Christmas letter 2008

Christmas 2008

WunTun100 Summervale RoadRoyal Tunbridge WellsKent TN4 8JQ+44 1892 530 343

Today is the 2nd December, 2008, and at 14:06 in the afternoon the sky is alreadyovercast, reflecting only too accurately my own sombre mood at this time. Despite thefact that Christmas is nearly here, and that it is traditional at this time not only tofeel elation but also to try to communicate that elation through one’s letters and cards,I am afraid that this year at least, elation eludes me and I feel instead a deep sense ofsadness and of loss. The reason for this is that I have just learned of the sad death of yetanother dear friend, making three deaths in the last month alone. And as these deaths areweighing heavily on my mind at the moment, I hope you will allow me to start by tellingyou something of these dear friends, each of whom meant so much to me in different ways.

Today started with a telephone call from Danny,a good friend himself but — more importantly in thecontext of this letter — a gardener who was both in-troduced and recommended to me by Doreen (Dot)Lawrence, nee Guntrip, a lady of some eighty yearswhom I had known ever since she was a regular visi-tor to her mother’s home in The Course, Eltham, nextdoor to where we lived until just two years ago. MrsGuntrip, as Doreen’s mum was universally known, livednext door to us but upstairs, and no matter what timeI passed her house she would invariably call down tome from her balcony to say “Hallo”. Of course, everyChristmas I sent a Christmas card to Mrs Guntrip, andshe in turn sent one to us. When Mrs Guntrip passedaway, I felt a deep sense of loss at Christmas time, and sent a card to her daughter Doreen,saying (I remember the words quite clearly) “I hope you don’t mind, but I always usedto send a card to your Mum at Christmas, and now that she is no longer with us I hopeyou will not mind if I send you one in memory of her”. Of course Doreen did not mind,and we became close friends ; I would visit her at her home in Greenway, and in July 2000she drove over 60 miles to our wedding in Egham, very kindly chauffeuring some of myother friends who had no transport of their own. Once we moved to Tunbridge Wells,I would drive to Footscray (near Chislehurst, where Dot lived) to take Oscar-the-cat forhis bi-weekly chemotherapy, and while he was being treated I would visit Doreen, whereI would invariably be offered coffee, biscuits, and — quite frequently — a cheese sandwichas well ! Doreen was without doubt one of the most compassionate and intelligent peopleI have ever met : her interests were wide-ranging, she sat on a number of local committees,and her concern and passion for people, for animals and for the environment were obviousto everyone who met her. Probably because of the enormous number of activities in whichDoreen took part, she had no need or desire for either a television set or a computer,though she loved the radio and had fairly recently acquired a portable DVD player whichshe loved to watch when she had the time. She shared her home with Sam, a gentle andaffectionate cat who disliked visitors but who — if treated gently and with respect —would eventually become sufficiently friendly that he would voluntarily sit on a favouredvisitor’s lap (a privilege I was afforded on more than one occasion). During my regularvisits to Doreen, I would frequently tell her of the benefits that access to a computer couldbring (I was, and am, far less enthusiastic about a television), and just a few weeks agoDot finally agreed that she would like a notebook computer so that she could look upwords in the Oxford English Dictionary, consult Encyclopædia Britannica, and enjoy the

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electronic edition of Cramp’s Birds of the Western Palæarctic. This computer was dulyordered and delivered, and Dot soon took to it like a duck to water, finding it a great boonin her never-ceasing quest for knowledge. Just last Wednesday I took her a pair of smallloudspeakers so that she could better hear the DVDs that she now preferred to play onthe computer rather than on the dedicated DVD player (the former having a much largerscreen).

