We’ve certainly started writing this letter early! We’re combining sending you our greetings at Christmas with letting you know about our house move. By the time you receive this letter we will have left Solihull (we have arranged mail redirection so don’t worry about anything you may have sent to us, as we should still get it wherever we are). With everything that has been happening we haven’t been able to meet the standards of newsletter production that we managed last year. And Tim was hoping to be able to publish an Internet version as well! Over to him to explain about the move............

As we told you last year, the organisational changes at work (BT) have meant that for 20 months now I have been travelling to and from Bracknell two or three times a week. Over the last six months we have decided that this really is not the way we want to live. I have very little energy when I do get home late and I was not prepared to let the situation continue indefinitely. I looked for another job closer to home, but nothing suitable came along; so we decided that it was right to move ‘down south’ in order to be closer to work and thus to be able to ‘get a life’. So in June we put our house on the market and were delighted when it sold within a couple of weeks at virtually the asking price. The difficult bit proved to be in finding a new home. Firstly we started off looking in and around Reading, Maidenhead, Marlow, Wokingham, Henley (in fact the whole of Berkshire!) for a new church home and have ended up choosing the River Church based in Marlow and Maidenhead, where we felt comfortable immediately. By that time it was early August and we found that there was almost nothing on the housing market in the right location and price range.

We came back from holiday in September and at last found a ‘des-res’ in Marlow. Since then we have been waiting for the legal wheels to grind. We had been led to believe by the people selling to us that they would be prepared to move out whenever we were ready (and our buyers had been ready since August) but last week it became apparent that this was not the case and the chain above them was not ready to exchange. We were getting intense pressure from our buyers so we have decided to commit to completion on 29th Nov without a similar arrangement on our purchase. In other words we will be homeless at the end of the month! Until the New Year Chris (and Pepsi) will go to her parents in Norfolk and I will commute at weekends and lodge near work in the week; if necessary we will then probably rent something in or around Marlow, depending on how quickly things are likely to move. Not surprisingly this has been a big disappointment and we now fully appreciate what a rotten system it is. It’s sad to be leaving the Solihull Fellowship and all the friends we have made there, especially for Chris who has got very little to look forward to. The Marlow church people have been great so far even though we’ve only seen them a handful of times and so we look forward to getting to know them. I’ve asked if any of them would be prepared to rent me a room for the time until Christmas - an excellent way to get well acquainted!

In July we had a great week camping near Dartmouth. Whilst we were lying in bed listening to the radio on the morning that we were going the weatherman said that if he had been able to pick a week to go on holiday this would have been it, as the weather was going to be lovely - and it was. It proved to be a good practice run for a fortnight’s holiday later on the Greek island of Thassos. Yes, we went to Greece again! Thassos is in the north Aegean just off the coast from the mainland. You fly to the mainland and them travel by coach-ferry-coach to your resort. It was a very lovely holiday where we heard as many Greek voices on the beach as English. Food and wine were excellent, sand was almost white and powder-fine, sea was warm, island was uncrowded.......... and as you’ve probably guessed, Chris didn’t want to go home (no change there!).

(Chris again) I have continued to be the church administrator for this year, finally handing over in September to my replacement. I have enjoyed using the desktop publishing package on the computer and have gradually investigated more and more of its facilities and tried to use them, when appropriate, in the monthly Newsletter. I was particularly pleased with the programme and posters that I designed for the pre-Easter three evening presentation ‘Dead Men Don’t Cook Breakfast’.

Both Tim and I were very involved in the ‘Dead Men’ presentation. Tim put together a small group mostly consisting of our usual Sunday worship music group and we performed various songs to intersperse the dramatic scenes. Each scene presented the account of someone living or dead who had an experience of meeting Jesus face to face after His death and resurrection. All of these scenes were scripted by people in the church. I sang two solos for which I seemed to get more nervous as the evenings went on - I was much more relaxed on the first night! We almost filled the Solihull Library Theatre each night and everyone was most complimentary about the whole presentation but especially about the music which they said was so good.

We’ll greatly miss making music with these people but it really is time to move and try to live a more normal life.

Mum and Dad Nelson continue to do fund-raising in Stoke-On-Trent for UCB Radio, but are a bit closer to retiring properly. They still don’t know where to move to, but it’ll probably be in the Midlands. They’re enjoying using their campervan whenever possible. They went to Switzerland when Anna and Luca’s second child Jeremy (Jem) arrived in March, being very useful in looking after Lois who is now 2½. Phil is coming to the end of a contract job in Stuttgart and is very undecided about what to do next - to stay in Germany or return to the UK, and what job to do. Dave is still PE teaching in Leamington, and now lives there. He looks after two basketball teams who achieved very high ranking in England for their age groups. Auntie Joan in Stroud is fit and well.

Peart news: Mum and Dad are well and are still enjoying walking, ballroom dancing, sewing etc. They had to shorten a planned three month trip to Australia and New Zealand this Spring because a few days before they were due to go (to visit relatives, tour a bit and go to my cousin Carina’s wedding) my Dad found out that he had a deep vein thrombosis and had to stay in hospital for a while. They were allowed to go in time for the wedding and now my Dad is back to normal again (one leg perhaps slightly fatter than the other). Somehow or other the treatment seems to have stopped Dad snoring, which after 41 years of marriage is a real blessing to Mum.

Mike and Julie, Sussanah and Nicholas are still living in Nottingham. Mike continues with the Architecture and Julie as an Occupational Therapist. Sussanah and Nicholas have both managed to get themselves in football teams so everyone is kept busy at weekends too. Mike is helping with training for the team that Nicholas is in as well as playing in his own team.

That’s about it. Do give us a call or write and tell us your news. When we finally get to Marlow in a house of our own we would love you to drop in - it’s only 5 minutes from Junction 4 of the M40.

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