2016 The least said about that the better...

Happy Christmas and all good wishes for 2017

Angels in a holding pattern above a Neapolitan crib.

Internationally and domestically this has been a "challenging" year, so I'm sticking to pictures which tell a less difficult story.

In February I went to Cadiz to stay for a week with my friend Tara - not much writing got done, but we had some fantastic visits to churches and restaurants (does that sum up my major interests?).  The Old Town has a lovely tree-lined promenade along the seashore.

In April Mark and I went for a much shorter (36 hour) trip to Holland to see the 600th anniversary exhibition of nearly all Hieronymous Bosch's paintings in his home town, 't Hertogensbosch, which was gorgeous.  First time either of us had been to Holland and we loved it, although it was disconcerting not having to try the local language.  The cathedral was fascinating - having been Catholic, then Protestant and then returned to the Catholic church in the 19thC .

The whole town had gone somewhat Bosch crazy!

In the summer Ned came home after a rather difficult last term at university and we went to Hardelot near Boulogne for two days to celebrate the end of UEA and A-levels (as we thought!).   However, Finn is re-taking two of his A-levels and Ned has deferred his finals essays and dissertation until June 2017, so not all the changes we expected have come.   Still, it was a weekend away, and here's a menu we didn't try.

 In July my nephew Harry (my brother Tom's son) came to live with us, and when Ned came back from Norwich again I took the three boys to Dreamland in Margate.

Mark meanwhile was working quite hard on projects in Cambridge, and still struggling to finish Claudius'

Elephants.   Another tranche of funds from my father enabled us to get further away from Ramsgate, although why would you want to when it looks like this and makes you feel as if you are on holiday anyway?

For all it's loveliness, it isn't Naples, which is where we went, as Mark was convinced he would find some interesting mosaics depicting elephants in the Roman period.  I don't think he did, but we did enjoy it - and here's another tree-lined seaside promenade.

Although I was always told that "Swansea Bay was favourably compared with the Bay of Naples" as a child, I must confess that our day out in Mumbles with Mark's mother to celebrate her 91st birthday didn't quite match the glory, although we had a very nice lunch there, slighly better than some of the rather disappointing lunches we had in Naples (we seemed to have escaped the gastro hotspots).  Belatedly I discovered that the Red Michelin guide was on-line... next time...

My writing has been a bit on and off this year, despite having The Malice of Fairies professionally edited, and the editor raving about it, none of the agents took any notice of it until I changed the name to the more anodyne The Road through the Woods.  Now an agent is having a full read - which is good (because only a fraction of a percent of books submitted to agents get a full read) but no guarantee of anything, since two previous books have been called in for full reads by different agents, with no results.  So, fingers are crossed, as usual.  Meanwhile, inspired by the weird sculptures of Barfrestone chuch (below), I have begun another book - but I must admit it was six months of sulking and depression before I finally set finger to keyboard.  "What's the point?" being my major question to myself - to which some friends encouraged (?) me with roars of " L:ook at J K Rowling!" ... well hardly.

After spending a week holed up in a hotel in Norwich with nothing to distract him except Ned, Jeremy and John & Marge, Mark finally finished the first draft of Claudius' Elephants and we are now discussing what to do next.

There have been the usual gatherings, occurring with annoying synchronicity on the same days - so that we had to dash to Southampton for James's 60th party, returning via London for Charlotte's 50th party - both on the first Saturday after the Referendum, which, together with the rain, provided an uneasy topic for conversation. I couldn't manage a third appointment in Birmingham with Ali, Ted, Andy, Michele, Kirsten and assorted others from our shared houses c. 1977 on, the same day - despite the wonders of the railway network.   Funerals have been refreshingly rare this year, in both cases involving people who were "full of years" such as Mark's aunt Heather who was 93 I think.

Altogether 2016 has been a bit challenging and I can only hope 2017 will be an improvement.  It has delivered 3 final kicks in the teeth today (19th December), chief of which is the news of Zak, Mark's brother's death.  A triple whammy cancer, he didn't manage the 6 months he was told he had to live.  I also heard that an old, loved friend, Ruth Morgan Thomas had died in the summer (I was very out of touch and her MS made it hard for her to communicate much in the last couple of years) and, a less shattering blow, Mark didn't get the job he was after in Cambridge.  I am still biting my nails about the novel.. seems the same story every year really.

Judging by Facebook posts everyone seems to think 2017 cannot possibly any worse (even though Trump will have the nuclear codes from January 20th). I suppose Bob Dylan could die, which will disturb those of us who have yet to come to terms with mortality. Let me end here, before any more prophecies of doom issue from my sibylline keyboard!

