What a difference ten years make ...

On Sunday I was reading an interesting blog post by Ken, who is ‘Living his Life in St-Aignan’, about ten-year milestones. This got me thinking as we have our own ten- year milestone coming up.

The last time we holidayed together as a family was ten years ago, and soon, we shall all be doing it again. Of course, since then we’ve taken holidays with both Rhiannon and Tom, but never together. This prompted me to look back through the albums, both digital and print, to remember the wonderful times we spent together as a family.

We are probably reaching a time when our lives will take a different direction. In a few years both Tim and I will be fully retired and who knows where we’ll end up. Will it be in a combination of Staffordshire and le Petit-Pressigny, or just one or the other? Perhaps Wales will enter the equation, or we sell up everywhere to return to the spectacular mountains of the Haute Savoie? Who knows? Maybe life has other things in store for us.

Rhiannon has been away to and come back from University, bought and sold her first house and is now close to sealing a deal on another. She certainly knows how to turn a house into a home and has done this around a demanding and stressful job.

Tom is in his last year at University. He has spent summers working in both India and Japan, studied for a year in Colorado and is now applying for jobs in Japan, South Korea and China.

So, a lot has happened in the last ten years. More wrinkles, aches and pains, grey hairs and pounds on the waistline. We’ve lost four parents, three within the space of a year) which was a very difficult time. We've lost friends, colleagues and other family members although  we've enjoyed good health and met new and wonderful friends.

These photographs were taken on our last holiday together in Switzerland, but we’ll all have to wait for the updated ones …

Sharing an enormous dessert at the revolving ‘James Bond’ revolving restaurant, Piz Gloria, at the top of the Shilthorn.

Tim, in case you're wondering whether we'd left him at the bottom of the mountain...

A Tale of Two Cities ...

September 1968 and my first term at high school. Mr Ashcroft, our almost retired English teacher, decided that we should read ‘A Tale of two Cities’ by Charles Dickens. I didn’t have a problem reading the words, but there was an enormous problem for the class to understand the meaning of the story. Prior to this I had been an avid reader - of anything Enid Blyton wrote, so I’m sure you can imagine my dilemma. I can’t remember (well it is a long time ago!) either discussing or writing anything about the book. All we did was ‘read it round the class’ a paragraph at a time. How not to do it!

Mr Ashcroft was, I’m sure, asleep in the corner. His very presence in the room was enough to maintain perfect order. That, and the ‘slipper’ he kept on his desk. Just in case…

I didn’t understand the book then, and I haven’t been tempted to read it since!

Anyway, I digress. The subject of my post should more accurately be ‘A Tale of Two Rooms’.  Over the past week my nest has been rearranged.

Rhiannon is back living at home, albeit in a different bedroom, while she looks round for a suitable house to buy.  Her room is smaller than her old room but does have the benefit of an adjacent shower room! Yesterday she started her new job,  much closer to home, so won’t have the best part of two hours travelling each day.

Tom is back at Lancaster University for his final year and is awaiting the arrival of some interesting house mates.  He can’t wait to be busy, especially after the excitement of his time in Colorado and Japan.

We are hoping that the coming year will be happy and successful for them both. Perhaps I can quote selectively from Charles Dickens with the opening lines of 'A Tale of Two Cities' …

It was the best of times,

 it was the worst of times,

it was the age of wisdom,

it was the age of foolishness,

it was the epoch of belief,

it was the epoch of incredulity,

it was the season of Light,

 it was the season of Darkness,

it was the spring of hope,

it was the winter of despair,

we had everything before us…