Well, that era has sadly and suddenly come to an end : Danny was telephoning to letme know that Dot had been found dead in her bathroom, and that her sister Joan wasnow at Dot’s home taking care of Dot’s affairs. Of course I telephoned Joan immediately,and we chatted about not only Dot but also about their mum, Mrs Guntrip, and Joanremembered meeting both my father and I during her visits to her mum’s home. AndI in turn was able to tell Joan that Doreen had told me during my last visit (less thana week ago) that she had just learned that she had cardiac arrhythmia, and that she hadtherefore decided to postpone all non-essential activities (such as our planned visit to theByzantium exhibition in London) in order to concentrate on tidying up the thousands ofdocuments that were so indicative of her love of learning and her passion for life. Dot wasdetermined that no-one should find her house in a mess (which of course it never was)should she suddenly pass away. Well, sadly, Dot wasn’t allowed time to put her documentsin order ; we don’t yet know the day of her death, but it was either Thursday or Friday oflast week, as it was on Friday last that she was due to meet her sister Joan at Bluewater,a meeting she was destined never to make. I still haven’t really come to terms with Dot’sdeath, but just writing this brings back so many happy memories of time spent with herthat I feel — just as I feel about those other good friends who have also just passed away— that although Dot is no longer physically with us, she will remain with us in spirit allthe while that we remember her. And I know that she will be remembered, with love andaffection, for many many years to come, just as I still remember — oh so clearly — hermum leaning over the balcony to say “hallo”, from all those years ago.

Just a month ago, the second of the these three sad events occurred, the sudden andtragic death of W lodek (more formally, W lodzimierz)Martin, a member of the Polish TEX Users GroupGUST, and a wonderful character and friend. W lodekspoke the most perfect, totally unaccented, English(how, I shall probably never learn), and acted as spon-taneous interpreter for me at BachoTEX on more thanone occasion. It was W lodek, too, who first introducedme to the delights of golonka (a Polish speciality madefrom knuckle of pork, normally served with mustardand horseradish), a dish which I have sought out sub-sequently whenever the opportunity arose and whichI have attempted to cook (with varying degrees of suc-cess) on more than one occasion. W lodek was a charm-ing, courteous and above all warm person, who invitedme to his home in Gdansk-Zaspa on at least one occa-sion where I had the pleasure of meeting his wife Ewa, sadly now his widow, and his big,lovable, playful, dogs.

And finally, just a week before W lodek’s death, another tragedy occurred much closerto home (closer in the geographical sense, that is). Julian Chrysostomides, the Directorof Royal Holloway’s Hellenic Institute, and a wonderful friend for many years, contractedan infection and — with her resistance weakened by chemotherapy — succumbed within

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just 72 hours. I had been working with Julian and her fellow Byzantinist CharalambosDendrinos on a project (“The Porphyrogenitus Project”) to produce and typeset a lexiconof abbreviations & ligatures in Greek minuscule hands (ca. 8th century to ca. 1600) for

over ten years, but sadly we were unable to bring thisproject to fruition during Julian’s lifetime. Both Char-alambos and I are now determined that we must finishthis work, to pay a final fitting tribute to a lady whosecontribution to Byzantine and Greek scholarship mustrank amongst the very greatest of the twentieth century.Julian was exceptionally modest, a brilliant researcher,and a dedicated teacher who was universally loved byall with whom she came into contact. Her death leavesa great gap in Charalambos’s life, in her dear friendJoan’s life, in my life, and in the lives of her family andall who knew her.

Doreen, W lodek and Julian were not the only goodfriends to pass away : over the last year or so, we have also lost many good friends andneighbours from the vicinity of our former home in Eltham, among them Nancy Mellish,Mary Gillham, Dick Harman, Frank Pankhurst, and Ted Cowdrey. All added much to ourlife in Eltham, and all are sadly missed.

On a happier note, the year started with both Khanh & I being invited to spend timewith one of my former Chinese teachers, Zhou Shang Zhı, and his family in Kyoto, Japan.Shangzhı was there for one year, teaching at a local university, and the last three monthswere effectively a holiday for him with very few formal duties. Knowing that we mightlike to visit Kyoto, Shangzhı very kindly invited both of us, which we accepted with greatpleasure. Kyoto had always featured right at the top of the list of places I would like tovisit, and to be invited to spend time there with good friends was just wonderful. As Khanhwas already planning to take a seven-week vacation in South-East Asia at the beginningof the year, we arranged to visit Tokyo at around the end of that seven-week period.

