Becky is now 2 years old. She started going to the village playgroup a couple of months ago, and has learned lots of new tricks. Her talent in creative arts already exceeds mine - she can passably draw a face - and she's itching to learn how to write. Sh e can count up to 20, but always misses out 1 and 2 (presumably because they're too easy)! She talks pretty well by now, and enjoys nothing more than to boss her parents about.

Tom has just had his first birthday, and he took his first steps at the beginning of December. He can say a few words already, and his interests include wheels, doors, and generally getting into places where he has no right to be! The two children get on remarkably well together. We've been very lucky to have two that are very easy going - and exceptionally good sleepers.

Jill was on maternity leave until Easter, but has since returned to work part -time for a day and a half per week. On the whole that has worked quite well - certainly the rest of us in the department are hardly falling over ourselves to teach her successful (but difficult) econometrics course, and she's been publishing her research in all kinds of prestigious journals that make me green with envy! We've been very fortunate in having, for the last two years, a childminder in the village with whom the children have got on very well. At the moment, though, we're having to make alterna tive arrangements, because the childminder has just told us that she's decided to have a career change. Watch this space!

I started the year giving papers at a couple of conferences in California. Following advice, I travelled light with summer clothes - and got caught in a tropical storm in Los Angeles! The walk from my hotel to the conference centre turned into a mile paddle through 7 inches of water! I suppose the other highlight of my year at work was the publication of my book on the economics of ed ucation. That topic seems to have changed from being a sideline to being my major field of interest. I'm still (for my sins) chairperson of the local Welsh Society - the big event which we organised this year was the visit to Lancaster of the Caernarfon M ale Voice Choir. The concert was attended by about 500 people.

We had a couple of weeks in Wales over the summer - one at Betws-y-Coed, the other in Llanelli. We were lucky in escaping the worst of the lousy British weather. A nice perk of the cottage at which we stayed in Betws was that we could use the leisure centre at one of the nearby hotels. So each day we took the children swimming - for the first time. They enjoyed it so much that a visit to the swimming pool is now a regular event once or twice a week. One of the highlights of our time in Llanelli was a visit to the Wetlands bird reserve. Becky enjoyed this so much that we've since joined the RSPB and have visited our local reserve at Leighton Moss several times. That has opened up something of a new world for us - watching bitterns, bearded tits, etc. We don't have to travel far for ornothological excitement - we had a heron on the field at the back of our house not so long ago.

We've not managed to get through the year without a few scrapes. Jill has had a couple of miscarriages in the last 3 months. The first was especially rough on her - she had to stay in hospital for a couple of days - but she's OK now. Earlier in the year, she and the children were involved in a car crash - none of them wa s seriously hurt, so that incident ended up being good news. Nevertheless, the car was a write-off - and since the crash was caused by another driver who didn't stop, the outcome was that we had to fork out for a new (used) car. We now have a Sierra.

Do let us have your news, and do be sure to have a happy Christmas and a good 1994!