Have a Wonderful 2017!

2015: A Year of Two Halves

The year 2015 fell into two distinct halves.  Until May both of us were involved in the struggle to hold back the forces of mass populism led by Nigel Farage.  He brought his narcissistic personality disorder and his gang of dodgy security guys and their far-right connections to Thanet for the duration of the election campaign (and some months before).  I was co-chair of the local Stand up to UKIP branch and helped organise a demonstration against UKIP in February which was very peaceful, despite the best efforts of the English Defence League, the "Kent Patriots" and others to get at us.   

The reward for all our efforts came when the loathesome Farage failed to win the seat, although at the time we were too cast down by the fact that UKIP won our council, and the Tories won a national majority. However, six months later, it is clear that UKIP has lost a lot of its momentum and the fact that NF doesn't have a Parliamentary seat will have contributed to that.. And here we see Nigel himself on election day, preparing for "one last push" down by Ramsgate Harbour.  I took this from a considerable distance away - I tried to avoid contact with him during this period!

We took a break in the midst of the election campaign to go to Athens.  We thought it might enthuse Finn for Classical Civilisation, which he was studying.  I would be lying if I said it did, but he quite enjoyed it.  I was really thrilled to see Athens for the first time, and to see hundreds of vase paintings and sculptures which I'd studied for two years at UCL - and visit some amazing places, both cliches like the Acropolis, and unexpectedly fabulous places like the ancient Agora with the Temple of Hephaistos (right) and the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion.  And we went in spring, so there were flowers everywhere, and the grass was lush and green and heaving with tortoises.  We are now desperate to go to Greece again.

After the elections there was a period of convalescence, and then the summer began, marked by an almost ritual trip to Norwich in late June to collect Ned and his possessions, via my father's birthday gathering, and including a lunch with John and Marge and Jeremy. .  This was part of a series of small trips and family events that were dotted through the year. Mark also had trips away to conferences and for work.  We visited Stella in Cardiff at Easter, and celebrated her 90th birthday in Berkshire in September. In July I went to Bath for a memorial party for my father's cousin Moyra Caldecott. Moyra was incredibly kind to me when I was in my teens, and it was lovely to see her again in the last few years, before the nightmarish aphasia set in (a terrifying disease for a writer to suffer, she must have been so frustrated).   I let Pa drive me to Bath, thus making me officially the bravest member of my family, since all my siblings chorused "Don't let him drive!"   Perhaps I have inherited his driving style, since I had my second speeding letter and had to do a speed awareness course (an exciting outing to far-flung Tonbridge Wells), so I now drive like an undertaker, instead of a minicab driver (despite which, I got stopped and "warned" by the police the other night.  Horror!). We've also had a couple of day trips to France, but our summer holidays were strangely bitty, we had a lot of AirBnB guests - Ned went off a couple of times, including a trip to California, and then in August had a dreadful accident, and severely lacerated his face, falling through our French windows.  I went to the hospital with him, while Mark swept up the copious amounts of blood.  Ned was very good and brave, and the scars will fade in time, they hardly show in photos.   He is busy with his band, The Shower Boys, writing music, doing essays, and having a good social life, to judge by Facebook, as well as a bit of politics.   

Finn is half way through the A-levels, and he is not enjoying them much, apart from Media Studies.  His current thought is to go and do a mechanics course at a local college next year, and then get into car repairing... This would obviously be tremendously useful, given our tendency to buy elderly cars.  I am not convinced that this will be his final career choice, so watch this space. To compensate for unhappy experiences with Physics and Class Civ last year, he is doing the Government and Politics syllabus in one year, and thus initiating further political discussions in the house.

The second half of the year has been dominated by house repairs: first we had the roof repaired with a month of scaffolding.  Then a ceiling fell in (unfortunately in our money-making AirBnB room, right in the middle of the hols), then the boiler broke down, then we had the ceiling repaired, and the room decorated and re-carpeted.  Then, the much longed for bigger, warmer radiators were installed (together with a lavatory pan that had mysteriously cracked), this was too much for the boiler, which packed up and after 2 weeks with no heating or hot water (barring 2 days when the plumber did something temporary) we now have a new boiler, a really warm house and for the first time I have walked into our bedroom and found it warmer than the landing.  Also packing up this autumn was the beloved VW Sharan - probably sulking since we'd bought a £300 brilliant Skoda (yes, the jokes are almost true - the insurance cost more than the car) for me and Finn to drive.  So, despite the generous downsizing funding we received at the beginning of the year, we have had rather a wallet-mashing time recently, still, we have been able to pay off most of our debts.

