At work, the year has seen me move over from being associate dean for undergraduates to being Director of the Graduate Management School here at Lancaster. This has introduced a few new and interesting challenges which I would really like to achieve during the 2 years I intend to give to this post. My research has gone pretty well this year (in what time the administrative job leaves for it) with a couple of papers accepted for publication in good outlets, and an interesting project for the British Council on estimating exports of educational services. And I was pleased to be honoured with a national award for my teaching.

Becky is now in year 8, her second year at the grammar school, and is doing well. She has joined Hest Bank badminton club which keeps her busy on Thursday evenings, and is still an active member of the guides group in our village. She very much enjoyed a school trip to France in the spring. This is Tom’s last year in primary school, and he continues to throw his all into everything that he does – from his school work to his football. He still plays for Morecambe’s youth team – now the under-12s – as centre-half, and continues to play well; indeed he won the players’ player of the year award for the second time running. Katy, now 9 years of age, remains a chatterbox! She has started attending Stagecoach drama school on Saturdays in Lancaster, and is enjoying that very much indeed.

We enjoyed a wonderful holiday in northern Spain (near San Sebastien) and southern France (Villeneuve sur Lot), during the extremes of the French heatwave. Fortunately our gite (one of a cluster of 4) had a pool, and we and the children made friends with the other families staying there. Staying at Villeneuve also gave us the opportunity to visit our old friends (Jackie, Gilbert, Guite and Pierre), with whom I spent two whole summers during my youth. So this was quite a sentimental journey. That part of France, with rolling countryside, caves (such as Padirac) and wonderful bastides (mediaeval fortified towns) is a wonderful place to visit, and no doubt we’ll go again.

That was, in fact, our second family visit to France (so Becky’s third)! We managed to combine a conference that I had to attend at Annecy in the French Alps with a few days of leisure. It’s a hard life! I did pretty well for overseas conferences this year, as I also had one in Portugal’s Douro Valley.

Tom and I are still supporting Morecambe, and were rewarded with the club’s best ever season (narrowly missing promotion to the football league), and a trip to Ipswich for an FA cup game (never mind the result!). And a real highlight of the year for me was the trip Jill and I made to Bruce Springsteen’s concert in Manchester – and he and the band played as well as I’ve ever seen him. Highlight of the birdwatching year for us was an extremely brief glimpse of a Savi’s warbler at Leighton Moss. We have all continued to play tennis at Lunesdale tennis club in our village; the children all take regular coaching lessons, and I played (well, tried to play) some competitive tennis for the third team.