Steve, Helen, Oliver, Elliot, Colette, Rachael & Judith
Thorpe Hamlet,  Norwich,  United Kingdom

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Oliver is off to Writtle to finish his final year at Uni. v soon and is visiting a friend in Norway first. Well we wrote off another car, not our fault this time a girl in an unfamiliar company car ran into the back of us! We haven't sorted out all the insurance issues yet so haven't got a replacement. Judith is Captain this year and in the 1st game of the season the girls won about 11-0 but I may have lost count. Steve  Helen have joined a cycle club and once a month go for a long(ish) cycle ride around the Norfolk countryside.

At the end of July in what must have been one of the busiest weeks of the year, Judith and Elliot (and Helens sister in law) all appeared in the local newspapers. We went to Sandringham to see Elliot and his friends get their Duke of Edinburgh's Gold award. Elliot really worked hard for this and it was a pleasure to see him receive it from actress Claire Goose. The pictures are here. Only 24 hours later Colette was off to the Hewett School prom, meanwhile Judith who was in the paper featured as one of the Norwich city girls football team, cycled to and from the Norfolk Show and had a great day. Both Judith and Rachel have had good school reports with Rachel getting some amazingly good marks. Finally at the end of the week the Middle school fete that Helen has been organising for weeks had a wonderful day of sunshine and was a great success.

Here we are in mid June. On the 17 June Steve had the book he has edited called Eating Disorders: Helping Your Child Recover published, there is more about it on the EDA website.  On the same night Judith won the Norwich city canaries players player award for the third time in as many years. Oliver is home for the holidays having worked at the local middle school for 3 weeks to complete his first 2 years work at University. He has tired of the North and is going to complete his third year at Writtle (Chelmsford) part of the University of Essex.  Colette is finishing her GCSE exams and now we wait with baited breath for the results.

Colette's exchange visit was a great success and we will be hosting her exchange partner in October

March/April saw Oliver off to Slovenia leading an expedition as part of his University course and Elliot went off to Derbyshire as a leader on a Duke of Edinburgh's award expedition. Rachael & Judith have just come back from a trip to Belgium and Colette is planning her visit to France on an exchange visit.

Steve and Helen had a great time in Amsterdam in mid February with Jack and Annie Wilton who wanted to celebrate her big birthday in style.  The weather was cold and snowing when we arrived, but it made for an interesting visit with plenty of excuses to snuggle down in a coffee bar or restaurant.

Life is never dull! At the beginning of December 05, Rachael had an accident when a car pulled out in front of her bike and she was pitched over the bonnet, breaking her helmet which saved her from serious injury. However she landed on her chin which got a nasty graze but it's  healing up pretty well.  Rachael recovered fairly quickly but poor Judith had to have a day off to recover from the shock. Meanwhile in Carlisle, Oliver got his arm broken when he was assaulted by a nightclub bouncer.  M'learned friends are sharpening their quills as he is making a serious claim for compensation.

Helen had her big 50 birthday party in mid October last year so got 2 bites of the cherry as her actual birthday wasn't until the 21st. She had her own site for the party and it was great fun with lots of old pictures of Helen and great entertainment from Elvis aka Mark Reilly.

This page updated 20 September 2006