Mark hasn't seen a leap in work this year, but there have been a few jobs in Cambridge, Brighton and .  

London, with a few things in the pipeline too.  He's also trying to get together a Heritage Lottery Fund bid which would provide him with some work, on the WW2 Defences of Thanet. Hannibal could have crossed the Alps a dozen times in the time it's taken to complete hisClaudius's Elephants book - but it really is nearly finished and he has plans to start writing fiction next.  Here he is delivering a speech at his mother's 90th birthday party - sorry about poor quality, but everyone's laughing!

I started a novel in 2014 which was disrupted by politics. In May I resumed it, and by the end of July, the first draft of The Malice of Fairies was complete.  I got really enthusiastic feedback from readers and some helpful advice on where to tighten it up, and felt ridiculously confident about it.   A friend asked me to do a reading/tea party - they may have come for the cakes, but I was really touched that people genuinely enjoyed the readings!  To date none of the agents I have submitted it to have shared the enthusiasm, so another year closes with more expectation and still nothing concrete.  However, I've also had feedback from a publisher's editor on The Ash Grove, so I've begun a re-write of that, with a view to her showing it to her publishing house when I finish it.  So, that's something.  One last heave, nearly there, etc.  (she said, through gritted teeth, for the nth time)..  

Ned turned 21 this year and we celebrated with as many old friends and family as we could squash into the back garden.  It was a lovely sunny day and very enjoyable. Finn turned 18, has a provisional driving licence and can now buy his own rolling tobacco and even be sent to the shop for gin (this eventuality has not yet arisen).  Inevitably, when he finishes school this summer our life is going to be very different, not quite sure how yet! This picture shows Ned and Finn enjoying their grandmother's 90th birthday party.  Ned's nose safely back in place after the accident!  It was lovely to see so many of Mark's extended family there, a very jolly occasion.  My sister Coellie turned 50 this year, and suggested we all sang Messiah at the Albert Hall on the day, which we did.  It was stressful fun! Mark had sung it before, I thought I knew it, until I got the score and started practicing! It was going around my head for about 3 days afterwards.


The final noteworthy event of the year was the sadly early death of my SA cousin, Antonella Greville.  She was a warm, lovely person, who I got to know better through Facebook - no, social media isn't all bad, and I was always delighted to see her enthusiastic posts about green living and other congenial topics. 

One of the best things about this year was that we managed to see a lot of people, so I haven't had to write "so sorry we haven't seen each other for so long" on ALL the cards this year.  If we didn't see each other in 2015, let's hope 2016 will be a year for even more reunions.

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Happy christmas, LOVE and all good things for 2016

2014 - A Year of Tantalising Jam

Stained Glass Star - Bristol Cathedral

HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

Having decided to give up Hope - as a New Year Resolution, 2014 has been dominated by hopes of one kind or another.  Some are about to be fulfilled (I think).

2014 was a much better year fiscally.  Mark has had quite a few, mostly small, jobs, entailing trips to such exotic and far-flung spots as Havering, Cambridge, Bedford, Great Missenden and Eastbourne). Some of these jobs should have second phases in 2015, so Architectural Archaeology finally has a work pipeline of sorts again. 

For me the new year started in mid January when my friend Marion suggested I work for her daughter as an English tutor to struggling GCSE pupils in a Canterbury school.   I would like to report that the kids all flourished under Mrs Chips' benevolent regime, but not one of them passed - in fact the school had worse than usual GCSE English results... but I don't think the tutors can take too much of the blame, the problems were rather deeper than that.  It was an eye-opener in lots of ways: argumentative kids who don't know how to argue, kids desperate for new ideas, words and stimulation, but who never read, so haven't absorbed good enough English to write well enough to get over the fairly low bar of the exam... depressing.   

Watching sodden flooded countryside blossom into bluebells and hawthorn over 5 months of rural commuting, was beautiul - but not very environmentally sound, and criminally expensive on petrol. There was an upside for the literary vampire: I had been thinking about writing a book about an ordinary youth of 23 - and here I was with ordinary youth in all its unthinking splendour and sadly limited vocabulary... I listened carefully and made notes... I wish they had passed their GCSEs though - but I'm afraid the school should have started extra tuition a few years earlier.  

