Christmas News

This last month has seen us both getting new work.

Although Peter is working with Microsoft software he has not lost his enthusiasm and love for open source and has continued to contribute to a number of forums in his spare time. Just before Christmas one of these forums asked him to become a moderator. This will mean that he spends more time on this forum checking the content of contributors.

At the end of last term the school asked me if I would like to start working with two children for wave 3. Wave 3 is a program designed to help children who need help with reading and writing. Although I will still be on a voluntary basis it will mean that I will have training which is recognised in the UK. Initially I will be sitting in on existing sessions, the hardest part of which will be getting into school half an hour earlier!! Then when I feel confident I will fly solo.

This year Christmas was far more settled and began with a trip to the Christmas tree farm, where we were delighted to see heavy horses being used to bring the trees to the point of sale.

A natural photo

Natural was not possible as soon as people were introduced into the picture.

I spent a long weekend with my parents just before Christmas and then my brother, his wife and Abigail stayed with us on their way down to Devon the week before Christmas. We visited Peter's mother on Christmas eve and spent a lovely day with her.

Christmas day itself was spent doing very little, apart from watching DVDs eating too much and of course the compulsory computing for Peter and crafting for Alison. For us the ideal day.

Another 3 Months Have Passed

Our big news in this time has been the birth of our niece, Abigail Mary who was born on the 3rd November weighing in at 8lbs 2oz by c section. Although we are slightly biased she is a lovely baby and is giving her parents a very easy time. We went over just after her birth and had an afternoon of cuddles, well I did Peter was on camera duty.
We were both behind the camera for a friends silver wedding a couple of weekends ago. This resulted in several photos of each other crouching in the background camera in hand but as usual we both saw things in a different way and so there was a variety of photos.
We celebrated Peter's birthday a week late in the October half term. Peter had the week off from work and we had a holiday at home. We had days of doing nothing, days in the garden, a trip up to London to get some new walking boots for Peter and a trip to the craft market at St James Church Piccadilly. We also managed to get some walking done locally (including a pub lunch) and a trip to Southall for some new asian clothes for Alison. It was a really great break form the norm.

Two Months Later

We aren't quite sure where the last two months have gone.

Our anniversary saw us having a great day out at a local steam fair on the saturday
followed by a fish and chip super with friends in the evening.
On the Sunday after church we cycled out to a local pub where we had our first pub lunch since returning home accomapnied by the best cider we have ever come across.

Since then we have spent a week in Wales near Knighton. We stayed in what is best described as a luxury garden shed but which was more than adequate for what we wanted.




We spend some days walking in the area of Offas dyke
and also visited The Judge's Lodging in Presteigne and a Red Kite Feeding Centre.
The second week we spent at home where Peter got some large tree roots removed from the garden and did some of the heavier jobs. We also had a couple of days out locally.
I have spent most of the school holidays doing odd bits in the garden and greaft work bot for my scrap booking and designing for Craftsuprint.

One Year On

Peter's computing course wasn't as great as he could have hoped for and he was left with some of the practicals to do by himself afterwards as there hadn't been enough time planned into the teaching time. On the whole however he managed to move a bit further forward so not all bad.
Alison has had a busy few weeks at school with day trips to the beach (it was a long day as we couldn't live much further from the coast), Sports day and a morning out joining another school for their arts week.
The ash saplings are showing signs of dying which has caused much joy so we might try the others with weed killer.
Somehow the life of doing nothing mentioned in the last post hasn't quite materialised although we have had a couple of very restful weekends which has been good.
Next weekend it is one year exactly since we arrived back in the UK. In some ways it seems longer and in others we can't quite believe that we have survived for a year (most of it by ourselves) in a country were we knew very little. A big thank you to all who have been praying for us during this time and for those of you who have practically helped us. Also a huge thank you to all those in Tanzania who have kept in touch with us and helped us ease out slowly, it has really helped us not having a clean break. I will include photos of our celebrations in the next post.

Celebrations

Last week was half term and saw me not only finishing painting the lounge but also getting the garden under control, so now a life of doing nothing beckons?
We have decided to leave the flooring in the lounge until after Peter has taken his Microsoft exams, as yet we have no date so it could be a while.
The ash saplings are still thriving weed killer in cuts did not work, any ideas as to how to get rid of the little beauties please let us know. The rest of the garden continues to grow and delight us as plants we had forgotten about come out into bloom.
This week Peter is attending a course in London to help him prepare for his exam.
Last post I mentioned that Tanzania was facing power problems. It appears that Dodoma wasn't hit too hard but Dar Es Salaam had a very hard time.
Last week we heard that if the scan got it right we are getting a little niece who in theory should arrive on Peter's birthday.

