I sincerely hope that this newsletter finds you in a better situation than that painted by the 10 o'clock news. Do we really need an endless diet of doom and gloom to go to bed on? We have stopped watching it as it is so depressing and I do subscribe to the theory that an economy which functions largely on the opinions and whims of a relatively small number of people should not spend so much time convincing itself that the end is nigh.
Shape Shifting
It is tempting to suggest that not a great deal of substance has changed since last year, just a little bit of tweaking along the way, but I would be lying so let's cut to the chase and get to the news of the year.... I am , once more, married to a size 10 piece of crumpet. Have I murdered or divorced my previous wife, I hear you cry in anguish? Is there a newly dug patio in the back garden? Nope, the spouse that I have had for some 22 years has burst forth, shed 4 stone and blossomed into a mid-life crisis offsetting stunner (of course this is a completely objective viewpoint). Many of you who have not seen us for 10 years or so would not realise that there were 4 stones to lose but if you take a look at the pictures you will witness the startling transformation for yourselves.
This metamorphosis took place over a 100 day period, care of an enormous amount of willpower (Wendy tried hard too) and something called Lighter Life. For those of you not familiar with the scheme it is a shakes and bars regime and my goodness it works - if you stick to it - which Wendy did, religiously. She even sat in restaurants and watched us eat whilst sipping black tea! Was it worth it? You bet! Oh, and Wendy feels much better for it too =:-) The final "word" on the subject rests with another photograph. Not sure if it clear but Wendy was wearing the black belt that she is holding around her waist just a few months ago and it needed to be on the longest hole!
Start the Way You Intend to Continue
As ever, we started the year with a New Year's Eve party at our house. There are very few surviving photos which either means that we were in no fit state to take any or that the incriminating evidence has been expunged. The theme for last year's party was black and white and I did manage to rescue this one shot (yes, that is me in the French chef gear). This year's party theme, incidentally, is ties and tiaras.
Vive la France
We managed several trips to the appartment in France this year with Wendy fitting in one more than the rest of us care of a girly ski weekend to celebrate her 45th birthday. I am told that it was a civilised affair but, frankly, find that very hard to believe.
The whole of the Alps experienced much better snow than the previous year and Villard de Lans was no exception. Chelsea brought Sam along (still the same boyfriend) and they disappeared off on their own most days. This worked out very well as they were able to explore parts of the resort that we have never managed to fit in before and they introduced us to some great runs normally out of range of the 2 hour ski-school freedom window.
It is amazing what can happen over a chiller cabinet in a French supermarket! I am tempted to pause to allow your imagination to run riot however will press on to explain that on this occasion what I am referring to is a chance meeting with the only resident Brit that we have come accross in the area, Paul. This took place during our summer trip. Paul also turned out to be the local barbeque king and a golfer to boot. The result is that we met a whole load of locals at his barbeques and received a lot of good advice regarding places to visit and see in the locality. Of course, when somebody - particularly somebody who looks as if they do a lot of climbing, walking and cycling - tells you that there is a fantastic point of interest at the end of an hour-long walk one should be wary. Ever the naive foreigners, the Crosson Smith family set out upon this hour-long walk and duly arrived at the intended destination....two and a half hours later! The end point, however, was a vista which fell away from a sheer drop over Grenoble thousands of feet below. It was amazing and the photos simply do not do it justice. This is just one example of some of the stunning sights in the Parc de Vercors, of which Villard de Lans is the capital town.
All of this was remarkable enough for the bi-ped members of the expedition however we also took Toby to France for the first time this year. Given that his legs are about 4 inches long this must represent a trek of something like 16 hours to somebody of my height.
Illegal Contraband
Which brings me on quite nicely to the drama of our summer holiday - getting back to the UK. For those of you who don't know, the UK introduced a pet-passport scheme a few years ago. The basic principle is that the vet can issue a booklet containing proof that the pet has received the relevant jabs and passed the required blood-tests to certify them as rabies free. I was somewhat paranoid about the concept of this, seemingly simple, protocol working in practice so Wendy checked with the vet and DEFRA before we travelled to make sure nothing would go awry. The relevant assurances were received which only lessened my anxiety a notch. Picture the scenario, therefore, of arriving at the pet control point in Calais on a Saturday evening to be told that there was a blood-test stamp missing from the passport on some random page in the middle. Sometimes I just hate to be right! We thus rang the emergency vet number at 8pm on the Saturday whereupon the agency, who could access the local vet's computer records, advised us that there was no record of the blood test results but they would try to contact somebody locally. At this point we were looking at 6 months of quarantine and the idea of dog-burgers was looking very attractive. At any rate it was not going to be possible to travel that night because we needed the blood test certificate and DEFRA's OK.
Those of you who have tried to book a last minute hotel room in August in the Calais area will have an inkling of how the next couple of hours went. No room at the inn and not a stable in sight along with a hoard of others also deperately seeking asylum for the night. In the end we drove into the middle of nowhere and asked the GPS to locate hotels in the area. On the third attempt we found a village off the beaten track with a reasonable 2 star hotel with rooms available and happy to take dogs. 5 minutes after we checked in they closed the front desk.
To truncate this tale of woe, the manager of the vet called us with profuse apologies. They should not have issued the passport without the stamp and the blood test results should have been entered onto their computer. She offered to cover our additional costs and we did make it back to the UK the following day.