The major change this year was the fact that both our parents decided to sell properties, Stella is downshifting to Cardiff to live in a MacCarthy & Stone residential block - and my father is selling his house in Bayswater, where I spent about 8 years of my childhood. Both are sharing some of their proceeds with their offspring - so the prospect of repaying debts of all kinds is very imminent, who knows, we may one day orbit Planet Agreeable!   Of course, this news started a wave of hope, and an inevitable backwash of disappointments as sales fell through and solicitors and purchasers dithered, however the Stamp Duty tax seems to have clarified everyone's minds wonderfully.  So it's an ill wind... (I always regard a Tory Autumn Statement as an "ill wind").  

March and April were rather tricky, since my father, never one to do the sensible thing, or to take advice, slipped on some wet paving and broke his hip.  As his mother broke her hip and got pneumonia and died at 91 we all worried that this would have the same outcome.  Happily it did not, although his determination to leave hospital early led to a couple of picaresque episodes, and our efforts to get him to do his physiotherapy exercises  at home were pretty thankless... as a result his mobility is not all it could be.  However, he managed to "totter about" and go to France for a couple of weeks with Coellie to Lou Baghurst eco-cottage in Britanny - and go canoeing.  For a while he thought he'd sell his home too - since it is too much to cope with, but he's having second thoughts now.

July was a rather bizarre and miserable month for me - on 1st July I went to have my hair cut with Marion (see above); she'd recently announced that she had liver cancer, but I was hoping that she'd have a year or so and some periods of remission.  I guessed something was up from her unusual behaviour that day, and four days later she died.  She wasn't an old-established friend, but one who had become increasingly important to me, introduced by my old school friend Anna Taylor.   Her death was painfully intertwined with the final days of my much-loved cousin Strat Caldecott who went into a hospice at this point and died a couple of weeks later. Then there was Marion's memorial service, followed by Strat's funeral, full Catholic grandeur, with Faure's Requiem sung as part of the liturgy - it was incredibly beautiful, a hundred times more moving than hearing it as a concert piece.  A minor miracle occurred just before Strat died: he had wanted to be buried near Tolkien, but the cemetery was full, until someone vandalised some trees, opening up a space for Strat, who as well as being a theological writer, was a great lover of Tolkien (and author of The Power of the Ring about Christian themes in Lord of the Rings).  It was a small bright event in a very grim period for his family and everyone who loved him.  

Mark, Kate & Ned actually on holiday! In a hot place!  Uzes - Photo by Finn

In August we went on our first summer holiday since 2008! (three days camping in Hampshire DON'T count!).  Talk about pent-up demand!   I booked what started as a modest week in a gite but it became slightly more complicated - how could we drive past Troyes without seeing the famous glass in the Cathedral?  Obviously we have to stop there - and Orange... and while we were in the area, the Pont du Gard, Uzes, Arles, Nimes - then on to Mimizan - via Ned's friend Scarlett's, where we dropped him.  In Mimizan we stayed at the Hotel Atlantique, which I think was the hotel we stayed in when I was 4.  It has minuscule rooms, but very nice food...and the beach is fantastic.   Mark enjoyed a similar sense of familiarity seeing Ned jumping into the river at the Pont du Gard, from the same rock his father Edward had jumped off after WW2... the boys enjoyed a lot of wildish swimming, and caves - I enjoyed cool drinks and reading.

Finn in a medieval garden 

For me the highlight of the holiday was the bit near the end when we turned off the motorway and began a nice leisurely drive through the Loire Valley - countryside, rivers, architecture, Richelieu... bliss.  That's where I want to go next time, if only to re-visit the Abbaye de Fontevraud - where Henri II and Eleanor of Aquitaine are buried.   I especially liked Eleanor's tomb, where she is reclining with a book.  There was a rather nice Oulipo installation going on as well.  Another week somewhere to recover after the holiday would have been nice.  

The eerie light on Eleanor's book is something to do with the installation - not freakish photography

We came back to the usual bills and life bumps - but also to some work for Mark.  We were also faced with the grim prospect of the loathesome Nigel Farage standing for parliament in our constituency... time to gird our loins and oppose UKIP - which has brought us some new friends, and brought us closer to others.  It is fun, but frightening to think of having him as our MP - although I doubt he'd be here much.  The prospect of UKIP holding the balance of power on the local council is more worrying - but half of them are former Tories, so it probably wouldn't make all that much difference.  I don't know where the idea that they represent something new in politics came from!  They seem to be some sort of ill-favoured lovechild of the Conservative Party Monday Club (does that still exist?).

