Given that nobody keeps (or remembers the contents of) Christmas letters, and that some things haven’t changed since last year, you are challenged to identify the repeated material! Like most retirees, our year revolves around children and grandchildren, holidays and activities at home. So that’s what we’ll be talking about! Feel free to skip-read as you see fit .
We’re in pretty good health (for our age) with minor niggles rather than serious complaints. We try to keep reasonably fit with regular walks and weekly Pilates classes, in Jim’s case supplemented by a bit of hillwalking and cycling. We play bridge once or twice a week and have done our bit to keep the club running – Alex has been Membership Secretary and Jim provided IT support. Alex continues to play in her string orchestra (and sometimes with a full orchestra), and Jim sings with the local Bach Choir.
So much for background – now for the major highlights of the year.
We saw in the New Year with a visit from Robert and family and later had a good time with Abby and Max in Aberdeen over the February half-term.
Also in February, Jim undertook to ‘Stride for Gaza’ by walking 95 km – the distance between Gaza and East Jerusalem; 65 km of this was on the Deeside Way from Aberdeen to Ballater. Many of you will know this already as you kindly contributed to the £1500 that he raised.
We’ve made good use of our holiday house in Lacaze (south-west France), going out in March/April, June/July and September/October. However it does stand empty for quite a bit of the time so if anyone thinks they might like to use it, go to its website at https://lacaze.uk (username guest; p/w Lacaze2020!). [By the way, this, and other web sites are hosted on Jim’s own Raspberry Pi web server].
We also spent a week in Portugal in May, meeting up with Alex’s sister and husband who live out there followed by a few days in Lisbon.
Unable to resist, we then flew from Lisbon to Stockholm to spend a week with Rosie, Matt and Monty. It wasn’t too long before we saw them again as they (and Isabel) came out to Lacaze to celebrate Rosie’s 40th birthday.
At the start of the year Jim unearthed a number of computers which he’d hidden away in the loft for thirty years or so against the day when they might be of interest to a computer museum. Alex had persuaded him that the day had come! He documented them all and contacted several museums. Having decided what was going where, we dropped them off in York and Derby on our way south to Lacaze for the above-mentioned birthday. If you fancy a trip down a computer memory lane, go to https://ferryhill.org/oldcomputers.
August saw Abby and Max spending some more time with us, and also their first Munro – Carn Aosda (917 m) in Glen Shee – not the most difficult since the ski centre car park is at 650 m! Still, you’ve got to start somewhere . We also did The Cairnwell so they’ve only got 280 to go 😊
In September Jim joined Peter once again to continue (finish?) their Alpine Trek. Having ended up last year just off the GR5, instead of following it down to Nice, they had decided to take the GR52 to Menton. Unfortunately Philip, their other walking companion couldn’t join them, but they met up with him and Jackie in Menton for a couple of days at the end. It would be nice to say that they completed the whole way on foot, but they discovered a couple of times that, both aged 79, they’d bitten off more than they could chew, and plans had to be modified as they went along. Things weren’t helped by Jim’s falling into a river on the second day and it raining solidly for six hours on day four!
We returned to Lacaze in September but couldn’t resist fitting in a few days in Sweden on the way out to help Monty celebrate his third birthday.
Jim will be celebrating his 80th birthday in 2025, and we hope to see as many of you as we can.
In the meantime, we wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Jim and Alex
14 Caledonian Place, ABERDEEN, AB11 6TT
Email: Jim j.hunter@abdn.ac.uk; Alex alexchunter@hotmail.com Mobiles: Jim 07742 056224; Alex 07746 776143