Happy New Year

As always, I plan to get my blog done before Christmas, but it seems to have become an early January event. Better late than never I suppose. Hoping that you had a fabulous festive season, and that the coming year brings you good health and much happiness.

2022 was a challenging year for us, so we are happy to have left it behind.

In February we went up to Sun Peaks for a couple of weeks ski-ing while Amy and Edwin looked after Poppy for us. The snow was perfect, although for a couple of days it was a little too cold to ski. Most days we had fresh fluffy snow to enjoy, but it was good to take a bit of time off as we still ski hard. We had a ski in, ski out condo (with hot tub) within a short walk of town, a real treat. It was fun to catch up with all our old friends, and with restrictions eased we were able to enjoy après ski socializing again, plus lovely dinners out.

From there we went to Whistler to stay with some friends for three days. They were happy to have Poppy join us, as they have two dogs, so we picked her up enroute. We have not been to Whistler for a long time, wow how it has changed. Way too many people for our liking and not the greatest snow, but we had fun. We have certainly been spoilt with Sun Peaks.

March was busy with various friends coming to visit and a few AirBnb guests in our suite. Since March we have had 28 bookings. It has been wonderful to share our beautiful new home and get to know visitors from all over the world, although most have been local. We only take bookings when we are around, so they were mainly in May, June and July.

In April Russell had his accident. He was in the hot tub with his friend Ron, who was staying. Upon getting out he blacked out (it was a cold night) and fell backwards onto the tub steps. Thank goodness he was not on his own, it could have been so much worse. The ambulance arrived and he was flown to Vancouver a few hours later to have surgery. He broke his neck from C4-C7 and now has two titanium rods (yes, his nick name now is the Titty man). It was obviously a very stressful time; he is lucky to be alive and not in a wheelchair for life. We are truly thankful to our local Lady Minto hospital and Vancouver General hospital for all their care.

We were due to fly to England within a few days, but thankfully we were able to reschedule the trip. Russ was out of hospital within four days and then it was the slow road to recovery. Not an easy one, but he is so much better, and we are certainly through the worst of it. Not sure what happened to June and July, but by August Russ felt well enough to go away on the boat. We spent a week at Tugboat outstation and then went up to Garden Bay outstation for a while. They are both yacht club outstations and we were able to just hang out with various friends. Poor Russell was not as well as we thought and spent a lot of time resting. Luckily, I can manage the boat on my own, so we were able to spend time in the Harmonies, Laura Cove and Ballet Bay. Poppy and I spent a lot of time together exploring on our new 13’ Whaler tender, however she was not keen to swim with me and preferred chasing fish in the shallows. We ended up going down to Alexander Island (another outstation) on our way to Vancouver where we spent a couple of nights before returning home. Being on the water is certainly my happy place and it was good to get away for four weeks.

Whilst we were in Vancouver Amy and Luke got engaged. Sadly, we had to put off celebrating with them. Amy had returned from working in Las Vegas and got Covid on the flight back, then immediately gave it to Luke. Not sure when the wedding will be, but we are very excited for them both.

In September we spent three weeks in England with my brother Jamie down in Poole. It has been a very long time since I spent any time there (thanks Covid), apart from the 3 days for my mother’s funeral seven years ago. Russell did much better than expected and among other things enjoyed meeting up with some of his Classic Car friends. We now have all sorts of parts for his car being freighted over here. We also got away for five days to see some old friends and managed to see all my cousins and aunt. A great trip, we are already looking forward to the next.

At the end of October, we flew down to Arizona for a couple of weeks. We had booked a unit at a golf resort before Russell’s accident, so no golf, but time in the sun and we have never visited the area, so lots to explore. Upon arrival Russell came down sick and was in bed most of the two weeks. He tested negative for Covid, but I think he may have had it. Thankfully I did not get sick and was able to look after him. The weather was cooler than normal for the time of year, and it even rained a couple of days. Weird, still we made the best of it. Then upon returning home, within a couple of days, I came down with Covid. I was only sick a couple of days, but we don’t think we will be going back to the States anytime soon.

Then we had Christmas to look forward to. Always a happy time of year; especially as we were able to socialise and go to parties for the first time in a few years. The kids came over to Salt spring to spend four days with us at Christmas, a special time.

