Graham and Dylys' news in 1998

Computing

Graham had a modem for Christmas and got us properly established on the Internet in January, as you will be aware if you are reading this on-line! This was the logical step on from going to an Internet evening class last year. In amongst our Web space allocation, he has set up a site for his Dad's business, "West Country Accordions", which you can access from the index on the left hand side of the screen. You will also find our house advertised on this site: do have a look around! We bought a scanner in the autumn, primarily in order to illustrate the house site, so you will find lots of pictures.

Further Education

Graham signed up for evening classes with the Independent Theological Academy, and was studying in Hanley (the city centre of Stoke on Trent) on Monday evenings for the first three months of the year. He should now know more than he did before about Cults (churches which appear Christian but which differ in at least one major doctrine), Interpreting the Bible, and Doctrine.

In September, we have both decided to turn linguistic! Graham is now studying the C++ programming language whilst Dylys signed up for sign language. Disappointingly, Dylys' course was under-subscribed and was cancelled after the first meeting.

Church

We are active members of Park Evangelical Church in Stoke on Trent. Towards the end of 1997, one of our elders moved on to plant a new church in Stafford. He also happened to be our Prayer Group leader. Graham has now taken over leadership of the group, and is responsible for organising and leading this group of around ten people on the first Wednesday of each month. He also shares a Sunday School class with another teacher, and so is teaching around half the Sunday mornings.

Graham took a week off work in August to help out with the children's Holiday Bible Club. Each morning started with activities for all the children together, and then they were split into small groups for which Graham was involved in some of the teaching. There were plenty of leaders so it was not an intensive week. It was nice to be able to get up a bit later than during a normal working week, and generally the afternoons were free.

Dylys is responsible for preparing the communion in the church, which takes place three times a month. She also speaks at Ladies' meetings occasionally.

Family News

Some joyful occasions and some sombre ones. To start with the former, we went to the engagement party of Sandra (Dylys' niece) in February; and to the wedding of Elizabeth (Dylys' cousin) in March.

Not so joyful, Graham's Grandma died in March. She had suffered a stroke at Christmas, and recovered remarkably well. However, she suffered a more serious one mid-February and did not pull out of this one. We were glad to be able to visit her at the end of February (she lived in Cornwall), but then she died a couple of weeks later and we went down again for the funeral.

Holidays

It was our second wedding anniversary at the end of April, and we spent the weekend at a Posthouse hotel as we did last year: Graham still has some points left on his Posthouse loyalty card from all the time he spent away from home early 1997. This year we went to Preston for three nights. The hotel is in the middle of the town, not particularly inspiring for a holiday location, but a good choice of food close at hand. On the Saturday we drove out into the Forest of Bowland in rural Lancashire and got a beautiful walk in: after parking the car we barely saw a soul until we got nearly back again, wonderful wild hillside all to ourselves. On the Sunday we visited Carey Baptist Church, which is almost next door to the hotel: a really friendly, welcoming and active fellowship, we would recommend them to anybody visiting that area.

For the May bank holiday we went back down to Cornwall and had a good relaxing time walking around the coast paths near Graham's Dad's house. We were also down visiting Dad again in October and had some excellent weather: nice to be walking along the coast paths in tee-shirts in the middle of October!

Our main relaxation holiday of the year was a week in the Lake District in the middle of June. Last year we had an excellent holiday staying in a rented cottage in Cockermouth, to the north of the Lake District proper. This year we booked the cottage next door. The weather was not as bright as it was last year, although we did better than most of Britain which had a thoroughly wet week. Last year we were not able to do all the walking that we had planned due to Dylys' feet blistering up, and in that respect we had a much better week this year, getting in a number of substantial walks. Low cloud was more of a hindrance than rain, and we did manage to get lost for a while on the ridge of "High Stile" above Lake Buttermere.

Work

Dylys was made redundant from Creda in Blythe Bridge at the end of April, after more years service than we care to think about. In a restructuring, her job was moved to Peterborough. She could have gone to Peterborough, or taken an alternate job at the Blythe Bridge plant, but she opted out and to look for a new position. She started her new job as ward clerk with nearby Longton Cottage Hospital in July.

Graham had been looking for a new job for a good while and achieved a job offer in the autumn. At the end of November he started work with Syseca, a software house in Wythenshawe, South Manchester. The journey is taking over an hour each way, and so we are the more eager to sell our house.

Graham and Dylys' news in 1997

Work

The first four months of the year were an unusually busy time for Graham. His company had subcontracted a substantial piece of software development work to a company in Cardiff, which underwent system test and release to the first customer, also in Cardiff, during the first four months of the year. Consequently, Graham spent most of each week during this period down in Cardiff to oversee the work. It was a good experience, but had an obvious impact on commitments at home. Dylys bravely put up with this state of affairs but, needless to say, would rather have had Graham at home.

Leisure

Dylys has long been a fan of Andrew Lloyd-Webber, and we saw that TSB offered a package deal with credit card loyalty points to go to see a show in London. We went down at the end of January to see Starlight Express, spent one night in a London hotel, and also visited the Science Museum and the National Gallery. A brief, expensive even with the package deal, but very memorable holiday.

Family

Graham's Dad and Grandma live in Cornwall, and both of us are always glad of the excuse to visit that part of the country. We went for a long weekend in March, and for a week in October. It is quieter and easier to get about outside the main holiday season. The weather may not be at its best, but at these times of year it is considerably milder than it is at home up north. On the way down in October we called in to see Graham's brother Phil in Taunton.

