Christmas 2018

Seasonal good wishes to all our friends, near and far. We hope 2018 has been good to you, in a year when politics just got scarier!

Gilly Beddow’s News

2018 began really well with a lovely weekend in London in January to celebrate my 70th birthday. Matthew, Katy and Abigail treated me to all the things I like the best – an art exhibition, posh afternoon tea, a concert by The Sixteen, a luxurious hotel stay and a tour of Churchill’s war rooms in Whitehall.

Otherwise my life is reminiscent of Groundhog Day – I just do the same things over and over year after year. The hope is I’ll get better at them.  I still sing in 2 choirs with 9 concerts this year (the Messiah twice), and a weekly art class, supplemented by a course in the Lakes on pastel painting. Escomb church still takes up a lot of time with more responsibility each year – an ageing congregation  means more work for us (relatively) younger ones.

A few new things this year are a monthly reading group at the local library,  taping my memoirs of Nick’s time in Auckland Castle as Bishop’s chaplain for an oral history archive and leading on the new data protection regulations for a number of organisations I belong to.

Welcome breaks away were to Porto with Matthew’s family, North Cyprus and a special interest archaeology tour of Rhodes. There have also been short breaks in London, the Lakes and the Wirral, seeing family.

The Guessis family

After a few months working in a Waterstone’s branch in Canary Wharf Abigail got promotion to be manager of the branch in Enfield, happily avoiding the daily commute into Central London. She is dealing daily with builders upgrading the store, She has a small team of booksellers and all is going well.

Aissa is still working in central London enjoying working for the International Hotel group. He’s twice been employee of the month and won a holiday for all three of them to Barcelona. The new year should see him move to a new hotel in London.

Joseph (aged 11) has Aspergers; it’s now official! He had a starring role this year in the school play with a big song and dance number as King Louis in The Jungle Book. He is proving himself as King of the Swingers in Palmers Green with climbing and Go-Ape zip wire adventures. He is also still learning the flute.

Zara moved to Qatar in March, working as a midwife in a big private hospital in Doha. She has settled in well and is enjoying the weather. Abigail and Aissa hope to visit her in 2019.

The Banner family

Katy is now on the  2nd year of her MA course in counselling and psychotherapy and loving it. Their house in the Lakes is now an eight person holiday let giving Katy her own little business to run. Jo’s family business as mining and quarrying contractors continues to expand. Jo has built  a new bouldering wall (rock climbing) in a new garage block on their land so they can both keep in practice.

Samuel (12yrs) was invited to join the chapel choir at school and has sung in Newcastle cathedral. He is doing well at school and won the Y7 prize for DT in the summer. Science remains his favourite subject and piano is still his hobby.  Luke (10yrs) is in his final year at Primary school and loves computer studies and science. Currently he’s into technical lego in his spare time. Both of them now have trial bikes and love roaring round the local farmer’s fields (after harvest time of course).

The Beddow family

Matthew and Karen and family have had another busy year setting up new businesses (Beddow Partnership & Mini Travellers Ltd) and of course travelling the globe thanks to Karens’s travel blog.   In the last 12 months alone they have taken in Lapland, Portugal, Crete, Malawi, Italy and Turkey. 

This year the highlight was Malawi where the family had an amazing holiday for 2 weeks as well as supporting a number of local projects.  Lily (8 yrs) and Isobel and Eve (7yrs) are loving school and enjoying playing lots of sports as well as performing in a drama club show.

Well that’s another year. As always we look forward to hearing your news.

Have a happy 2019.