2018 The long hot summer

It's been a busy Christmas this year. We had the whole family staying from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day evening so that Tessa, Joel and Maria could go to Joel's Dad on Christmas Day and then it was everyone with us for Boxing Day. Max absolutely adores Maria and had a great time being entertained by her, giving Eugenie a bit of a break - he's been a bit clingy lately. Sandy managed, as usual, to produce some wonderful Christmas meals, supplemented by Joel's cooked meats and patés, so we are all now well feasted for the winter months ahead.

We have been looking after Max for 2 days/week for most of the year so we have seen him change into a toddler with his own personality. He is very happy and easy going and has a great sense of humour. He still only has a few words, but he understands English, Cantonese and French. He has had a French speaking nanny for a while now initially for one day a week and now increased to four days per week. She has a daughter who has also been spoken to in three languages and she didn't talk until quite late, but then spoke fluently in all three languages, knowing who to speak to in which language.

Now that everyone has cameras in their phones, we have hundreds of pictures and video clips of Max throughout the year. Joe and Eugenie took Max on holiday in Corsica in September, so we have wonderful videos of him excitedly watching trains and boats and planes (just like his Dad used to.)

Maria started Secondary School in Autumn, it seems not so long ago that she was toddling around like Max is today. She is still busy with her Tai Kwando and Dance/Musical Theatre classed. She played Dorothy in her Junior School's production of 'The Wizard of Oz' and she has already made her mark in her new school by being one of only two of the Year 7 cohort to land a part in the school's production of 'Grease', which we are looking forward to seeing in February. She's a lovely girl and a great credit to her Mum and Dad.

We went to France again this year for our holiday; last chance before Brexit to enjoy the benefits of being in Europe! We had a week in Brittany, visiting some of the places we had holidays when Tessa and Joe were little. Our main stop was in Carnac, which still retains its original charm, though it is a bit busier these days and the villa we stayed in back in 1983, which was outside the town next to a farm, is now surrounded by holiday homes owned by Parisiennes. 

We moved on from Carnac to stay with friends in their house in Couzou, a small hamlet near to Rocamadour. Our visit there was timed to take in the Rocamadour balloon festival and the vindage. The weather was wonderful, great conditions for ballooning, but unlike previous years, there was no breeze to bring the balloons south over Couzou so we went down to the village to watch them being inflated and launched. Quite a spectacle. 

At the end of our stay, we harvested the grapes from the vine in front of Maurice and Lesley's house and packed them in a crate for the journey home. It turned out to be a bumper crop despite the long hot dry summer, which made up for last year when the vine was regrowing after a heavy pruning.

We now have two gallons just about coming to the end of the fermentation stage. Can't wait to sample it before putting it away to mature over the summer.

At home, the garden has had a tough time with spells of exceptional weather. First of all we had a very cold spell with snow, brought in by 'The Beast from the East', which meant that I had to wait a little longer before I could start planting my veg plants.

Then we had a long hot period from 30th May to 29th July with no recorded rain at all.  We were able to get our inflatable dinghy out for Max to keep cool.

Many a happy evening was spent watering generally and the veg plot in particular to try to keep it all alive, but some plants just didn't make it! Strange things happened with the vegetables; the beans stopped developing when the weather was at its hottest and resumed when it cooled off a bit. My parsnips and carrots didn't like it at all and have been less than half the size of the previous years, potatoes and onions also were small, but we had the best crops ever from cucumbers and courgettes and loads of tomatoes, peppers and chillies. 

As I was born in 1948, my 70th birthday was unavoidable this year. We celebrated with a family meal out at a steak house in London and I was finally persuaded to have a telescope as a present. This didn't arrive in time for my birthday but it had now been delivered, though the hectic run up to Christmas means that it has not yet been fully assembled and pointed at the sky. I'll be getting on with that soon as some of the best things to point a telescope at can be seen in the winter/spring night sky.