This year we have had to say goodbye to too many, close friends, we miss them. As we get older, we realise that we are blessed for every day we have “Carpe Diem”. A month ago, we also heard that our brother-in-law was in hospital in Australia. He is still in hospital and is seriously ill with Acute Leukaemia. Our plan was to go to New Zealand and Australia in February for six weeks. We are now looking at just going to Australia to support our sister-in-law for three to four weeks.

There is sunshine on the horizon though. This week our dog breeder contacted us. We had planned to get a new puppy in the spring, but she has come early. We get her on Tuesday, and we are so excited. It will be wonderful for Poppy to have a little sister for company, and we see a busy time ahead. Thankfully our house sitters are more than happy to look after the puppy.

As I go through my photos, I realise that I really must take more this year. Maybe that will be my New Year’s resolution. On that note I wish you happy healthy days ahead, please keep in touch and I look forward to our paths will meeting again soon.

Much love

Jane and Russell

We hope that this blog/newsletter finds everyone happy and healthy and ready for the New Year. 2022 I feel is going to be a cracker, full of love and laughter and our hope is that we will see some of you again soon.

This last year has been very kind to us, even with Covid always hovering in the background. We feel very grateful. We have learnt to adapt to the new normal and now live a slightly quieter life. We have no travel plans booked for the near future, even when we make plans locally we seem to have to cancel them. However, our hope is to be able to spend next Christmas with family in New Zealand and Australia; with a trip to England hopefully in the spring. The last time we were in England was five years ago for my Mum's funeral. We only had two days, as we had commitments in New Zealand where we were living at the time. It is the longest I have ever been away from the UK.

So what have we been up to? We have been enjoying our new home and finishing off the last of the "to do list"; which I am sure will never end. It keeps Russell busy and he has completed some amazing projects. One is our woodshed that will now keep us in wood for years to come, another is recently putting the pool table back together and refelting it. He had a wonderful guys get together to celebrate, where they spent three days continuously playing different games while drinking the occasional beer. I took Poppy to visit the kids in Vancouver and left them to it.

I continue to play a lot of tennis, a game I really enjoy. I have made a wonderful group of tennis friends and we have a lot of fun playing together. In the summer we also played golf until I got "trigger thumb" which stopped play for quite a few months. At last I got a cortisone injection and was back playing by the fall. Taking Poppy for daily hikes and walks with friends seems to fill up my days. I feel so blessed to have so many trails to enjoy and for Poppy to explore off leash. Yoga has been put to one side as I still do not feel comfortable going into a Yoga studio, although I am hoping to start again when things settle down. Omicron currently is really making itself felt here in BC.

Poppy our "spoilt rotten" puppy has also brought us much love and joy. She is now nearly 15 months old, apparently we can call her a puppy until she is two. She certainly still acts like a puppy. We have a puppy date with five of her friends each morning at 9am unless I am playing tennis; which she loves. Then a couple of walks most days. She gets along with everyone and thankfully has pretty good manners unless over excited, where she still has a tendency to jump up. Luckily she is not very big at only 23lbs, but gets away with it way too often.

Apart from the occasional trip to Vancouver or the island we have not been away much because of Covid. However we did manage to get away on Madrona our trawler for six weeks in July and August. We went all the way up to the Broughton Islands, north of Desolation Sound, an area we had not explored before. It was stunning, although a lot cooler than we had expected. The weather was kind to us and we did not get the fog and wind that can be a problem so far north. Because the borders were closed we seemed to have the place to ourselves and when there was another boat around we instantly became friends. It was fun to check out the extensive cruising area, and we enjoyed fishing, crabbing and prawning. Edwin and his girlfriend Jessica joined us for a while. Both proved to be excellent at fishing and quickly helped fill up our freezer.

We had a long summer; which started early and ended late. It was magic. Long warm sunny days with thankfully not as many forest fires. We were on high alert here on Salt Spring having a huge water shortage. Our home is on a communal well system and we have our own well for irrigation.
Thankfully everyone was being very careful.

