Elaine and Peter's
Christmas Greetings
2024 ...
Our picture this year is (not us) hanggliding
in the Peak District
Printed card page2 page3 page4

Version 19(25Dec2024) ...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. ...
Try this: PHONE VIEW ... LAPTOP VIEW

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! And some family photos may say "annandlester" on them, who are wholly innocent as they are ours: long-story to do with the Nice MrGoogle and our family gathering for A&L's anniversary in 2008 sigh

Both. 50 years since our wedding: oh-so-young... During the year we shared memories of the day with Pat - aunt to Peter - who lent a dressform to Elaine when sewing her wedding dress. Elaine later bought her own, still named "AuntiePat"...

Remembering with affection all those family members who have died during the intervening years.

We spent the day of the anniversary on VIC32 (+) (+), a Clyde Puffer from the Crinan Canal in Scotland to Loch Craignish.

On the way we tried Glamping (+) on the Isle of Arran and rounded off the week with a River Clyde (+) (+) trip on Waverley, including the Kyles of Bute.

At the other end of the country, a weekend meeting of the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers was in Exeter, to which we travelled by train (on time!), incorporating a trip on the estuary of the River Exe (+). (according to ISIHAC, it was formerly the River Twitter)

There were a few days away for our 52nd annual dinner of the Southampton University ringers, (with speeches). Fitted in visits to the Isle of Wight on four of the ferry routes to its only waterway lock, chainferry (+) and another train.

Stayed in Carnforth (+), for tutoring on a bellringing course in BorwickHall. (with speeches and a panel). Rang two quarter peals in the chancel at Knaresborough for local events, and then looking down at the River Nidd.

Peter completed cataract treatment. Arrowed here at the eye clinic; a high-tech solution to remind the surgeon which eye-to-do. Overall it's a twenty-minute strange experience, with patient's head in a paper bag trying to work out how well it is all going from surgeon's brief comments to the rest of their team.

So a transition from shortsighted to longsighted (having had one-of-each since the first operation) and becoming a varifocal- wearer: the stereotype is to put on the new spectacles and fall down the first staircase: overcame that OK but an ordinary walk-to-the-shops ended with (..splat..) the no|e flatter than ususal and a scratch on the new varifocal lens ... Digital camera feels different because good pictures look out-of-focus on the camera's screen.

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. After mid-March we were around the year for the fifth time. January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, ...

Elaine is still a volunteer at Broomhill Community Library, including comparing with other libraries: Morecambe, NewportIOW, Brodick and their van, Iona, Cullompton, Carnforth ....

A brief elbow operation helped with bending the arm.

As a replacement for discontinued Tuesday afternoon yoga-classes, started a course on Painting and Drawing For The Terrified, with sketching-as-homework. Still tatting (+) (+) (+).

Step-counter reaches at least eight thousand each day, on cold days with a contribution from the exercise-bike.

Canals. Have left the group running Fulbourne, so now only one (green) boat Copperkins on which we travelled to (+) (+) the upstream end of the River Thames (+), from where the return journey (+) (+) severely tested the waterproofs.

Earlier we took Copperkins to Alrewas for Sunday-lunch, and to Birmingham (+) (+) (+) as a base for a weekend tatting exhibition and some new canal.

Later to Worcester via Tixall, Bratch, Stourport and Droitwich for a brilliant Scott-Family gathering hosted by Jenny and Kieran: we had a good collection of the cousins attending, some of whom joined us for a brief trip on the River Severn.

Traversed the Huddersfield Narrow Canal with Howard and Sally on Sapphire - wending its way through unplanned waterway stoppages.

Second trip to Scotland, also on the trains (mostly on time), was to be pampered again on the small cruise-ship Lord of the Glens, for a week on the Caledonian Canal (+), with pipes, starting from Inverness to Corpach, then Tobermory, Mull and Oban, finishing with a weekend in a cottage on the hillside above the harbour, shielded from an impressive Violent-Storm-Force 11.

The two Scotland trips included some (mostly) Calmac ferries: Troon to Brodick (on Arran); Lochranza to Claonaig; Tarbet (+) (+) (+) to Portavadie; Dunoon to Gourock; Fionnphort (+) to Iona (+) (+); and also trips on Windermere (+), Derwentwater (+) (+), and from Oban harbour.

We set out on the DanielAdamson hoping to go through Marsh Lock to Liverpool Docks, but the lock didn't work and we returned to base. More success on the River Derwent in Derby, which also serendipitously had some megabubbles. The Watertaxi in Leeds now charges a busfare for each journey.

Counting these passenger trips, and Scotland, that was over a thousand miles of waterways this year, the first time since lockdown.

Some waterway locations we passed, usually on the way somewhere else: AilsaCraig, Ardrishaig (+) (+), Crinan (+) (+), Morecambe, Carnforth, Lancaster, PrestonDock, Manchester, Latchford, Ladybower, Sheffield (+), Mirfield (+), Batley, CooperBridge (+), ThornesLock, CalderGrove, StanleyFerry, Dewsbury, Horbury, Swinton, Castleford, BankDole, Riddlesden, (+), Kirkstall, Bingley (+), StAnneIngsLock, Rodley, Knostrop, Rotherham, KelhamIsland, Attercliffe, Tinsley (+), VictoriaQuays, TuelLane, Durn, Huddersfield, Slaithwaite, AspleyBasin, HuddersfieldBroad, WhaleyBridge, Staveley, Derwent(Derby), Worsley, BartonTurns, Hatton, Oxford, (+) RiverCherwell, Thrupp, BucklersHard, HythePier, Portsmouth, Alrewas, Teignmouth, Exeter.

Locally we had some snow (+), rainbows, roofwashing, road-tree cutting, birds (+) (+), noticeboard, wall (+), reindeer, carols, neighbours, aspiring binfluencer and Leylandii in April and December.

Went to theatre-type performances: G&S: Yeoman, Ruddigore, Pinafore and TrialbyJury; Come From Away at the Lyceum; The Crucible at The Crucible in Sheffield; My Fair Lady in Leeds; Radio4's It's a Fair Cop at the Leadmill Sheffield; Radio4's AnyQuestions at Ranmoor church; lecture/discussion on new book about HaroldWilson by AlanJohnson at Sheffield University; and a presentation at our local Chocolate Factory.

Old (diesel) car was showing its age; bits were falling off and there's an increasing number of cities charging for their Clean Air Zones. Replaced with upgraded (petrol) version (+) which seems to know where it is going better than the driver...

We Zoom-with-Iain every few days; he works mostly-from-home and sometimes bicycles to work in Warrington with the occasional visit to Sheffield. He sometimes contributes canal pictures to "Tonic" (+) (+) (+) (+).

He also rings more Quarter Peals than we do, both handbells and towerbells. We still ring at Ranmoor for practice, services and for Christmas; we hosted a striking competition. Elaine's Performances; Peter's Performances, with some single-bell practice for running a training course.

On t'web:

Lest you missed those years: 2023 or 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

Scott-Cousins in Worcester: youngest-to-oldest: 29,26,24,23,18,16,14,12,10,6,4,2

Here's to 2025

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 ...