  When not battling the Nasty Party,  I revised the new novel - The Gospel According to Darren, and sent it to a couple of agents, who promptly rejected it.  I immediately became disconsolate - and decided it was the worst novel I had ever written... which as it only took 3 or 4 months is quite likely.  I am planning a re-jig shortly and a re-submission to EVERY AGENT IN THE UK... Meanwhile all I want to do is get on with my really fantastic new novel The Malice of Fairies  (why does it seem that this novel will be the one to break through the indifference of the market?).   There is beginning to be a pattern: write a novel, submit it as much as you can bear to, take as many rave (and other) rejections as you can stand - and then stop submitting it because you are too busy with the next one. Periodically send it to someone, meanwhile grumble and angst to one's long-suffering writer friends (Tara, Kirstie, Eyvor, Jane and Anna have all provided supportive feedback this year)...   As for the previous novels -  The Romantic Feminist may end up succumbing to self-publishing; The Ash Grove has been praised, but I was told by a couple of agents that the UK market for WW1 novels was FULL- however 2 New York agents are giving a full read (very slowly) - so perhaps something will come of that.  Elsewhere, more positively, I've been asked to join a team working on a tv thriller series which is being taken up by a couple of production companies jointly... so that's pretty exciting.    Or it would be, if I was allowing myself to believe it would really happen.  It is a pretty tremendous series, dealing with all manner of political and social issues ...and I can say that because I didn't dream it up. 

In theory, if all goes well, I will start earning some money from the screenwriting, but in the meantime I continue to earn modest amounts through catering occasionally, and doing the Airbnb thing - and having the dreaded foreign students (a pretty pleasant batch this year - a Russan, a Spaniard, a Ukranian, some Chinese, and a Saudi boy - who was here for Ramadam...not much fun for him, since the days are so long here.  Still, he was full of the joys, asking when we expected Europe to convert to Islam... he was unconvinced when I said "Never").  Next summer we will just have AirBnB guests, and spend a lot of time washing sheets!

Finn & Ned indulge in cat worship - while preparing the garden for a Midsummer Middle Eastern Feast - photo by Anna Gizowska 

 
Ned and Finn - the rising hope of the Samuel family - are proceeding towards adulthood satisfactorily.  Ned is in his second year at UEA,and in a new band.  He is writing a lot for various student papers, and is thinking about becoming a journalist.   Finn and I are still arguing about whether his GCSE results were better or worse than my O-levels.  His school refused to allow him to take certain subjects at A-levels, but he got his first choices, Physics and Media Studies - which should support his desire to get into the film industry - he's also doing English (incredible for a boy who read no books between about October 2009 and August this year) and Classical Civilisation (more books: Homer and Aeschylos so far)... so we are having conversations about (appropriately) Great Expectations and The Odyssey.  He seems to be enjoying these subjects more than the other two - clearly the literary thing is a bit hard-wired in this family.  

Mark's Great Epic - Claudius's Elephants is plodding to a close, now nearly at the final chapter.  I expect I will be cruelly editing it at the end of 2015 - if I haven't become too busy, important and successful by then of course. 

It has been incredibly nice having a bit more dosh - I feel as if I have been paralysed and have begun to regain my capacity for movement.  It feels like we are back in the world again.

We really know what we're talking about when we wish you all a prosperous New Year as well as the other good things.   So, have a wonderful Christmas and an equable 2015!

Happy Christmas 2013

This year's motto would probably be "Look, we have come through!" but echoing the last line of Lawrence's poem "Strange how we suffer in spite of this."  This picture of our Christmas decorations taken by Clare Dove last Epiphany shows our status at the beginning of 2013!


The good news is that the year has nearly ended, we are all still alive and well, and have made one or two small steps forward. Ned has gone to university - Politics, Culture & Literature at UEA and is enjoying living in Norwich.  Finn has achieved Grade 4 cornet, and mastery over his nicotine habit (yay!) - with the help of an e-vap device.  We have finally got our act together to do a website - it will be up soon at Architecturalarchaeology.com - should you require Mark's services. Mark has been trying to find new outlets for his reconstruction drawings, such as heritage-related apps, but on the whole it has been a year with many distant prospects of Jam - but very little jam actually on the table - apart from a couple of domestic properties and a rather exciting time recording some Vanbrugh stables at Stowe.  The enforced idleness has meant he has had time to do some more work on his book, Claudius's Elephants - which he tells me is two-thirds finished...so probably only another 3 years till completion!  He is still singing in the Thanet Festival Choir - and this year sang in an impressive Verdi's Requiem at Canterbury Cathedral - a fantastic experience to hear and to sing in.

