What’s happened this year (2011)?

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I am still happily living with my partner Wayne in Nounsley (Essex).



We have enjoyed using Wayne’s boat a RIB and have undergone some training in boat handling. We both are instructors and on the committee for our local SCUBA club which takes up a lot of our ‘spare time’. We try to spend time each weekend with our family and debate the world with our parents, Lee (Wayne’s brother) and Mindy, torment Wayne’s nephews Lewis and Adam, and have enjoyed playing with Alicia as she gets bigger (and bolder). We love to see Claire (my sister) and David when we can with their lovely son Joshua who is turning into a fine young boy and clearly not a baby anymore.



We started the year in a cultural manner, having great fun putting on our kilts for Burns Night with my old work gang and then enjoying Chinese New Year with some friends in February.



This year we have taken several holidays. So many I needed to check my photos to remind me where I’d been!! We started the year in Washington for a long weekend, chilly but great fun. Wayne organised a group trip to Egypt diving with 20 of us chartering a boat to dive wrecks and reefs of the Red Sea. We joined my parents and several members of the dive club in the Isles of Scilly, Claire and Joshua joined for part of the trip (not diving!). We spent two weekends diving in the Farne Isles playing with seals in the colder sea. We then headed to the warm for a break in St Lucia where we enjoyed each others company in the luxury of Sandals and did a few days diving. More recently I spent a weekend in Malta, Wayne in Hamburg with our friends who are getting married next year. I joined Tamsin in February to hit the snow in Milton Keynes for her hen and we spent my Birthday weekend enjoying her wedding to Paul.



I changed jobs in July and left the Rural Community Council after nearly 7 years and joined Planning Aid England as an Outreach Coordinator. I work from the cabin at the end of the garden and my work has lead me to travel across the area including: Southampton, Portsmouth, Havant, Brighton, Eastbourne, Hastings, Margate, Maidstone, Ashford, Southend, Ipswich, Luton, Hemel Hempstead as well as a couple of weekends in London, one in Leeds and a visit over to Birmingham.



Wayne still works with as a Director with Danbury Oils and also travels around the area with work, but in the early hours of the day. He is still learning to fly (a plane).



Next year promises more of the same, hopefully my job will continue beyond the end of March. Wayne should become a private pilot soon and we can enjoy yet another way to see the country. We hope to dive from the boat for the first time. Our first trip has been booked – to China in April. Perhaps we will have more time to do nothing, a dream we both share but never pull off!

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Photos

Wayne and I
Celebrating with Katherine's birthday with Tamsin and Paul