Khanh’s journey commenced with a flight to Sai Gon (“Hò Chı Minh City”), from whereshe took a ’bus south to Mui Ne (a distance of some 100 miles or so), where her sister Le.e Hoahad booked her into a very posh hotel by the beach. Once in Mui Ne, Khanh hired a mopeddriver (xe om) to take her to var-ious places of interest, after whichshe then went with the driver tohis home in Mui Ne, where he livedwith his seven children who wereaged between six and 20. His sec-ond daughter had been affected byAgent Orange, as a result of whichshe had failed to develop, eithermentally or physically, beyond theage of about four (she was 19 atthe time of Khanh’s visit). Lifefor the family was clearly not easy :Khanh noted that the house had only a single light bulb, by the light of which his eldestdaughter sat on the bed embroidering clothing which would later be sold to tourists foronly a few thousand dong (less than 20p). Khanh hopes one day to produce a photo-

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journal to document the life of this family, and thereby to raise some money to ease theirpoverty and improve their lives a little.

After leaving Mui Ne, Khanh next went north by ’busand xe om to Phu Yen to see a famous littoral rockformation called Ghènh da dıa (not unlike the Gi-ant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland) ; unfortunately theweather proved a disappointment on this occasion, andheavy rain made photography very difficult.

From Phu Yen, Khanh went by ’bus to her hometown of Da Nãng, but the ’bus broke down at about22:00 shortly before arriving in Da Nãng itself. Onceagain the ubiquitous xe om saved the day, and Khanharrived safely home before midnight.

The following day was the fifth anniversary of thedeath of Khanh’s father. Khanh, her mum, and all themembers of the family who live in or nearby Da Nãngwent by minibus to the cemetery in Ho. i An, after which

they returned to the family home in Da Nãng for a ceremony of commemoration anda family meal.

After a few day’s rest in Da Nãng, Khanh flew from Da Nãng to Ha No. i in NorthVie.t Nam, and thence to Luang Prabang in Laos. Arriving late at night, and with nopre-booked accommodation (andspeaking not a word of Laotian !),Khanh managed to share a tuktuk with some other backbackersto get from the airport into town,where she found a hotel for thenight but also discovered that shehad lost her guide book to Laos onthe way ...

After two days in Luang Pra-bang, Khanh took a guidedtrekking tour with a Taiwanesecouple ; the trip included an overnight stay in the home of one of the Hmong peoplewho form a significant ethnic minority in the region. The Hmong have neither privatebathrooms nor toilets, so Khanh was obliged to borrow a sarong from one of the Hmonggirls so that she could wash in the communal washing area whilst maintaining the nec-essary decency. The water for washing and drinking was piped in along bamboo conduitfrom a source at some distance from the Hmong village.

Returning from the Hmong village, Khanh and her fellow travellers became seriouslylost ; after several abortive attempts to find the route back to the village where theirminibus was waiting to take them to town, they finally managed to work out where theywere, but then had to run for over an hour to reach the village before nightfall, otherwisethey would have been forced to spend the night on the mountain.

Needing to get back to Vie.t Nam before the start of Tét (the Vietnamese name for theLunar New Year), Khanh had no time to take the scenic route south from Luang Prabangand instead flew directly to Pakse, after which she took a local ’bus for a few hours to reachDon Det (the most southerly of the Laotian islands). Don Det proved to be an exception-ally tranquil location, and Khanh spent three days there, sharing a hut with a Chinese girl

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for USD 1-00/night. From Don Det, Khanh took a minibus south into Cambodia/Kampu-chea ; this was a very long and tir-ing journey, taking over 24 hoursin total. The ’bus did not travelnon-stop, and the passengers wereput up overnight in a small hotelwhich doubled as the local mortu-ary for flying ants (there were lit-erally thousands of their corpses inevery room). Finally the ’bus ar-rived at Siem Riep, where Khanhdecided to treat herself to a supe-rior (USD 6-00/night) hotel near

the night market. That evening she joined up with an English couple whom she hadmet on the ’bus from Don Det, and together they hired a tuk tuk to take them to Angkorto observe the sunset over this famous and ancient city. After returning from Angkor,all three then went to visit the night market near the hotel. The next day, Khanh hireda bicycle and set off for Angkor at just after 04:00 in order to arrive in time to seethe sunrise at 05:00 (IMHO, it would have made a darn sight more sensible to bivouacthere overnight !). Having hiredthe bike, Khanh then spent thewhole day cycling around Angkor ;it was very hot and sunny, butAngkor was so interesting thatthese inconveniences seemed notto matter.

