It has been a number of years since we last wrote a Christmas letter to go with the cards. There are a hundred and one reasons why we haven’t had time: children, work, after schools activities, outside interests ..... Whilst it is impractical to write to everybody the alternative recently has been nothing. Hopefully you won’t mind this years ‘round robin’.

It was Jamie’s 4th birthday in January. He had a party at Hoodles, one of the local indoor play areas. He and 10 friends ran around the play frame madly before sitting down to party food and a Spiderman Cake made and decorated by Claire.   

Claire and Andrew got away for a week in March skiing in St Anton with Ali and Pete. It was their first time skiing in Austria which they last visited on their honeymoon (almost 20 years ago!). The weather was good with only one day of poor visibility. There were 3 ski areas, each with different characters but not as large as some areas they have skied before. The bottom slopes were low ending around 1300m with quite a bit of slush. The hotel was the best they had stayed in whilst skiing and the mountain restaurants unbelievable (waiting staff in Tyrol dress). The apres ski was certainly the most interesting and they had the best St Patricks Day ever with Claire managing to ski away from the bar with only one ski on! Grandma Frances and Granddad Rodger looked after Zoe and Jamie for the week.

The family summer holiday was in the South of France. A little different from the normal ‘jump on a plane’ holiday. As Jamie and Zoe are used to traveling (380 mile drive to see Grandparents), the drive down to the South of France isn’t really that far. With a DVD player each and a Nintendo DS the time passes by quickly. The adventure started this year with a trip through the Channel Tunnel and then around Paris before stopping in Orlean. The new sat nav was great even if Andrew couldn’t quite keep up with all the directions. The family stayed at La Hippocampe near Argeles Sur La Mer. There was lots on site including kids club, 4 swimming pools with slides, table tennis and boules. On the way back we visited Sally and Alain in Grenoble. The last time we had met up was ‘pre-kids’ and we worked it out as perhaps 15 years ago. We were made very welcome and spent 2 days with Mellisa,Sara and Louisa. Zoe particularly enjoyed meeting their various pets.

Through the year Zoe has been continuing with swimming,Brownies and Gymnastics. More recently she has taken up horse riding which she enjoys. Unfortunately for mum and dad she is a bit of a natural with a great riding position. This might be something Mum and Dad regret starting (thanks Auntie Sue). She has fallen off once which was caused by Claire spooking the pony but fortunately not hurt and she jumped straight back on after a few tears. Recently Zoe went up a reading group in school as she finally decided reading was fun and it helped with getting the Brownie reading badge.

On Tuesday 18th August Jamie made his way to school for his first day. Although he enjoys school he did get a ‘think sheet’ after a few weeks. In a new environment Jamie was a little over enthusiastic and testing the boundaries.However he quickly settled down and was described as a ‘model pupil‘ at parents evening. He enjoys swimming and football, and loves playing with his Star Wars Lego, as well as Lego Batman on the Wii.

Andrew has had an ‘interesting year’. He spoke at two conferences on Information Management, Daratech (Houston) and the Gartner Portals and Collaboration (London) as well as at Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen. For the last two years Andrew’s work has been focussed on delivering a project in Aberdeen which will provide a new approach to accessing engineering information for 7 North Sea operating assets (340,000 documents, 480,000 tags and 25 3D models). In spite of many challenges from all directions the project will deliver the promised functionality in 2009 although there will be a little carryover in to 2010. Hopefully Andrew’s effort will be recognized for making a difference in BP.

After many years of inactivity The-Tills web site is back online. We are slowly loading in photographic content and hopefully in the New Year some video footage. There are some old family pictures from the Till, Farrow and Grafton family. We have added some stories to the blog and will try to write an update every month or so. Keep an eye out for changes during 2010. Andrew and Claire are also on Facebook.

Perhaps Andrew is getting to ‘a certain age’ and he has started to do a little research in to the family tree. A number of years ago Frances Lee (Farrow) was contacted by John Farrow to discover he had traced the family tree back to the late 1500’s. John has over 2000 people in his database. Once Andrew started to get information together its surprising what comes to light. So far there are over 280 names in the tree and growing. Key names include Bedford, Dyson, Farrar, Farrow, Till. Please have a look at the online web pages and let us know if you have any additions, modifications or deletions.

In 2010 Andrew and Claire are going to France on another child free ski holiday with pals Ali and Pete, a great opportunity for Zoe and Jamie to spend quality time with grandparents, of course!  And in the Summer the family are returning to Argeles. Claire has just got a job as a relief creche worker, wanting to ease herself gently back to work, and is also hoping to start a Learning Assistant Course.

We hope you like this year’s Christmas card which was Claire’s idea and enthusiastically modelled by the children. We have put previous year’s cards on the web site blog if you are interested in a reminder.

Love

Andy, Claire, Jamie and Zoe