Then winter came, overnight it seemed, and as I write this we have new snow outside. Yes we woke Christmas day to snow, so special, I love it. Amy, Edwin and his girlfriend Jessica were with us so a totally different Christmas to last year thank goodness. Amy's partner Luke was with his family in North Vancouver. Amy was here for a week and Edwin four days, so we had lots of time together. They are both doing really well. Edwin is still at Aquabus and Amy works remotely for a company in Vancouver; which means that she works here when she wants a change of pace.

I will add lots of pictures to our blog. Please just check out the gallery at the top of the blog, then pick 2021 and when you click on a picture it will give you more information.

I meant to write this before Christmas, but yet again it seems to have become a New Year blog. Hoping that everyone had a very festive Christmas and that the New Year brings you all great happiness and a more Covid free year.

Live, laugh, love and be happy

With much love

Jane and Russell

Here's to 2021

Rather than send out a Christmas message, we felt a New Year's one was a good idea. We hope that all our friends and family had a good Christmas, even though it was a very different for most of us.

What a year 2020 has been, we are more than ready for 2021. However, on reflection there have been some wonderful moments to the last year, that even Covid could not destroy for us. Our hearts go out to those who were not so fortunate.

We were lucky enough to have a two week trip to Mexico in February. Russell needed some time off and the sunshine was a bonus. It was perfect timing as the house was painted while we were away, so Russell was not needed on site. Our new home took up all of his time and I was busy sorting out the interior design and supporting him whatever way I could. We were busy and so lucky that most suppliers were able to stay open. Our team were fantastic, although we had to slow down when Covid started for safety reasons.

We were amazed when we were able to move into our new home the beginning of June. On time and under budget. Still lots to do, but we are nearly done. We love the place and it has exceeded our expectations.

I spent the summer playing golf, tennis or going for a hike every day. My games really improved and it was a lot of fun. Russell spent most of the time finishing off outstanding jobs, although I did manage to get him on the golf course for a weekly date. He now has a group of friends he plays with every Wednesday as well, so his game is also improving.

Boating was not on top of the list this year and the time we did get out we had to cut short because of the smoke from down south. The fires there were horrendous. It was hard to breath for quite a few days and the visibility getting home was like a thick fog. Thank goodness we have an inside helm station. Roll on next year when we hope to spend a lot more time on Madrona.

We did have a few visits from the kids and friends, when we were told it was safe to do so. So special. Zoom is great, but there is nothing like actually seeing people in person. Luckily we have made a lot of friends on Salt Spring and were able to enjoy time together, distance socialising. Just love our new deck, we never get bored of the view which changes daily.

Both Edwin and Amy are doing well in Vancouver. Amy started a new job just as Covid started, but luckily is able to work remotely. She and her partner Luke live on the top half of a house just off Commercial, a great part of Vancouver. They have a terrific deck with a great view and glorious sunsets. Edwin is still with AquaBus although the company is struggling with the lack of tourists. He is living with a group of friends in a large house in West Vancouver. They have a huge garden and Edwin has taken up gardening big time. Think he could have fed an army with his vegetables and fruits this summer. Sadly we were unable to see them for Christmas, but thankfully they were able to get together.

Apart from moving into our new home, one of the other highlights of this last year is the newest member of our family, Poppy. We waited eleven long months for her. She is gorgeous and has given us so much joy in just the four weeks that we have had her. She is an Australian Labradoodle and should become around 30-40lbs in size.

Our plan was to be in the UK and Europe in Oct/Nov and Oz and NZ this coming Feb/March to visit family and friends. We are hoping that we will be able to make these trips in 2021/2022 and see all our distant friends and family then. We miss you all.

We feel so grateful to have you all in our lives. We feel grateful that we now have a vaccine so we can soon move forward with our lives. We feel grateful to live where we do, among such beauty that we enjoy daily. We feel grateful to be happy, healthy and loved.

Wishing you all the same

With much love

Jane and Russell

What a year.

I can't believe it is over a year since I updated our blog. We have so much news to share. Apologies in advance if I ramble on a bit.