I have had various back and forths with an agent about my first book, The Romantic Feminist, and re-written my second book, The Ash Grove, so am now in a stupid quandry of not knowing which one to send out to agents... they don't like you to send them both apparently.  People keep telling me that persistence is the thing... and I feel I have no alternative, but it makes one wary of writing more when one is committing oneself to another year or so of uncertainty.  I have other projects planned out, but really need to get an agent to work out which ones might be most commercially viable.  My chums in the Society of Authors group locally are shouting "Get Published!" but it's hard to see what else I can do - although I may enter some first novel competitions... I am not going to self-publish... for many and varied reasons that I will not bore you with here (but if you're curious the reasons can be found here: http://katehamlyn.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/why-i-dont-want-to-self-publish-that.html  and here.http://katehamlyn.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/author-publishing.html).   I have recently started doing occasional shifts of activities with the inmates of a care home for people with psychiatric problems - an eye-opener in all sorts of ways.

The immediate family has shrunk again, with the death of Mark's father Edward in June.  We have been missing him for some years, but he was very patient and sweet in his demented state - which was a relief. Sadly Mark has inherited his diabetes from him: he's recently started on metfornin, the standard treatment. Our remaining parents, my father (86) and Mark's mother (88) are both active, both still driving around and have both attended "speed awareness" courses in the last year or so - because they were driving too fast (no dithery elderly caution here!).  My father's centre of activity is as always his house - where there is a continuous cycle of little bits of building work and gardening.

In September we gathered together as many of Tom Taylor's descendants as we could for a toy theatre production of his play Our American Cousin - the play Lincoln was watching when he was shot.  There were 20 of us - including Robert Poulter who had created the production for the Ford Theatre in Washington.  Fine weather enabled us to eat in the garden, perhaps for the last time that year and we all had a lovely time - and were very delighted that so many people had made the epic journey to Ramsgate.

Finn is doing his GCSEs this year - and has a number of career ideas which are constantly fluctuating.  He is very interested in film... at the moment.  Ned is joining a punk band at UEA (having broken up his former ensemble when he broke up with his Ramsgate girlfriend a few weeks into his first term).  In the summer he did a brief solo gig at the Lifeboat, a Margate bar which was one of the venues for his gap year "pub slavery" as he calls it.   We were impressed by his ability, and very delighted to see that the audience was enthusiastic about his songs - great lyrics of course! Finn still sings impressively, but gentle hints that they might "work together" have been largely ignored.  Finn is abandoning the cornet next week, as soon as he's done his GCSE practical exam -  Prelude by Charpentier will no more echo in these halls!

Since we can't go abroad at the moment, abroad comes to us in the shape of foreign students.  This year we've had a repeat visit from Jaime (the future Spanish Prime Minister) and several boys from Khazakstan, Ukraine, Russia and China.  We also continue the sporadic B&B services through airbnb.com - which also seems to bring more foreigners - mostly Antipodeans and S. Africans, but also Italians, an Hungarian, an Irish couple, and Germans.  So at least our ludicrously large house (which now feels very empty with just 3 of us in it) is providing us with a useful source of intermittent income.

I'm sorry if this letter is a bit joke-lite...these are the highpoints of a frankly "challenging" year (the worst year financially of the last 3 rather tough years).  There is always a lot to be grateful for - that my colposcopy (don't ask!) showed everything was normal, that worse things generally have not happened to us, that we ought to consider how lucky we are (no hurricanes, famine, civil war, or terminal illnesses have touched us this year), that we have "come through".  I am not going to indulge in any "hopes" for 2014, since I have had to review my feelings about the value and efficacy of Hope - Obama may have been wrong -  it may be a cardinal virtue - but it sometimes feels as if it could be psychologically damaging....  the Bible writers knew this: Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.  

We are very blessed in having had a lot of support from my family this year, and we have gradually acquired a large number of really good friends in Ramsgate - after 4-5 frankly rather lonely years at the beginning.  I have really cherished the few occasions in the year when I've seen older friends and cousins and been able to renew those close contacts.  I find tremendous solace and energy in good conversations - I just hope I'm not becoming a social vampire - sucking all the life and energy out of a social situation and then gloating over my hoard (nah! probably not!).  There is always something to make bad situations bearable - religious faith, political conviction, friends, or just a sense that there is a collective human spirit that sustains us through a recognition of our common struggles and a belief that there is a better way of being a human and striving towards it.  Gosh! I've come over all "Queen's Christmas message" now!

With much love to you all, whether you're near or far, we wish you all good things for 2014!


Kate, Mark, Ned & Finn   

Au revoir 2012...