From Siem Riep, Khanh tooka ’bus to Phnom Penh but thisturned out to be “just another bor-ing city”, so she decided to stayfor just one night there and bookeda two-day boat trip back to Sai Gon (the ’bus trip would have taken only six to sevenhours). The next morning, Khanh and the other tourists were picked up by a minibus andstarted on a very bumpy journey to a house by the river where they then transferred toa boat. The boat then went along the Mekong river to Mo.c Bai, on the border betweenCambodia and Vietnam. There they had to get off the boat to get their passports stampedby the Cambodian Immigration authorities (to shew that they had left Cambodia), thenback on the boat for another hundred metres before getting off again on the Vietnameseside. The tourists were greeted by a Vietnamese guide who took all their passports and hadthem stamped whilst the tourists were able to sit and rest (or better, buy something !)atvarious local stalls. After about an hour, they were allowed to board a Vietnamese boatwhich took them to Chau Dóc (the first boat remained on the Cambodian side). The boatjourney was very pleasant but it was very hot and sunny. At Chau Dóc, Khanh and theother tourists were put up in a small hotel where Khanh shared a room with an Americangirl. This hotel turned out to be a hundred times better than the USD 6-00/night in SiemRiep and it was included in the USD 23-00 cost of the whole journey. In the evening,Khanh took the American girl and the Australian couple to walk round the town to seethe flower market (flower markets are very popular in Vietnam in the weeks leading upto Tét), and then they ate some noodles at a nearby pavement stall which all agreed was

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both cheap and excellent. The next morning, a minibus collected all the tourists anddrove them to Sai Gon. Unfortunately, the journey was very long and the road was sobad that it was probably the worst part of the whole trip. Once they had arrived at SaiGon, Khanh took a taxi to her uncle’s home and the next day flew back to Da Nãng.

After Tét, Khanh was planning to go to Ha No. i, then further North and cross intoSouthern China. Unfortunately, it was the coldest February in this region in many years,heavy snow causing major disruption to transport in China, so Khanh decided to abortthis plan for fear that she may not make her return flight to London. Instead, Khanhwent with her mum to Kyoto (Japan) and after they returned, spent a few days visitingHa. Long Bay and Hu’o’ng pagoda before flying back to the UK.

Although both Khanh & I were invited to Kyoto, we actually travelled separately,and at different times. Although this may seem strange, it has become the pattern forour trips away from home, and it is all because of little Oscar, our cat. Oscar hada very aggressive tumour removed from his abdomen about three years ago, and needsregular chemotherapy to minimise the risk of it recurring, so one of us needs to be athome in order to be able to take him for treatment. We can (and have) left him fora couple of days, with our kindly next-door neighbours Janet & Lynn coming in to feedhim and ensure that he is well, but we prefer not to leave him for longer than this,not only because we like to keep an eye on his health, but also because he is a veryaffectionate cat who clearly misses us enormously when we go away (his greeting, on ourreturn, invariably starts with cat-speak for “Why did you leave me here all by myself ?”).

Despite visiting Kyoto separate-ly, both Khanh and I (and Khanh’smum) had a wonderful time there,and I took advantage of the rela-tive compactness of Kyoto by bor-rowing a bicycle and cycling ev-erywhere. Kyoto is very cycle-friendly, and it is perfectly normalfor cyclists to ride on the pave-ment, although I preferred to usethe road whenever it was safe todo so. A bicycle is the ideal wayto see Kyoto, as it brings the en-tire town (city ?) within a couple of hours travel. Walking is also enjoyable, but to walkfrom one side of Kyoto to the far side and back takes about seven hours, and I ended uprather footsore on the one occasion that I tried it.

