Graham and Dylys' news in 2018

A hard few months

Dylys’ Mum had been seriously unwell since the summer of 2017. In the early months of this year, Dylys was making daily trips to see her in hospital in Stoke on Trent, or at home in Cheadle. The Lord called Mum home in April. Dylys also lost a niece and the niece’s husband in tragic circumstances just before Mum passed away – several funerals in April.

A shiny new toy

We kept our old Hyundai Getz for ten years. Over the years, the battery had let us down on a couple of occasions during the lifetime of the car – we found it flat and had to call the rescue service. Air conditioning feels like a con – in the UK there are so few occasions when we really benefit from it, but it seems to need servicing on an annual basis if it is going to work at all, and it just does not justify the cost. But overall, the car had served us very well.

Servicing was getting expensive in recent years – always something requiring replacement, and it usually came to light shortly after the annual service. In the autumn of this year  we knew that another bill in the order of £500 was likely, so we changed the car. We now have a bright red Hyundai i20. The Getz served us well; it felt quite basic but was perfectly adequate. The i20 has all manner of gadgetry, and we have to wonder whether it will all last as long as the old car did.

Health and exercise

Last year, it was Dylys who tripped on our stairs and struggled to get around for a few weeks. This year something happened to Graham’s knee. The symptoms varied quite a bit over the course of the year, sometimes making it difficult to walk, sometimes difficult to get up or down stairs, and for a few days, difficult to operate the clutch in the car. Fortunately, it had little effect on Graham’s cycling. After the symptoms had persisted six months, he requested that the GP arrange an x-ray. When the results were in, the GP advised that there was no serious damage and recommended a course of physiotherapy. The symptoms then subsided before the course started, but Graham went through with three sessions and is trying to keep up with the prescribed exercises.

Graham was really grateful that the knee problem had not affected his cycling unduly, as this is his preferred exercise. He managed to cycle to work on 123 occasions this year, compared with 98 times last year, and he thinks that he has cycled a greater total number of miles this year than on any previous year.

Holidays

Much of the country enjoyed a long, warm, dry summer this year. Consequently we had two excellent holidays. We enjoyed new scenery around Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales in May. Then we stayed near St Ives in Cornwall in September, the Cornish location motivated in part so that we could see Graham’s family, including a new great niece Rosie.

Church

Dylys looks after the communion and manages the rentals at our church. Graham has been an Elder for several years, but our constitution defines a maximum term of office, meaning that he was obliged to take a very welcome break, starting from the AGM in May.

Work

Not much change from last year. Dylys is officially retired, and does voluntary work for “Open the Book” (Bible stories in schools), the Hope Centre (Christian coffee shop), the Hospice shop, and for the Macclesfield hospital. Graham continues as a Software Engineer with Waters Corporation in Wilmslow.