Looking back over the last year, it’s once again been a full one.

For me, life at work has been very hectic, particularly towards the end of the year. I have now begun my fourth year as Associate Dean of the Management School, and – while I enjoy the work – it does mean that a larger proportion of my time than normal is controlled by other people, and I get less time to indulge myself in research.

In the early part of the year, I had the excitement of undergoing two operations – I discovered a desmoid tumour in my chest. The first operation took the lump out and the second, aimed at taking a wider excision, was a full mastectomy(!). By a stroke of fortune, this second op. coincided with the first week of the World Cup, so I enjoyed a great week off work doing little but watching football!

Jill has been very busy this year, having recently increased her hours of work. She and I are doing some quite interesting research together at the moment on efficiency measurement, and are also collaborating on an edited book. On top of all that, and of course all her teaching, Jill does a prodigious amount of work helping out in the school library, generally running the household and keeping us all in order. As I’m writing this, she’s busy painting Tom’s bedroom which has recently been extended to make room for a train set that he is hoping to get for Christmas!

Becky moved up to her secondary school in September – the Lancaster Girls’ Grammar School. This has been something of a culture shock; while we had all got used to the children all going to the school 100 metres down our road, we now have to get up much earlier so that Becky can catch her bus into town! Speed is not her middle name, and she still hasn’t quite got the idea that the bus won’t wait for her, so this all makes for stressful mornings. But she has thrown herself into life at her new school with gusto, is enjoying the variety of specialist teachers, and has joined the junior drama club and hockey club. She is still learning the piano, and has also joined the strings group at school, playing violin.

Tom is still playing for Morecambe under-10’s football team, having won the player of the season award for the 2001-02 year. He seems to be coping well with the twin responsibilities of his role as a sweeper and as captain. He’s just taken up playing the guitar – and does so at every available opportunity. Tom and I still go to watch Morecambe play football – it’s a great little club - but I enjoyed a memorable day out in Cardiff in the spring when I watched Blackburn Rovers win the Worthington Cup. (For some reason, Tom didn’t want to come to that one.) Tom was also very pleased to win a trophy at school for being the best mathematician in the junior school.

Katy moved up from the infants to the juniors this year, and is coming to terms with the fact that school isn’t just about having fun. She has taken part in drama productions in school, and has started to learn Spanish in an after-school club. We were pleased by her strong performance in the SATs. She seems to keep her bright moments for school – at home she is as dizzy and dozy as she could be!

We spent our holiday this year in northern Spain, in the area around Santander. This is very much a tourist backwater, but we can recommend it highly. The mountain scenery of the Picos de Europa is absolutely stunning – quite the equal of Yosemite, but virtually unheard of in Britain. There is also a wealth of prehistoric caves in the region. The new Guggenheim museum at Bilbao was another highlight as, of course, were the beaches. Unfortunately, Jill tore some ligaments in her ankle on the very first day of our holiday, and this limited the amount of walking that we could do – but we nonetheless had a great couple of weeks.

We joined the local tennis club again this year, but (owing to my ops and Jill’s ankle) didn’t really make full use of it. Fortunately they are installing floodlights, so hopefully we should get some play over the winter months. Towards the end of the summer, I started playing football for the Management School’s staff team and Jill started jogging.

Our biggest news of the year though must be the addition of a new member to the Johnes household – Ellie the cat! We acquired her in September as a 3 month old kitten from a farm up the road. Her purpose in life (at least, the purpose for which we acquired her) is to gobble up the mice that seem to proliferate in our rural location. She, on the other hand, seems to live for the moments when she can get stuck up trees or trespass in to areas of the house where she is not allowed to go!

We’d like to wish you all the best for the festive season, and pass on all good wishes for a happy 2003.