I will start where I left off, just before our huge family reunion and big Birthday party last September. Twenty two family members from around the world made it to Salt Spring and we partied hard together. We had one evening with twenty four of us sitting down to a family dinner, and another at the Yacht club outstation for a potluck appetizer get together with cruising friends and family the night before the party. Over seventy people helped celebrate Russell, Amy and Edwin's birthdays; and the youngsters, with the help of a DJ, got everyone dancing till late. Such fun. With everyone a tad on the slow side the next morning I produced brunch before most people left on the afternoon ferry. A wild, very special and memorable time. Check gallery for some photos.

After waving the last of our relatives goodbye (some stayed for a month) we took some time off to recover. We had some "time share points" to use up and booked a fabulous resort in Palm Springs for two weeks. We spent a week traveling down there via route 5 and spent a week on our return enjoying the coast via route 101. There was so much to do and see on the way, although highlights were hiking the Redwoods and visiting Hearst Castle; which I loved when I last visited 43 years ago and Russell had not visited. We had various friends in Palm Springs who we spent time with, enjoying everything there is to do around the area. The weather was perfect and we had a wonderful trip.

Back to "The Rock" it was time to focus on our next adventure, building our new home. Plans had been worked on, and with the help from a local Architect while we were away, we put them in for approval on our return. Of course nothing is easy, we had to jump through a few loop holes before we finally got our building permit at the eleventh hour.

In the meantime we had the "BIG" storm on the 20 December. Highest wind ever recorded for our wee island and she really suffered. We watched the wind race across the harbour, back and forth, side by side, over the water like nothing we have ever seen before. More like a series of mini tornados. When it finally stopped we were one of the lucky ones with no trees falling on our property. By some miracle no one was hurt, however there was a huge amount of damage with trees down everywhere, roads blocked and all the power was down on the island. On our nine hole golf course they counted 200 trees uprooted or ripped down. It was a total mess.

Some people were without power for nearly two weeks. The best present we could have had was when ours came back on the evening of Christmas day. Amy and Edwin came over and joined in the Christmas adventure with us. We had heat from our fireplace, cooking on our BBQ and because of our septic tank only flushing toilets when really necessary. We did not cancel our Christmas eve cocktail party, as by then our road was accessible from one end. We had a large amount of people turn up to enjoy a candlelit evening with us. It was fun, but certainly a very different Christmas to the one we had planned.

We moved out of the house in February and proceeded to sell or give away as much as we could. It was amazing what we were able to recycle and there was not much left the day the house was demolished. We did most of the work ourselves and were exhausted at the end of each day. For a couple of months we rented a friend's place until we moved onto Madrona, our new boat, in April.

Any house older than 1990, if it is being renovated or rebuilt, has to go through asbestos removal. Ours was no exception and it took six guys over a week to remove. They informed us that they found 300lbs of rat shit in the eaves and ducts, including dead rats and mice - yuke. They also found burnt wires in the walls, and burn marks beside one of the fireplaces. Scary. On top of that when we pulled down the house we found that one area instead of being on hard rock was on shingle. She was meant to be pulled down for sure.

February was an interesting month as we also had a huge amount of snow, not something we normally get on Salt Spring, and it did not melt for weeks. Some friends were stuck in their home for nearly two weeks, but luckily with Russell's 4 Runner we were able to get out (and work).

April could not come soon enough as Amy and I had planned a trip to Japan together. A life long dream of mine as my Dad used to work with the Japanese and spent a lot of time in Japan when I was younger. We left at the end of March and had the most fantastic two weeks visiting Tokyo, Takayama, Kanazawa, Hiroshima/Miyajima, Kyoto and Mt Fuji/Kawaguchiko. The blossoms came out for us everywhere we went, and we were with a wonderful small group of travellers with an outstanding guide. It was the first time I had ever gone on a "tour" but it was perfect. Japan is a fascinating country and we learnt a lot about their history and culture. We had a trip of a lifetime together that we will always treasure.

Our summer has been spent building our new home. Russell, bless him, has worked 24/7 and when I am not doing admin/accounting, amongst other things, I have been trying to get fit. Not an easy thing, as my hips/back are still causing me a lot of grief. I have been going to yoga most days, tennis three times a week and golf once or twice a week.

We have had a few visitors come and visit us this summer and stay on Madrona, including dear friends Mary-Lou and Patrick from England and Martha and Bryce from New Zealand. We are looking forward to hosting more friends from around the world once we have finished the house.

