Elaine and Peter's Christmas Greetings 2023 ... Printed card page2 page3 page4 Version 11(5Jan2024) - new versions possible until Twelfth Night. Viewing instructions this year. Underlined links, and all the pictures, are clickable and lead to a bigger picture or a Web-Resource: see, enjoy, press the browser back button. Sometimes it's an album of a dozen pictures or more: best to expand the top-right drop-down menu - the three vertical dots - then click the "Slideshow" option. Watch until bored. Return with the browser back button. Occasionally a video from youtube: press the arrow in t'middle of screen to start and the browser back button to return. Youtube would like you to watch some more that it selects from your previous selections. They are not my fault. A (+) is a second link on the same subject. Viewing on a phone is different... If we have failed to select your best side in any of the pictures, please email and we will remove you from public view. Enjoy!

2023 was more like before-the-Accursed-Virus than 2020 or 2021: more trips away, some train journeys, more buses and trams(*), more car-trips, more ringing towerbells and handbells, more haircuts, more eating out (but still few pubs), more canalling, the occasional theatre (+)-trip and more visitors, the braver of whom park on our 1-in-3 hill. (*) video of a non-standard Sheffield tram route. All of which delayed house-tidying, which included one bedroom decorated, with a neat new folding bed which pulls down from the alcove created by making the adjoining bathroom smaller. Lots of contents, mostly from the loft, now need re-homing: we still found and imported a new swan for the windowcill.

In the attic Elaine's fourth (new?) old sewing-machine needed another trolley to stand on. One for each limb. When any are not thereby entwined, Elaine is still a volunteer at Broomhill Community Library, including researching other libraries in Maryhill and Nottingham (+). Tuesday afternoon yoga-classes ended when the teacher retired. Still tatting. Step-counter reaches at least eight thousand each day, on cold days with a contribution from the exercise-bike. We subscribed to both a window-cleaner and the local garden-cuttings greenbin collection: sadly the garden grows more vegatation than there is energy to cut down. Peter had a cataract operation on the left eye; the Eye Centre at the Northen General has a high-tech solution to ensure the surgeon works on the correct side. The other eye will be on the 2024 card and there is a temporary monocular solution in the meantime ...

Copperkins had her roof professionally painted, and we had fortnights to Norbury, Llangollen and beginning with the coronation weekend to Stoke Bruerne, where Peter was booked to give a Waterways talk; our crew of five made up half of the audience and won a disproportionate number of raffle prizes. Also had some daytrips to Braunston, on Fulbourne for the Historic Boat Rally, Cheshire, in Sapphire and Glascote on Copperkins. There were some commercial passenger trips to Leeds, River Orwell, Harwich, Oulton Broad, Loch Lomond and Greenwich. That's 60 days out, covering 622 miles and 499 locks.

Weekends-away were inspired by finding the quirkiest (mostly self-catering) accommodation. In Bingley for a bellringing course, including some Yorkshire tailends at Otley, we rented a flat in a converted school, with upper level living accommodation and an even-more upper level view of the kitchen. Bellringers will recognise it as an ideal location for a light six ... Ipswich for the Central Council bellringers' AGM had a converted hotel which had seen better days, and had revellers outside until 3am. A new compact corner flat in Glasgow was designed with neither door nor window in the bedroom and a triffid skulking in the bathroom.

We had student accommodation in Myerscough for the North West Ringing Course, and a dockside flat in Preston for another bellringing course, and a seaside terraced house in Morecambe. More traditional hotels in Exeter, in Skipton, in Herne Bay for a birthday celebration and in Bedford. All of them had some Waterway visits. Also ringing in Hursley, then in Southampton for our 51st Annual Bellringers' dinner, where we remembered our founding member Margaret Chapman Navigated by bus/ train/car from Birmingham (on Copperkins) to Leeds and back to assist change in the Yorkshire Association of Change Ringers.

We Zoom-with-Iain every few days; he's not always looking so grumpy; he works mostly-from-home and sometimes bicycles to work in Warrington - close to the Manchester Ship Canal, the Bridgewater and the Sankey Canal - with the occasional visit to Sheffield. He also rings more Quarter Peals than we do. Peter's Quarter Peals. Elaine's Quarter Peals and a challenge-in- principle for tower and handbell ringers.

