting older is a funny business, isn’t it? The way forward is to bring everything to God. Which should be a joy.

We send you much love, and if you should feel to update us with your own news, we should be most grateful. “As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.” (Proverbs 25:25)

Christmas 2021 News

At the end of March, Tim moved in with us for 5 weeks having given up the rental house he shared with friends. We enjoyed having him to stay. He moved out into his own 3-bedroom house in Whitley on May 1^st, a splendid first house, quiet and with ample parking. He’s enjoying furnishing it the way he likes and now works for National Grid, mostly from home.

Ben continues to live in Swindon with Louise, and works for Dell from home. We see Tim regularly when he pops in for meals, but keep up with Ben through telephone calls and bi-monthly visits. They hope, next year, to buy their own property.

At the end of May (covid restrictions having lifted), and again in August, we visited Aylsham, Norfolk for a few days to see my frère and his dear wife, also visiting Sue, Janet’s aunt in Cambridge, on both return journeys.

During June, we enjoyed happy visits from Janet’s brother Richard with Jeanette (who live on the Isle of Wight), her sister Helen with Phil (who live in Shipston-upon-Stour), and brother Nick (who lives in Andover).

At the close of June, our friendly young neighbours, who we have known for many years, moved and were replaced by a lovely young couple with 2 children. We look forward to getting to know them.

On the attached side, our 70-something-year-old neighbours soldier on, the nicest people you could have through the party wall!

Meanwhile, our garden, though we have hacked it about a number of times in the pursuit of Eden, is giving us pleasure in all seasons, including Winter when we look through our windows and rejoice that we are not outside. We have planted assorted shrubs in the shade of the trees which tower across the bottom of the garden, and they all love it there and are establishing themselves very happily.

At the end of August we spent a few days in Bexhill visiting friends of long standing and sampling the sea air and a local Italian restaurant!

In September we took leave of our senses and drove down to Cornwall for a week in a farm cottage near Wadebridge on the North coast. Mike can drive long distances, but takes days to recover since a TIA in February 2016. But we enjoyed calling on friends who live in those foreign parts, with a return visit to a sun-soaked Treyarnon Bay, which Janet sometimes revisits via a beach webcam.

The year was punctuated by the death of five dear friends, both here and abroad, whose Thanksgivings we attended by Z-o-o-o-o-m. How useful this has proved to be, though we all continue to enjoy a love-hate relationship with technology in general and Zoom in particular.

In October an over-75’s check-up and blood test for Mike uncovered the beginnings of type-2 diabetes. He treats this seriously, but in its early stages it can be ameliorated by embracing a low-carb diet. So, for some weeks we have cut out all potatoes, rice, pasta, most bread and all pastry and sugar, and stepped up vegetables. And we are both heading towards losing a stone in weight. More must follow, as we seek to break through the plateau that everyone who tries to lose weight encounters.

Our church connection with Earley Christian Fellowship continues to be a blessing, encouraging growth in grace as well as real friendship.

During the year, Janet has enjoyed meeting weekly for a Bible Study with ladies from different churches and has enjoyed the stimulation and homework!

She has also kept in touch with many friends through WhatsApp, especially during lockdown. We are both triple-vaccinated, following our personal conviction that this was what we should do. However, our trust is in God. Psalm 91 – all of it!

Christmas 2020 News

What an unusual year we have all had!

In February we visited Janet’s father Frank on the Isle of Wight, he having been admitted to hospital and then to hospice. He died within a few days, at age 93, and at peace, and in March, in Taunton, we attended his funeral and celebration of his life. It was just before the world began to close down so his family were all able to be present, including Chris, his eldest son from Canada. Janet’s mother had died in 2007 and Mike’s parents died in the 1990’s.

In April we joined the fashion parade with masks of differing shapes, sizes and utility, and dinky, white cotton gloves that others spurned. On the church front, technology flourished and we continued fellowship through little rectangular windows up to 49 in number because Mike took the opportunity to upgrade his PC. Zoom rapidly got its house in order, pulling its datacentres out of China, and we all became exhausted learning to mute, to speak one-at-a-time-please, and to sing to ourselves.

As the weather warmed we rediscovered the joy of gardening. Mike managed to slowly rid himself of the perfectionism that besets computer programmers, and enjoyed doing gardening badly. The plants did not seem to mind, and alstroemeria and other floral delights thrust themselves upwards until frosty days interrupted. Our new Joseph Rock mountain ash produced its yellow berries and we experienced the delight of watching God’s programming through the seasons.

Janet pressed her smart phone into use and, to our delight, was able to maintain contact with friends far and wide, who wonderfully, appeared pleased to reply and to tell us how they were doing.

We attempted to exercise our limbs in a more regular fashion, going for daily walks around the block. And how pleased we are to live in a suburbia supplied with shops, parks and garden centres. We continuously marvel at the way that God has cared for us: in placing us where we are, providing the things we need even before we think of them, and providing friends and connections.

On a number of occasions during the summer, Janet provided cream teas for ones and twos who came to see us. These were always happy times, and we enjoyed people who previously would have stayed for a couple of hours, staying effortlessly three or four.

In August we visited Paul (Mike’s brother) and Carol in Aylsham where they live having escaped N-W London suburbs some years ago. In previous years we have visited more frequently, but this year we have felt ‘clamped down on’ though, in some ways, few liberties have been curtailed. It’s all the little liberties that have been chopped; Garden Centres have been a lifesaver.

In September, we holidayed for a week in Tintagel on the north Cornwall coast, where Tim also joined us for a few days. The weather was wonderful and we paddled in the sea several times. Occupying a modern three storey house for a week, involved extra exercise retrieving articles from the top floor when we were on the ground floor and vice-versa. Alexa introduced her charms to us because the house was ‘smart’, so on our return home we began to experiment with ‘smart’ lights and speakers: two steps forward and three steps back.