Shangzhı, Yan Ling and their son Rui were all enjoying life in Kyoto, and Shangzhı— who, like myself, enjoys hunting for treasures in 2nd-hand shops — had accumulatedso many acquisitions during his one-year stay that the family had to return to Shanghaiby boat rather than ’plane, simply in order to be able to take all their newly acquiredpossessions with them ! In fact, Shangzhı has accumulated so much that they were forcedto leave some cases behind for Yanling to collect when she next returned to visit Rui, whowas remaining behind to continue his Japanese language studies. Rui had virtually taughthimself Japanese by the simple expedient of watching Japanese anime films : in these, thedialogue is spoken Japanese but the subtitles are mainly in Kanji, one of the writtenforms of the Japanese language, with some Hiragana and/or Katakana (the latter areboth phonetic, whereas Kanji are ideograms). As there is a considerable overlap betweenKanji and Chinese Hanzi, Rui was able to understand the dialogue by the simple expedient

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of reading the subtitles. This overlap between the written forms of the two languages alsoenabled Shangzhı and Yanling to communicate more easily whilst in Kyoto (neither beinganywhere near as fluent as Rui in the language), since if verbal communication provedimpossible they could always fall back on the written form, using “palm writing” (inwhich a finger is used to draw the shape of a character on the palm of the other hand) ifpaper or pen were not available.

As always, Shanzhi, Yanling and Rui went out of their way to make our stays in Kyotoexceptionally enjoyable, and Khanh & I would like to record our deep gratitude to themfor their kindness, hospitality and enduring friendship.

My ten-day break in Kyoto was wonderful, but returning to College was anything but.For about a year, the Computer Centre has been involved in a management consultancyexercise, the outcome of which was the breaking up of the previous organisational units(Systems Group, Networks Group, User Support and so on), the formation of new groups,and the introduction of so much bureaucracy that all pleasure in the job was destroyed.There were work requests, change requests, 1-to-1s, meetings, more meetings, and — as faras I was concerned — a total destruction of the academic ethos that I loved (we no longerreferred to “The College” — it had mysteriously mutated into “the Business”). I hadalready warned my line manager that it would not take much more to force me to leave,and the crunch came when I had to appear before Personnel to have recorded the factthat I worked from 11:00 to 19:00 rather than from 09:00 to 17:00, despite having workedthese very same hours for my entire 35 years with the University. This was agreed, andI then asked if there was anything else that we needed to agree with Personnel while wewere all there. No-one seemed to think that there was, so I asked about the arrangementwhereby I worked at home one day a fortnight in order to be able to take Oscar to thevet’s for chemotherapy. This clearly threw a spanner in the works. “For how long willthis go on ?”, I was asked. “For the remainder of Oscar’s life”, I replied. “And how longdo you think that might be ?” “Maybe another three years.” “Out of the question.” (Iparaphrase this last reaction, but the meaning was clear). We then haggled for abouttwenty minutes, clearly getting nowhere, despite the best efforts of Emmett Sullivan whowas representing the Universities and Colleges Union (formerly the Association of Univer-sity Teachers). After 20 minutes, I had reached breaking point. “OK”, I said, “then canwe agree three months rather than three years ?” “Yes !”, they said, obviously overjoyedto have reached a compromise that was so clearly in their favour. “Fine”, I said, “threemonths it is : and those three months constitute my formal notice”. Looks of disbelief.

Well, to cut a long story short, College agreed towaive the need for three months notice, I gave six weeks,and my first day of freedom was April 1st 2008 (“AllFools’ Day”). I invited all of my colleagues to lunchat Edwinns, at least two-thirds accepted, and we hada wonderful farewell lunch at which I made a shortspeech and said “goodbye” to everyone. My old friendand colleague John Anderson gave a very nice “Farewellto Phil” speech, and handed me card which had beensigned by everyone in the Computer Centre and bymany from other Departments as well. After I left, Johnarranged a collection for me, and I returned to Collegea couple of months later to shew the Department what Ihad bought with the money they had contributed (gar-

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dening tools, cycling bits and pieces, and so on). I enjoyed my first 34 years with theUniversity so much ; the last year was just sheer bl@@dy hell.

Following my retirement, Khanh’s mum arrived in the U.K. for what has become herannual six-month holiday. Despite being 75 years of age, Khanh’s mum doesn’t get muchrest when she is here, as she works most days in her sister and brother-in-law’s shop “Thai-An” in Islington, an oriental grocer’s and takeaway. As well as Thai & Anh (the shop’sname is intentionally misspelled), Khanh’s mum has a number of other family members inthe U.K., and spends time with each of them. They in turn take her to various places ofinterest (most of which involve shopping !) and act as translator, since they have all beenresident for some time and have become more-or-less fluent in English whilst Khanh’smum speaks almost no English at all (her own languages are Cantonese, Vietnamese andMandarin).