Snow in March and November. In a brief autumnal interlude, Crosspool has become a stopping point for Waxwings (migrating birds) during which time we have uplookers with more long-lenses (forty on one Saturday afternoon) than birds (none that day). The Crosspool postbox, since its snow-hat (+) picture above, suffered the indignity of a traffic accident, and hasn't yet been uprighted ... The Plough, a local hostelry, once a regular meal-stop on the way to Tuesday-evening ringing has made way for an unused building-site (+). Community contributions: notifying road/sewer holes (+) (filled in), sick tree opposite our drive (no action/response), picking up cyclist, fallen off in middle of the road (bruises). Ranmoor ringing has continued on Sundays and Tuesdays, with an early start for our learners, who occasionally ring together, with a few weddings, some with a Routemaster ( RML2313). New scaffolding protects visitors from any falling stonework. Sheffield Cathedral organised the final of the 12-bell ringing competition, filling Cathedral Square with ringers from all over the country. On another evening there was a lightshow.

Peter continued with a couple of hours each day on old waterway pictures on a message-board as a 'Tonic' to cheer us up in gloomy times. Gloominess, which begun with the AccursedVirus, has continued with wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the Climate Emergency and the UK economy. After mid-March we were around the year for the fourth time. January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, ...

Local trips have each had canal-visits to collect more of these 2023 Tonic pictures. In Leeds, visited Crown Point Bridge (+), Leeds Dock (+), Calls Landing (+), Oluwale Bridge (+), Leeds Bridge, Granary Wharf (+), StAnne Ings Lock and at Armley, where the idea has been borrowed for graffiti on the River Wey. Except for the Us' U-turns. Rotherham has a new waterway barrier above, and floods later in the year caused it to be in defence mode (left). We also had day-trips to Battyeford; Caldergrove; Cooper Bridge; Dewsbury; Eastwood; Ferrybridge; Foulridge; Grantham; Holmes Lock; Huddersfield; Kirkstall; Knostrop; Ladybower; Lemonroyd; Manchester (+); Moira; Mirfield; Stanley Ferry; Sheffield Basin (+); Shepley Bridge (+); Tinsley; Whaley Bridge.

Further afield we visited Appley Bridge; Banbury; Barmby; Bedford; Bingley; Bolton Abbey; Bridgwater's sofa, parapet, basin and lock (+); Bude's sea lock, sea channel, boat, swan, canal and canal lock; River Clyde; Compton (+) (+); Dawlish's seafront and canal (+); Edinburgh (+); Etruria; Exeter's suspension bridge, weir, Countess Bridge, Turf Lock, canal (+), paddlers, disused side-lock, ferry and estuary; and Gargrave; ...

... Glasgow (above); Glasson; Herne Bay (+); Ipswich; Maryhill; Norwich's cathedral and river; Preston; Ribchester; Skipton; Southampton Docks; Stockton Heath; Stockingfield Junction (+); Sutton Bridge (+); Tadcaster; Teignmouth's Pier and river; Tarleton; Tewkesbury's river and lock; Wansford; Weymouth's Harbour (+) and beach (+);

On t'web: Lest you missed those years: 2022 or 2021 or 2020 or 2019 or 2018 or 2017 or 2016 or 2015 or 2014 or 2013 or 2012 or 2011 or 2010 or 2009 or 2008 or 2007 or 2006 or 2005 or 2004 or 2003 or 2002 or 2001 or 2000 or 1999 or 1998 or 1997 or 1996 or 1995 or 1994 or 1993 or 1992 or 1991 or 1990 or 1989 or 1988 or 1987

Here's to 2024

Elaine's email: elaine@homescott.free-online.co.uk Peter's email: peter@homescott.free-online.co.uk To phone: 07980 953880 (Elaine’s mobile) 07973 468126 (Peter’s mobile) To write: 3 Moorbank Drive, Sheffield, S10 5TH

And So To Bed ...

Text:Peter©2023 Pictures:Peter©2023 Layout:Peter©2019