Our time on Madrona was mostly spent on our dock, or at the yacht club outstation at Scott Point, depending on weather. A highlight of the summer was Russell's cousin Rosco coming over for three months to help work on the house. He wanted to loose some weight, enjoy some manual work (he is in the construction business) and get away from New Zealand's winter. He did all three and helped us a ton in the process. He lived in our Boat House; which he adored, even though it was more like camping. I am sure we will see him back on the island again within the next year or two, we had a lot of fun together.

Russell is the home owner builder for our house and has employed two fantastic framers, Will and Brad, to help with the build. We feel very blessed to have found them as they are excellent. They have also helped with finding labourers, when needed, and have introduced us to the best trades on the island. Work has progressed ahead of schedule most of the time, and we are more or less on budget. Lock up will be in November, with us hopefully moving in by April/May. As you can imagine we are beginning to get very excited.

We moved off the boat three weeks ago and are staying at a delightful house (with stunning views) for six months just outside of Ganges. Holidays? Well we are booked to go to Cabo San Lucas for a couple of weeks in the middle of February. By then I think we will be in need of some time off. We can always put the place on hold if necessary and move in later; we can just jump back onto the boat.

Amy and Edwin are doing well. Amy is currently looking for a new job and is taking a course in Copywriting and Editing. She and Luke recently took a holiday to Hawaii which they loved. They are still living in a delightful neighbourhood home with a huge balcony that they sit on to watch the sunset. Edwin is still at Aqua Bus, but is no longer with Iva and now lives in North Vancouver with friends.
He is about to house sit for a couple of months for friends in Kitsilano, so we will stay with him in Vancouver for Christmas. He went on a three and a half week photo shoot to Cadrona, NZ in September, and has just got back from a paid road trip to Phoenix.

It is wonderful to be able to keep in touch with so many friends and family from around the world. We think of our friends often and treasure the memories we have shared together. However, we have many friends who are unwell and sadly this year we lost Simon, a dear friend, who died of the same Cancer Foxy (our best man) died of last year. We hope this finds you healthy, happy and enjoying life and look forward to hearing from you.

We will update our blog again next year, once we have moved into our new home. Please know that we would love to see as many of you as possible, nuestra casa et su casa (our home is your home).

LOVE every moment, LAUGH every day, LIVE beyond words.

How time flies by. Face Book keeps reminding me how different my life was this time last year, and even more so the year before. So I am not surprised it has taken me since December to update our blog for which I apologise.

We started the year trying to come to grips with how cold winter is when not sailing in the Pacific. Our home is poorly insulated (among other interesting quirks) and however much wood we burnt most of the heat went staight up the chimney. Our hydro bill was wild. Russell bless his heart managed to organise my Christmas present of a beautiful Hot Tub in December, so you can imagine where I spent a lot of my time.

Luckily come February we were up in Sun Peaks for a months ski-ing. Our friends there, who do not ski, wanted to do a house swap and we gladly agreed. It was wonderful to be back up in the mountains and we had excellent conditions. Edwin and friends, Adrian from Vancouver, and my brother from England all came to stay and we had a ton of fun together. We managed to reconnect with lots of old friends from our racing season and had a fantastic month.

Spring soon came to Salt Spring Island, a season we have not seen for many years and it was glorious. Watching everything start to bloom, planting a little vegetable garden, clearing our wooded area and sorting pots for our deck kept us busy. We also began to work on plans for our new home; which has kept Russell out of trouble (well kind of).

My job was to look for a new boat. We knew what we wanted, but looked at a few other boats to make sure we were on the right track. Eventually; with an introduction from a friend, we found a 42 foot Grand Banks Classic trawler locally. Luckily the owner liked us and agreed to sell her at a price that was within our budget. It is obvious that she has been very loved as she is in excellent condition and beautiful. We already love her dearly and are renaming her “Madrona” after all the Arbutus trees and the Bay close to us on Salt Spring Island. Sadly there are 125 boats with her old name, so we decided a new name was needed for safety.