In July, Khanh attended a course in Lincoln, and we took advantage of the fact thatshe was already there to spend time with John and Margaret Simons, the couple fromwhom we bought our present home in Tunbridge Wells. John & Margaret are a delightfulcouple, and Khanh & I count ourselves very lucky that we became good friends with themduring the course of the house sale/purchase, and keep in touch with them now that theyhave moved to Lincoln. We had intended to meet up at Lincoln Station, but Khanh wasdelayed and so I took a taxi from the station to John and Margaret’s home by myself. Atleast, that was my intention. But unbeknown to me, Lincoln not only has a WindermereRoad (which is where John and Margaret actually live), but also a Windermere Avenue,just about as far as you can get from Windermere Road while still being in Lincoln (infact, it is no longer in Lincoln proper but actually in North Hykeham). And unfortunatelythe taxi driver didn’t know either. So we arrived at Windermere Avenue, and all lookedjust as I had anticipated : a very smart modern bungalow, with a beautifully kept garden.I removed my case from the taxi, thanked the driver (and paid him), and walked up thedrive to the door. On ringing the bell, however, I was more than a little disconcertedto have the door opened by a lady whom I did not recognise at all. She seemed equallybemused by my unexpected appearance at her door (with suitcase !), and it soon transpiredthat my taxi driver had failed to read John’s “We have moved” card properly and haddriven me to Windermere Avenue rather than Windermere Road ... Fortunately thelady at whose home I now found myself proved exceptionally helpful, locating my realdestination on a local map and telephoning for a more reliable taxi company to take me tomy intended destination ; in about another thirty-five minutes I was safely reunited withKhanh at John and Margaret’s home.

Just as with Shangzhı and his family in Kyoto, John and Margaret went out of theirway to ensure that our stay with them in Lincoln wasa happy one. John drove me into town on our firstevening, stopping outside the Cathedral so that I couldadmire the architecture and take photographs, and thentaking me on to one of his local watering holes where weshared a very enjoyable pint or two. Khanh & I returnedto the cathedral the next day, took many photographsinside, and then went into the grounds to observe theperegrines that have set up home there. It transpiredthat as well as the breeding pair there were also fouryoungsters, and we had a better sight of the peregrinesthere than we have ever had in Wales. We met up withJohn and Margaret late that afternoon, and all of us

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then went for a first-class meal in a local Chinese restaurant. After the meal we returnedbriefly to the Cathedral, and there had the best sighting of all of the peregrine youngsters ;at dusk they make low circles over the Cathedral, screaming as only peregrines can, andwe had some superb sightings of them. On Monday morning, Khanh left very early to bein time for her next appointment in Liverpool, whilst I made a more leisurely start andtook a train somewhere after 11:00 to return to London and thence to Tunbridge Wells.

In September, I left Khanh and her Mum to look after little Oscar and went off toGermany to spend time with our friends Christa & Ewald, who live in an idyllic village(probably no more than 300 residents) called Bolsehle. Christa & Ewald live almost atthe edge of the village, and one of my great pleasures when staying there is to go walkingin the woods each day, taking Ronja, their very gentle German Shepherd, with me. Ewaldhad not been very well this year, and Christa had asked me to delay my trip until suchtime as he was more-or-less back to normal. I was delighted to see that his health hadindeed returned, and both appeared very much as I remembered them from last year.Waltraud, their next-door neighbour, was also in good health, but sadly Frau Ungethum,Waltraud’s neighbour, had passed away and her home was now occupied by a young couple(Dr. med. vet. Yvonne Marschall and her husband) whom I have not yet met. I still kickmyself for not making a bid for Frau Ungethum’s home when it came on the market : itwent for EUR 100 000, and being the very last house in the village, and only two doorsalong from Christa and Ewald, would have made a wonderful holiday home.