Ramsgate en fete December 2012

Happy Christmas!

By the time December arrives I've usually forgotten what we were doing earlier this year - and 2012 might have included the Jublilee and the Olympics but it hasn't exactly been a "stand out year" for us - apart from Ned's A-levels.  He got decent grades and is having a gap year before going to Norwich in September 2012 to study Politics, Literature and Culture at UEA.   Apparently the most godless place in the UK (despite a plethora of churches) Norwich is a place we are very fond of - not least because a number of our friends live there.  Ned and I had a great visit there in February, when we stayed with Marge and John Cullen and saw Jeremy Hall (Ned's godfather) and fitted in a trip to the Sainsbury Visual Arts centre where I wrote 2,000 words for the book re-write... a thoroughly good time in other words.   We're looking forward to going back in September to deliver Ned - and were delighted to discover that another of Ned's cadre of South London NCT May/June 1993 babies - Ben Baulch Jones- is already there.

Every year when I write this letter I fantasize about the vastly improved year I will be reporting on next year... and this year the fantasy hasn't been enacted either, although I did have a lot of interest from an agent in my novel, The Romantic Feminist - she demanded a re-write and I laboured mightily to produce one, but in vain - after hanging onto it for another 6 months, she told me a couple of weeks ago (just after the anniversary of the first submission) that she didn't like the plot - that would be the plot line she'd suggested, if my memory serves me? A kind friend tells me it simply means she didn't know the right editor to market it to! Heigh-ho, so, another onslaught on agents coming up shortly. More positively, I do have a very small publisher interested in it but we're both being a bit cautious.  In the meantime I have completed the first volume of Conscience -  which I feel is more marketable, since it is set in WW1 - but at present, having had aspersions cast over my plotting,  I barely dare revise the first draft in case I muck it up even more....

Mark's major achievement this year has been to create a 3D reconstruction drawing of Selborne Abbey in Hampshire for a client - an image that is unfortunately too big to upload here.
 and to grow a Movember moustache... for a myeloma charity in support of a friend of ours.  This looks a bit of a combination between Oswald Moseley and Ned Flanders - but it suits him better than this picture suggests. He also went for a jolly weekend in Belgium with the choir - Chimay - twinned with Ramsgate is a brewing town, where the inhabitants enjoy dressing in medieval costume and drinking - so quite like Ramsgate, apart from the medieval costume.

Illness and mortality seem to have dominated this year's news.  Although our immediate families have survived the last 12 months, we have lost friends - particularly Mike Marwick - and other friends have lost family members, and others are facing, or have survived in one fortunate case, close brushes with death.  There is also the terrible sight of one's slightly older contemporaries exhibiting signs of mental deterioration.  Very very upsetting to see bright, interesting people disappearing before one's eyes.  No coincidence that in the cases of the three people this is happening to, lifelong heavy smoking and drinking have been (and in one case continue to be) a major factor.   All this is galvanizing me a bit - and (not for the first time)  I lost the vital 10% of my body weight in the last few months (I am hoping not to put it all back on over Christmas - but I'm already wishing I hadn't tried out the chocolate Christmas cake recipe on my Book Group for our Christmas Feast.  They didn't eat it all and it has more calories in a slice than a child of 10's Recommended Daily Allowance.  Mind you the recipe says it serves 12 - but that would be 12 Brobdingnagians - it would have easily gone around 2 or 3 Last Suppers and they'd still have had crumbs left to gather up.)

Finn's school career has been precarious.  He hates school - I keep telling him it will get better - I hope I'm right.  He's still playing the cornet - recently with more enthusiasm, currently playing in his school band and hoping to be promoted to the genuinely impressive senior band, he's also dabbling with the ukele orchestra... he does a lot of photography, and a small amount of skateboarding, and he's produced some good paintings.

Ned & Finn survey the Channel from Cap Blanc Nez

Ned hasn't landed any glamorous or lucrative gap year work - he's working in a micropub for less than the National Minimum Wage - to my horror!  In his spare time he's writing and recording songs which are getting better and better - and psyching himself and his girlfriend Gina to perform them publicly one day.  On the job front I am hoping to help him find something better to do in the new year - so if you hear of anything let us know.  He's still playing the guitar and has got to Grade 5, but the sax is gathering dust.