How the Other Quarter Live
As ever, the teenage member of the Crosson Smith family led the way in the international travel for leisure (and general living it up) stakes in 2008. Chelsea was due to start the year with a school trip to Kenya, taking in safari parks and trips to work with school children in the bush. Those of you for whom the beginning of 2008 is not just a dim and faded memory may remember that travel to Kenya in the early part of the year was a very bad idea on account of the fact that people started killing each other. With some last minute emergency planning the trip was re-located to the south west of the USA and included a helicopter trip up the Grand canyon, several other national parks and a trip down the Las Vegas Strip. Regrettably the kids did not return with vast winnings to remove the burden of school fees from their overworked parents but enjoyed the trip, albeit not wishing to look at another rock for a considerable period of time.
Her second trip to the USA in 2008 was with Sam's family and involved a trip to New York. Bearing in mind that Sam's mum (Sue) has two boys and hence generally nobody to shop with the pair of them hit the high street in a big way although I do understand that there were breaks in between for eating and sightseeing.
Chelsea hit 16 this year and it was decided that the garage should become her den and party room. We have a double garage which until September looked like many others i.e. completely full of a mixture of tools and stuff that simply doesn't fit anywhere else. Guess how I spent my August and September? Back breaking stuff but we did manage to clear it, albeit with a play house that has been re-used as a shed, and an amazing transformation has taken place. Not so sure that the neighbours are as impressed because she has had a few parties with 30+ teeneagers in attendance.
Chelsea also had a taste of the stage this year and was part of the cast of a production of High School Musical at the Hexagon Theatre in Reading. I seem to remember that it took several days after the last performance before the adrenalin had dissipated and she came down from the ceiling.
On top of that lot Chelsea also managed to secure a Saturday job. Given her interest in design and fashion she has landed herself a great number in a somewhat upmarket interior design boutique in Windsor called Anemone. The last we heard she was working on some items for a castle!
Leading to the Energetic Quarter
Scary thought for the day: Tiff will be 13 in January which means that there will be two teenage girls in the house. Anybody got board and lodgings available for the next 6 years (for me, that is)?
Tiff still manages to be the most active member of the family with 4 dance lessons per week, Sunday dance/singing/stage school, guides and the occasional Manga class on a Thursday. Homework has to be fitted in somewhere but she still manages to be a very active participant on MSN. She also took part in a junior chef competition this year. Ironically, she seems to have a reasonable grasp of cooking and presenting food - just not eating it as meals still seem to be a necessary inconvenience that get in the way of her other (much more interesting) activities. The range of food that she will actually eat is limited, though healthy. She cooked pan fried duck breast in a spiced honey sauce served on a roquet and spinach salad with baked figs for main course with poached spiced pears on an almond dacquoise with creme fraiche and blackberry coulis for dessert. It was tough having to be the guinea pig!
And Finally the Old Fogeys
So apart from losing weight and ageing (dis)gracefully what have Wendy and I been up to? Well a lot of this year was taken up with the ins and outs of a major re-organisation at Wokingham Borough Council (which is where Wendy works). To cut a long story short, the council made a load of posts redundant then made the holder of those posts apply for replacement jobs. Wendy ended up with a sort of promotion without a pay rise but not before a lot of stress. Wokingham Borough is now split into 3 sections, each with a Head of Service responsibility for the delivery of, well....services. Wendy is one of those.
For my part, as already mentioned it has not been a great year from a sales perspective with a number of very promising deals disappearing for a variety of reasons but generally not involving a competitor taking business from us. On the recreation front I have celebrated my mid-life crisis by returning to my hobby of old, amateur radio. Yes, this does qualify me as a card-carrying nurd but you probably already knew that.
The girls are not enamoured with the hobby, partly because I do devote a fair bit of time to it and partly because I have invaded the back garden with various antennae. To make matters worse it is largely morse code that I am sending around the world so the family think that I have completely lost my marbles! Still, keeps me out of the way.
So there you are; another year notched up on the bedpost of life (which is beginning to look a little more perforated than it used to). I wish you all the best for 2009 and that you defy the predictions of doom and gloom to prosper.
along the way, but I would be 
lying so let's cut to the chase and get to the news of the year.... I am , once more, married to a size 10 piece of crumpet. Have I murdered or divorced my previous wife, I hear you cry in anguish? Is there a newly dug patio in the back garden? Nope, the spouse that I have had for some 22 years has burst forth, shed 4 stone and blossomed into a mid-life crisis offsetting stunner (of course this is a completely objective viewpoint). Many of you who have not seen us for 10 years or so would not realise that there were 4 stones to lose but if you take a look at the pictures you will witness the startling transformation for yourselves.
As ever, we started the year with a New Year's Eve party at our house. There are very few surviving photos which either means that we were in no fit state to take any or that the incriminating evidence has been expunged. The theme for last year's party was black and white and I did manage to rescue this one shot (yes, that is me in the French chef gear). This year's party theme, incidentally, is ties and tiaras.
The whole of the Alps experienced much better snow than the previous year and Villard de Lans was no exception. Chelsea brought Sam along (still the same boyfriend) and they disappeared off on their own most days. This worked out very well as they were able to explore parts of the resort that we have never managed to fit in before and they introduced us to some great runs normally out of range of the 2 hour ski-school freedom window.
lodgings available for the next 6 years (for me, that is)?