The trip to Bolsehle was not without incident : first of all, I bought a bottle of (good !)red wine at London City Airport, only to have it confiscated (and destroyed) at Schipholbecause London Duty Free had failed to supply the wine in a sealed bag. To add insultto injury, my baggage went missing during the flight, and I was obliged to go shopping inNienburg the day after my arrival in order to have some clean clothes to wear. FortunatelyNienburg has some good and inexpensive clothes stores, and I now have another six T-shirts and several pairs of socks to add to my collection :-)

A few days after my arrival in Bolsehle, one of Khanh’s friends, B ?uu, arrived (B ?uuhas known Christa and Ewald for even longer than Khanh or I), and he and I spenta little time sorting out Ewald’s notebook computer, to enable Ewald to browse the web(mainly looking at anything concerning Munchen-Gladbach !) from downstairs. B ?uu alsobought a superb 42′′ LCD HD television for Christa and Ewald, and we spent a littlewhile selecting the best one and then setting it up for them. Sadly my time with Christaand Ewald went all too quickly, and B ?uu very kindly drove me to the airport on my lastday with them. From Hannover I flew to Schiphol, changed ’planes there, and finally flewback to London City Airport where I was met first by Khanh and then by her aunt Lanwho had kindly come to pick us both up from the airport (we had left the car at her homein Beckton).

Shortly before my return fromGermany, Khanh’s sister Le.e Hoaarrived in England from Sai Gon,bringing with her two new top-class (Butterfly) table tennis bats.Hoa had timed her trip so that shecould join Khanh, their mum andtheir auntie Lan on an exception-ally reasonable holiday package toCosta Rica. This was a very differ-ent holiday to the one in S.E. Asia :

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they stayed in a resort by the beach, and ate and drink far too much as all was includedin the price ! During their stay, they went with an organised tour to see the active vol-cano Arenal and bathed in the hot springs at the base of this volcano (the guests whostayed overnight in a hotel there were able to watch the volcano erupt at night from theirbedroom windows). Khanh and Hoa also took a canopy tour in the rain forest and wenthorse riding whilst their mum and auntie went to have a mud bath by another less activevolcano. It was a very relaxing holiday before Khanh’s mum and sister returned to Vie.tNam in October.

This year Khanh has been unusually busy with work, and as a result (and maybebecause of a bit of laziness), she hasn’t been selling photographs for charity as she hadbeen doing previously. Last year she raised over GBP 400 for Oxfam but this year shewas able to raise only GBP 100 for Oxfam and the Brooke hospital in Cairo. She istrying to get her web site “Photos for Charity” (http://photos.for-charity.org/)developed by someone (no, not her husband, who is far too busy doing other things !)but this is proving anything but straightforward. When Khanh was in Vietnam, she meta Vietnamese photographer who helped her put together some of her photographs intoa photo book with which she is very pleased, but there still remain thousands of her otherphotographs sitting in the computer waiting to be processed ...

Phil bought a Canon EOS 40D camera in duty-free on his way out to Japan (on his wife’sinstructions : he actually wanted to buy a digital video-camera !), and the previous Canon300D was given to Shangzhı and Yanling’s son Rui so that he could take photographsduring his stay in Kyoto. Phil also bought a Canon L-series zoom lens (70–200 mm,f/2.8, IS) which has enabled himto take some rather nice close-uppictures of the birds in the garden(we are very lucky : we get greatspotted woodpeckers feeding fromthe bird-feeder, as well as coal tits,blue tits, great tits, long-tailed titsand many other species — we evenhad a pair of siskins near the be-ginning of the year). Khanh is notkeen to carry this lens around, asshe says it is too heavy, but thenshe seems to find an excuse not totake the camera anywhere at all,which she invariably regrets once she sees the photo-opportunities she has missed !

So, that brings this year’s diary to a close. The writing has taken rather longer thananticipated, in part because little Oscar is not allowed into the front room which is Phil’spreferred location for work (because it has a very comfortable leather settee : the veryreason that Oscar is not allowed in !), and — as a result — as soon as he realises thatPhil has locked himself away in there, he starts batting on the glass of the door to de-mand some attention. And of course Phil, being the softy that he is, can’t ignore littleOscar, so he has to go out to give him some attention, as a result of which the lettergets even more delayed ! (This paragraph alone has probably had five such interrup-tions). But Phil says “We are very privileged to have such a loving and affectionate cat ;he has already had two bonus years, after contracting abdominal cancer and then felineinfluenza, and life just won’t be the same when he is no longer with us, so we mustgive him the love he needs while we still can and while he is still here to appreciate it”.

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Christmas letter 2008