Not bad

My intention had been to write weekly but two weeks since the last post isn't bad for me.
Last week was a confusing one for us as Peter spent a lot of time working locally. On the plus side this meant shorter days on the minus we didn't know what day of the week it was.
Sales for my designs have been going slowly but I have continued to upload designs in and have loved learning more design features of the software package I am using.
We were saddened to hear this week that the whole of Tanzania will lose power this week for 15 hours every day. It appears that the hydro electric power station has not had enough water from the rains to continue working for much longer and the gas station in Dar needs vital repairs. This will badly affect those who rely on electricity to run their businesses ,many of whom were good friends to us.
With a lovely sunny day today we were able to do some work in the garden. One of our main problems has been the many ash trees which have sprung up. Having treated them with weed killer to only see them still standing tall we were led to research killing them on the net. You cut them and put the weed killer straight into the cut is the answer and we will try it next week.
The decorating saga continues but with nearly all the walls prepared in the lounge and most of the gloss paint finished hopefully I should be able to start putting some colour on the walls this week

Oh Dear

So much for good intentions, where did April go?
I (Alison) was accepted as a designer at www.craftsuprint.com (Click here to see my work) just as the Easter holidays started. That meant that I spent the holidays decorating and designing which was fun but left very little time for anything else and by the end of two weeks I was exhausted. Thank goodness that I only had to go in for one day in the first week back and that Peter had the three days between Easter and the royal wedding off. Despite still decorating it was much more restful.
I went to watch the wedding with my mum and we had a lovely day.
Back at school now I am in more of a routine and so not so manic either with the never ending decorating or the designing.
Peter had to go into work on Easter day as the air conditioning in Amersham had stopped and so the computers had overheated. Although they had been shut down remotely the problem needed to be sorted so that work could continue on the Tuesday. Fortunately we had gone to the 6am sunrise service so Peter could celebrate Easter and then go into work after a shared breakfast at our house.
Today he has gone to the Albert hall with friends form church for a men's conference while I am going to coffee and lunch with the left behind wives.
As promised though a picture of the purple bedroom

It's nearly April

So much for good intentions of keeping things up to date, a month has gone by since I last posted anything.
It was a month that saw Alison turn 50 and the stairwell almost completed, as I type here is a ladder/scaffolding blocking it quite well as we work on the unreachable bits.
Alison celebrated her birthday starting the day before with a trip to the V&A (Peter would have considered this mild torture so she went alone) followed by meeting Peter after work for a meal out. Her actual birthday was a quiet day with school in the morning and coffee and cake with a friend in the afternoon. Thursday saw her heading off to London once again to join her mum for a trip to Olympia and the stitch and craft show. Although it was a really good show it was interrupted when Alison's mum was admitted to hospital overnight with suspected heart problems. It turned out to be nothing and she came home with us on the Friday evening with a clean bill of health.
Alison is now busy using up all the craft supplies that she bought there.
Our other big news is that it looks like we will be aunty and uncle later this year as Alison's brother is to become a daddy. Our lounge now has a large ball of knitting wool in it as Alison knits a Jean Greehowe toy.
Alison has regular appointments with a physio for her arm which is improving really well.
Peter has started studying for his Microsoft exams and despite his allegiance to Linux is actually enjoying the study, if you ignore the few mutters. At present it is in his own time but he is hoping to go on a formal course later in the year.

Cutting Back

We spent this afternoon just clearing the garden up. This should probably have been done in the autumn but we just didn't get round to it. While Peter kept lovely and warm pruning the apple tree with a saw Alison got frozen cutting back soggy dead plants to make way for new growth. Just as her fingers couldn't take any more cold she decided to attack the Yukka plant. It has been growing amazingly and after removing two very large sections she could then start to get some of the dead leaves off and found loads of smaller new growth underneath, most of which has also come off and it's still huge.
Hopefully this week being half term Alison will get some good days outside and also get more wallpaper removed form the stair well. Decorating has been a slow job recently as she can't stand on her ankle for long periods (it's healing but slowly) and her arm which started playing up in Tanzania starts up again if used for long periods, but we're getting there very slowly. The bedroom just awaits a border around the top and curtains which we ordered last week, photos will follow on completion.

First Day in School

Yesterday was Alison's first day ( or should we say morning) in an English school and she really loved it. Although she has taught year one in computing being in a class with them was totally different as she had to work out just how much they should know about the basics such as reading and writing. It really helped that she found out that she already knew a couple of staff, one of whom was in the same classroom as her. As the day starts at 8.40 it means that Peter can get out the house way before Alison needs to think about hogging the bathroom etc and so morning bliss can remain in the Roots household.

CRB At Last

We have just heard that Alison has got her CRB check through. Tomorrow she sees the head teacher to arrange which days she will be working. The ankle is getting better, still swollen and bruised but with plenty of sitting down there is now very little pain.

Oops, Ouch

Alison got up a bit quickly form her craft desk on Wednesday and didn't realise that her foot had gone numb (because she had been sitting on it)until she stood on it at a really funny angle, then she heard a crunching sort of noise and it was very painful. As she seemed to have movement she just strapped it up and tried to keep it raised. By the time Peter got in from work and had a look at it it was going a nice grey colour. A trip to casualty found it to be badly sprained but not broken so she is now stranded on the sofa with it in the air. Peter very kindly got her a pile of books from the library to keep her amused (as he is away with work this weekend) he claims it was coincidence that one of the books is called 'Break no Bones'!

A Bundle of Fur

At the beginning of December we got ourselves a lovely little kitten called Tubs. He is now the center of everything and certainly sees it as his right that the household revolves around him. I have been meaning to put these photos up for ages, here they are at last.
Under the Christmas tree with his china friend

Helping? to make his scratching post

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all of you and a very special thank you to the
anonymous person who sent us some Waitrose vouchers for Christmas - It
was very kind and very much appreciated.