Leisure

It was our first wedding anniversary in April. All the time working in Cardiff was not without its rewards: Graham usually stayed in a Post house hotel which runs a loyalty scheme offering points towards free nights away at weekends. So we booked up two nights at the Leeds/Selby Post house. We had hoped to get out for a decent walk on the Saturday but the weather was unsettled, so we went into York for the day instead. Their "Park and Ride" scheme is excellent: a very quick bus ride from outside the city into the centre. We spent several hours in the Castle Museum. We went back to the hotel in the evening, Dylys picked a restaurant out of the Yellow Pages, and it proved to be one of the best meals out we have had.

It was Dylys' birthday in July. Graham assumed that she would like to go out for a meal together, but she fancied a trip to see Warwick Castle instead. We had a good day out to see the castle which was started in Norman times, and extended and refurbished over the centuries right up to Victorian times. We visited the dungeon and torture chamber, and managed to escape without too much harm.

Holiday
Our main relaxation holiday of the year was a week in the Lake District at the beginning of June. We felt God's blessing at the time when it was warm and sunny most of the week with virtually no rain. We felt it more so later in the month, which proved to be one of the wettest on record! Unfortunately Dylys' feet blistered up and we were not able to do the amount of walking that we would have done otherwise. As though to balance our bodies up, when Dylys' feet were at their worst we went rowing on Derwent Water and we both got blistered hands! (not to the same extent - these quickly healed).

Christian Service

In August we joined a mission team going to Clonmel, a town in the south of Ireland. The pastor of one of our sister churches in Stoke on Trent was previously pastor of Clonmel Evangelical Church for a number of years, and he organised the trip to support the small evangelical church in a town which is mainly nominally Catholic. We only went for the first week of a two week mission, and were involved in door to door and open air work. It was an enlightening experience to do this work in a place that was in some ways very similar, and in some ways so different to home.

Family

We had the pleasure of visiting Graham's sister Karen in Solihull in September: she and her husband Andy had just produced their first child Matthew. We took turns at holding him in our arms, but he has not persuaded us to have one of our own yet.

Further Education

We both signed up for evening classes in the autumn. Dylys has been studying counselling at a local hospice. Graham went for the Internet at Keele University: he has browsed the World Wide Web before, but does not use the Internet at work, and is hoping for a modem for Christmas for more regular access.

Housing

After two years on the market, we finally completed the sale of Dylys' old house at the end of November. Things started moving in September when a woman came to view the house on a Friday evening and our Estate Agent phoned us on the Monday to start negotiating the price. We have had to accept substantially less than Dylys paid for the house, and pay for some maintenance work to be done before the deal could complete. We thank God that we are in a position to stand the loss: we have friends who are not. We are relieved and delighted to have the burden off our backs.

Church

We are still active members of Park Evangelical Church: Graham has a Sunday School class, whilst Dylys looks after the communion. One of our elders has recently left to start a church plant in Stafford.

Graham and Dylys' news in 1996

Wedding and Honeymoon

We were married on 27 April 1996 in Stoke on Trent. There were around 100 guests from as far apart as Livingston and Cornwall, and we thoroughly enjoyed the big event. We then spent the best part of two weeks on honeymoon in Sorrento, Italy: sunshine and showers but always warm, very relaxing, a holiday never to be forgotten.

Housing

We are living in the house that Graham have been in since 1992 and very slowly getting it into shape. The bathroom has been a long job: Graham had a new suite fitted well before we got married, but this revealed that the bathroom needed re-plastering and tiling. Having got a plasterer in, Graham decided to do the tiling himself and regretted it - he is not a DIY person. It took a long time to get the shower refitted, and we finally got a new floor covering down in late November.

Swimming

Graham has been swimming regularly for a number of years, under doctor's orders (!). Dylys was a non-swimmer, but has faithfully stuck at her lessons since June, and can now swim a length of the teaching pool, and even impressed Graham last time she came in the main pool with him.

Cars

We became a one-car family in July, when we sold Dylys' Fiesta. She now walks to work most mornings (well - she is much closer to her work than Graham).

Holidays

We paid a long overdue visit to Scotland in August. Graham worked in Livingston from 1983 to 1992, and this was his first visit north of the border since then. We were overwhelmed with the welcome we got when spending a couple of days in Livingston, and then we headed up to the Isle of Skye for a couple of days. We had some excellent weather the first day there, and really saw the island at its best.

We visited Graham's Dad and Grandma in Cornwall in November. The weather was mixed, but we were able to get in one decent walk along the coast of the Camel Estuary. Graham also spent a number of hours helping his Dad to get started on his new computer (he had been hitherto computer illiterate).

Home

The other home improvement came in later on in August: we had fitted wardrobes in the main bedroom. Since then we have sold the old free-standing wardrobe and moved the computer into our bedroom. This now leaves space for the two single beds in the spare room: so if you would like to visit, the house is all ready for you.

After a year of being on the market, we had made no progress in selling Dylys' old house, so in November we started renting it to friends. We had not realised how complex renting is, and it is still our hope to get the property sold as soon as possible. In fact, both houses are on the market, and should Redwood Place sell first, we may well be moving to Dylys' old house (short term).

Church

Graham is gaining new experience as a Sunday School teacher: started in October. He has a class of seven to eight year old's, and at Park Evangelical Church classes are shared so that he is only on duty half the Sundays. Meanwhile, Dylys has responsibility for organising the communion at the church. Since this takes place on a weekly basis, we always have to be at church early either morning or evening in order to get this ready.

Graham was sorry to leave his last church, Blurton Free Baptist, when we got engaged. He had been part of the pulpit committee, trying to recruit a new pastor. We were pleased to be able to attend the induction of Ian Harrison as pastor of the church in October.

Work

After many months of rumour and speculation, Graham's company was finally sold by GEC to ABB in November 1996, so he now works for ABB Metering Systems. We were given a very positive message by our new owners, but it is too early to tell what kind of restructuring may follow.