This has been a wonderful year for us if you can ignore the news and dreadful situations across the world.
Jim turned 80 in May, and he celebrated in style with a week of family and friends, gathering in a fabulous self-catering stately home near Dunblane. Scottish weather was perfect, sunny and warm so those from abroad were impressed with the beauty of Stirlingshire. We ended the week having a meal in a local pub that used to be Jim’s nursery school back in the day.
A week later, he and his friend Peter walked 67 miles on the Rob Roy Way from Aberfoyle to Pitlochry in support of Medical Aid for Palestinians, raising £1500.
We then had a great Interrail trip in June to Zurich, Vienna, Krakow and Gdansk, with enough time in each to visit museums, art galleries and learn more about Polish history than we could possibly absorb. We ended up in the Solidarity museum, which of course is now history but still felt recent. A calm overnight ferry from Gdansk to Sweden landed us with Rosie and family, where we spent a great week looking after Monty after his nursery closed and before their holidays began. Always a delight to be there.
Later in the summer we had a few very hot weeks in France with Isabel joining us for the last week – perfect!
Trips to Edinburgh to see Robert and family are always fun and keep us on our toes. Their weekend to us in the summer coincided with the visit of the Tall Ships to Aberdeen.
So we’ve been so very lucky to continue to travel even if it means we take a bit longer to recover. Back at home we carry on playing bridge badly and singing or playing music, also not very well. But compared to friends and family who have had poor health or worse this year, we count ourselves lucky.
We wish you a happy festive season and good health for the New Year.
Alex and Jim
14 Caledonian Place
Aberdeen
AB11 6TT
Alex: 07746 776143 alexchunter@hotmail.com
Jim: 07742 056224 j.hunter@abdn.ac.uk