Ned and Finn enjoying the glory of Margate - the Turner Contemporary

Apart from writing and negotiating with our creditors, my other financial contribution was running the B&B side of the house - this is providing an erratic but welcome stream of income, via the AirBnB website - and we've never met anyone we didn't like. Mostly the guests praise the bread and jam and don't mention the somewhat Bohemian standards of tidiness and cleaning, although there was one woman who complained she hadn't seen much of me - she may have had a lucky escape.  Anyway we have had return visitors - and best of all, a visit from Ali Gibbons - who came with his 2 Steves (colleagues) for a weekend, so we had a great evening and it gave me and Al the chance to have the "what do you think of the show so far?" conversation about our lives since we first met in the radical theatre group at UCL in 1976...  We've also had a succession of foreign language students - most of whom are notable for their disinclination to speak English (I do it, so they don't have to?) but some of whom have been fun.

Elsewhere, I had my usual involvement in the arts festival, the Summer Squall - this year with a free open air opera, and a Noggin the Nog premier, and a steam fair.  Have also been to a really good opera - a Glyndeborne production of Nozze di Figaro in Canterbury - almost the first time I've seen a proper, full fledged opera with people I've actually heard of singing in it since we moved here.  I am not pining for London exactly - just for better quality art here. Amazingly a superb commercial art gallery specialising in prints has just opened two minutes' walk from my house.  It opened with a fabulous exhibition of Peter Blake prints (they are on the wish list!) and will be following up with Picasso prints - for sale - at the end of my road in January - come down if you fancy buying some!  I like the owner, but can't help wondering whether she's judged the local demographic correctly, however she seems to have sold quite a few of the Blakes - and not the "cheap" ones either, so perhaps it's true that we have a lot of scruffy, unflashy wealthy people here as has been rumored.

Mark's work is still a bit slow because of the lack of property development going on.  This is a mixed blessing since small property developers usually are (a) unwilling to pay for archaeological recording (b) very slow to pay for it when it has been completed and invoiced - so the lumpy cashflow continues, and I foresee an interesting discussion with HMRC in January.  Sigh.  Nevertheless, he had fun tracing WW2 remains around Pegwell Bay, including a fougasse (no, not the bread!) and there's been just about enough work to keep us going.

But never mind, because next year (The Chinese Year of the Jam (tomorrow)) of course will be the year Mark finishes Claudius's Elephants, Ned lands a dream media job for the spring, Finn takes all his GCSE's early and does brilliantly, a documentary company options the elephant book, both my novels find a publisher, and someone takes out an option on the WW1 trilogy for a short tv drama series... and we buy the bottom of our neighbour's garden and put a small swimming pool in it, get the roof fixed, repair the conservatory, install a heat exchange heating system, and solar panels and of course, re-pay our creditors, and with luck have some money left over for a Peter Blake print or two.

In the mean time I am taking this song very much to heart - and if you have time do listen to it (isn't the multi-media world fun?).  It's a secular song, but with a Christmasish sentiment. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDTXljIqxRE  William de Vaughn! (Who he?  Well, perhaps if you weren't a regular at the Wigan Pavilion you may be forgiven for asking... Google him!).

Alternatively, St. Mary's - somewhere on Romney Marsh - had a series of these encouraging texts:-

So, we hope you have a happy Christmas, and a really fantastic 2013, and I am off to rescue the Christmas cake from becoming a burnt offering.  Wish you could be here to share it!

Update

So, the major events in March: HMRC gives us a large payment - surely shome mistake?
Mark finally gets some work orders - and now has work again.
Finn gets close to being expelled from school - and has now turned over a new leaf after being bawled at by headmaster... an impressive display.
Ned is working hard for A-levels - and has just got Grade 4 guitar, with Merit! (he thought he'd failed!).
And Finn has appeared in a splendid picture on Facebook:

February

As it is now half way through March I have already forgotten February: but wait, I can check my trusty Calendar...I know the main event was either my birthday or going to Norwich - probably the latter.  Actually I had quite a nice birthday - I went to UEA with Ned - and saw John &Marge (stayed there) and Jeremy.  We had a Robert Poulter soiree, went to a concert in Sandwich by the "famous" Webb sisters - aka The Elves from Lothlorien - two young women with a harp and a guitar and harmonies...actually, it was rather a good social month (drinks with Anna - lunch with Anna T and Robin, lunch with Charlotte, Geek2012 in half term, lunch with Liz, lunch with Julie and Jim) no complaints really.

March began with Pugin's birthday party - an interesting event... graced by Rosemary Hill, author of God's Architect - a biography of Pugin.  Clive also did a try out for his new Puginesque production - and we played pass the parcel with quotes from Pugin.  Then heads down for work.

Mark still has no work at this point - I am temporarily not worried - just bemused.  I have nearly finished my novel - 86,000 words... yipee.