School and snow

Josh has started big school. It was hard to start with but is getting better daily. The first few days were very hard for us all. Josh has gone from a nursery of up to 10 children to a class of 30 in a year of 60 in a school of 400! And he doesn't know anyone. We were told that Helen would be able to stay with Josh for the first hour or two, but she wasn't. We had told Josh that she would, so obviously that was very upsetting for everyone. Dealing with the reality of break time for the first two days was har as well. It is very difficult to do anything when the dominant picture in your mind is your son standing in the school playground feeling sad and alone while everyone else is happily playing.
Still it doesn't last too long. Josh has fairly quickly been making friends and getting to know more names. He's done his first wee at school (hurrah!) and comes home with stories about what he's been up to.

Meanwhile yesterday morning he had snow to walk to school in. He and Reuben were both very excited. The pictures are of our house and our road. Hope you are well. Do get in touch and let us know how you are. God bless,
Chris

That'll be Christmas and New Year out the way then!

I must start with an apology. We didn't manage to get our Christmas news out in time - it will follow next week! Sorry. We hope you have had a very happy Christmas and New Year, and known the Lord's blessing on you and your family. I know some of you have, and others less so. Ours has been very busy and isn't quite over yet. We a little trickle of visitors on Christmas day! We started with perhaps 8 people and ended with 15 or so! We must have caught a few people out by starting 15 minutes early!
After that we charged off to my family who were gathered in Buckinghamshire. (We had to hire the village hall in my sisters village!) Still it was great for us all to get together.
We spent the night in a travel lodge and then (after a little chef breakfast) drove off to spend boxing day with Helen's family who were gathered in Bradford-Upon-Avon. Again we had a very jolly time.
The day after, we spent a little while shoppingin Bath, then drove up to Welshpool to spend a few days with Helen's oldest sister Ruth and her family, before landing back in London sometime towards the end of last week!
We only had a week of charging around, but the benefit of doing so much is that it feels like much longer. The down side is you come back very tired!
Both the boys have got rotten colds now though. Helen and I are trying to fight ours off. On into 2007...