Ben in Swindon, with Louise, has been working hard from home for Dell, and Tim in Reading for National Grid. We are blessed with having young men who both enjoy their work and put a lot into it. They are also very affectionate and supportive to us and we are very grateful.

Like most people, we have found this year of restriction trying, especially coupled with political changes in China, the USA, Europe and the UK, and the progress apparently being made towards a new world order.

Here we are recently, with feet excised:

For your encouragement, Psalm 91 (KJV) says: He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.

It continues: Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

We hope that you are well, and wish you all a happy time at Christmas and God’s continuing blessings into the New Year.

Just a Simple Belfast Boy

2013 Brian Mawhinney

ISBN 978-1-84954-532-7

When driving along a UK motorway, have you ever encountered a 40 mile per hour speed restriction that continued mile after mile for no apparent reason, and wondered what was going on? Brian explains in this book how this came to pass. In fact if you would like a window into government within the UK written with humour and honesty, this is the book for you.

In 371 pages, including the index, Mr Mawhinney with kind humour, tells us how he first became the MP for Peterborough, was appointed to the Northern Ireland Office during the troubles, became Minister for Health, Minister of State for Transport, Conservative Party Chairman, worked with Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Michael Heseltine and many others, became Chairman of the Football League, and was involved in a bid to FIFA for the World Cup to be in the UK. He is kind to all but you can get a good idea who he regards as the goodies, and who the baddies.

This is an inside story, told with accuracy and honesty, because Brian Mawhinney is a committed Christian and he highly values integrity.

This book is exciting reading if you have an interest in government or football, and counters the accusations of 'sleaze everywhere' made daily in the newspapers and other media.

Link to book on Amazon.co.uk

Amazon states: This simple Belfast boy was to find himself at the centre of politics during some of the most tumultuous events of recent British history - the peace process in Ireland, Britain in Europe, Thatcher versus Major. This momentous autobiography is full of the acerbic wit and outspoken opinion that characterises Brian Mawhinney - the man and the politician. This long-awaited memoir is a major work of enduring historical significance, packed with untold stories.

Christmas 2019 News

It’s that time of year again where one writes to all one’s friends to tell them that, like everyone else, we have done nothing vaguely interesting in the last year, BUT WE ARE STILL HERE! Janet is now 68 and I am 74. (You can tell it is Mike writing by his laboured attempts at humour). And we are both generally in good health… apart from the odd bump in the road we all encounter at times. 

We have more or less decided not to venture out of the UK for breaks, the reason being that air travel has become so tedious. We are not concerned about our green footprint and are content to let the world rage on about all that, less you are concerned that we may have become eco-conscious. There is no chance that will happen though we recycle assiduously according to the current dogma though recycling died for me when I discovered that all our glass bottles, carefully washed, had been integrated into junction 12 of the M4. 

So we drove our worthy (non-hybrid and getting old) Toyota up to Norfolk in August and November to attend upon my bruvver Paul and his wife Carol, who are always kind to us. (Despite being an older bruvver and therefore more brainy, Paul does his best not to treat me as the pest who used to bother him when he was 11). We also visited Jean, a cousin of Janet, and her husband Stephen in their retirement in Lincolnshire. Retired but very active. 

In March, June and November we penetrated to the deep south, known as the Isle of Wight, to see Janet’s Dad, now 93, who demeures chez Richard and Jeanette, Richard being one of Janet’s younger twin bruvvers (wot she used to look after when she wuz a little girl). Secrets are being revealed here… read on! 

I achieved a lifelong ambition to visit “disgusted of Tunbridge Wells” which turned out to be a nondescript town, with a drug problem, somewhere in the south east, on the way to Hastings. So our excitement at all this travelling around has known no bounds. (Janet dissociates herself completely from this newsletter). 

In April, to vary our routine I went into the Royal Berks Horspital as a day case for a routine prostate operation and reappeared a couple of days later hardly able to hobble because of overexposure to their air conditioning system. We don’t visit the hospital much ‘cos we can’t afford the parking. 

To inject more excitement we embarked on a lo-carb eating regime a couple of months ago and are losing about one pound a week, except for the weeks I put on a pound. The jury is out on how this will go, but I’m enjoying cream on everything: coffee, jelly, curry, the lot! And our respective clothes fit better. (I put in ‘respective’ for clarity). 

Having retired for the most part from pressing the buttons (we slide our fingers across our iPads more these days), in good weather we are spending more time in the garden and have planted more trees. I refuse to watch Gardeners’ World (a BBC TV gardening programme) or similar because of their impossible standards, but am beginning to value the fact that precisely where you plant a shrub almost does not matter, whereas a missing semi-colon in a computer program could cause the failure of a mission to the moon. 

The sprogs, Tim and Ben continue to work very hard in their respective jobs which, amazingly, focus on computers. They both run sporty, red cars, despite my advice to 'never buy a red car'. They are both very independent, which you would want, and very kind and gentle with their ageing parents.

We enjoy our involvement with Earley Christian Fellowship which continues to grow gradually with people coming from we know not where, and lots of young people. There’s been a couple of weddings this year with more coming. People wonder why we would want to live in Reading. Well, we have the gasworks, chip shops, curry houses. Even IKEA. What else could you want? Traffic is increasing to the degree that we routinely use a satnav to check local routes and avoid the town centre after 4pm most days. But we have dear friends in the church, and we hear that many older people in the world, especially men, have few friends. 

But, apart from day to day living, there are opportunities to be a help to local people, and once you move, it’s not so easy to make new friends. We hope you enjoy the Christmas/New Year holiday, and continue to enjoy God’s richest blessings in 2020.