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!