This year lacked the excitement of a visit to Australia, but was nonetheless eventful and fulfilling. We started the year (as last year and next year) with a week's holiday at Center Parcs. This was a wonderful break, giving us something to look forward to after the excitement of Christmas and the ne w year. Later in the year we spent a week in Cornwall and also had a very enjoyable time staying (with my parents and at my aunt's house) in South Wales.

My work has taken me on a couple of trips abroad this year - to Kenya for a fortnight to work on a W orld Bank project (designing a voucher scheme for the funding of vocational training), and to Moscow for a meeting with colleagues working on (perversely) a EU project. Other interesting work has included my involvement in one of the working groups of the Dearing committee into higher education. My extra-curricular activities have taken on a new turn since I was recently appointed as a governor of Becky's school.

Jill is currently back at work on a part-time basis, two mornings per week, Katy and Tom spe nding those mornings in the university creche. At home, she delighted me when she took up lessons in Indian cookery! Jill also usually manages to find time each week to swim a ridiculously long distance in an outrageously short time. She has also taken on the responsibility of organising a monthly event for toddlers in the village at our local church, and has been doing some voluntary work in the school library. She claims that the great event of the year for her was buying a dishwasher!

Becky is 5 years old and started her second year of school in September. She loves it, and is reading really well now. Quite often we get up in the morning to find that she has been up for ages, writing a story! She has started attending Rainbow Guides, and has also been taking swimming lessons. These have been of considerable benefit to her as she can now confidently dive into the pool and swim 50 metres. She vigorously applies her characteristic enthusiasm to all these activities.

Tom goes to pre-school a couple of af ternoons each week and also to playgroup. Shortly before his fourth birthday, I took him to his first football games (Wales v. San Marino and Blackburn v. Liverpool); he enjoyed both immensely, and seems to bring luck to the right side - I'll have to take him again soon! He is beginning to read simple story books, and constantly amazes us with his sharpness of mind. He had an overnight stay in hospital during the late summer in order to have his tonsils removed.

Katy is now 2 years old. She talks quite w ell - and copiously! She has caused us plenty of worry over the year with two visits to A&E at the local hospital (once for hurting her head on a paving slab while falling off a fence, and once for spraining a knee on a bouncy castle). Katy remains a real character who loves joining in our nightly family games of pelmenism and dominoes.

I found myself a new hobby early in the year when I raved to a colleague about seeing Hyakutake's comet - he instantly offered me, free of charge, an astronomical telesco pe! I've since spent many late evenings staring at planets, galaxies, star clusters, nebulae and a couple of more recent comets (Hale-Bopp and Tabur). The children are also thrilled to be able to see Saturn's rings and Jupiter's moons (though Becky's idio syncratic Japanese pronunciation - Ooh, hark, a turkey - for the first of the year's comets could probably do with some practice!).

We continue to go birdwatching fairly often, especially at Leighton Moss which is only a few miles away. The children got their first good sighting of a bittern there this autumn, on a memorable day when we also saw marsh harriers and both red and roe deer (which are not, in fact, birds). Some or all of us also added red kite, gull-billed tern and Isabelline shrike to our l ists during the year.

It remains for us to wish you the best for a happy Christmas and a great 1997.

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