The spring saw many friends visiting and the months went quickly until the end of May when I was forced to slow down. I somehow, whilst getting fit, herniated my disc. It knocked me sideways and I have only been able to walk, without the fear of tripping over my slightly dropped foot, for the last two weeks. The Doctor today has confirmed (phew) that I can start yoga again, and with physio and training help I hope to be back to ski-ing next year. I was able to keep myself fairly busy however as we decided to offer up our suite for AirBnb for a few months. We have had some delightful guests and the extra $$s will certainly come in useful.

Once back on my feet, with the boat sitting ready for us on our newly planked dock, we set off for ten days cruising. We have had fabulous weather since the start of summer and as we set off we had a perfect trip up to Tug Boat island where we met numerous boating friends of ours. Happy days to rediscover one of our favourite islands, play Bocci over drinks with friends, social dinners and slowly getting to know Madrona. We had an excellent trip across the strait to Jerricho Marina in Vancouver to see the kids, and found Madrona to be quick and great in rough seas. However, the 600 fires around BC were taking their toll and the smoke was effecting everywhere, even the Gulf Islands. We stayed out for another few nights, but eventually gave up and headed for home through the haze.

It has been a difficult year in many ways. Sadly we have many friends battling cancer with our best man Foxy dying last month. It was very sudden as he had been ski-ing only a week before. He was very active, a special guy and we are still in shock. Several friends have also had other serious health issues, reinforcing how important it is to seize the day; which we always try to do.

Amy and Edwin are both well and we have been able to spend lots of time with them and their partners. Amy moved into a new flat with Luke in May. It is near Commercial and is delightful. She has been promoted several times by her company and is now their copywriter and involved in production. She just got back from a business trip to Shangai. Edwin and Iva live at 25 and Cambie and are both very busy with their jobs. Iva is into accounting and is doing her CPA and Edwin is working management for Aquabus. He has just been away on a 3.5 week photo shot for Cardrona ski resort in New Zealand. His two passions are boarding and photography.

September is going to be a month of memories. We have 23 relatives visiting us from all over the world to help celebrate Russell’s 70th and Amy and Edwin’s 30th birthdays on 29 September. The first have arrived and will be with us for a month. What fun we will have, what memories we will make. The next blog will probably be full of photos, beware. In the meantime I will post this so you are up to date with our lives. Love to hear from all of you near and far, just keep those emails coming. Much love from both of us on Salt Spring Island.

Season’s Greetings to everyone, may you enjoy lots of time with your friends and family at this magical time of year. Being with loved ones, for us, is what Christmas is all about. This year we are blessed to be spending the day with dear friends, their kids and ours in North Vancouver. It seems sureal that last year we were in Australia with Amy and Edwin, and Russell’s extended family. Hot and sunny to cold and sunny. The snow may even stay to give us a white Christmas. The first in many years.

Life on land is treating us well, and we are quickly settling into the wonderful small island community that Salt Spring offers. We have managed to see a great number of friends since our return, and hope to see many more in the coming months. It is wonderful to reconnect with so many friends. Our home is taking shape and with some second hand items from the Salt Spring Exchange, and some new furniture that Amy got us for free, the place is becoming quite cozy. We managed to get a king sized bed delivered, although it arrived ten days late. Luckily we only had to sleep on the blow up mattress that we bought for one night – phew. We also picked up a UHaul truck load of furniture and two new queen beds on Wednesday. So are now set up for guests.

Our new home could do with a lot of work. Sadly it would cost the same to renovate as it would to rebuild. So our focus is to leave everything as it is and to build ourselves a new home during the summer of 2019. That being said we will probably leave buying any more new furniture until it is finished. We are used to camping and we have all that we need until then ☺

Russell had a great trip down from the north island in New Zealand to his home town Timaru, in the south island, in November. He took all our goodies from the boat, and items stored at his sister’s in Auckland, and spent about a week visiting family and friends on the way. Once in Timaru he organised the freighting of his beloved classic car (in bits) and families artwork, plus a full van load of boxes, to Vancouver. While Russ was busy in New Zealand I organised setting up house back on Salt Spring. This included unpacking a huge amount of boxes that had been in storage. We gave all our furniture, etc.. to the kids when we left ten years ago, but we still saved a lot of “stuff”.

It was certainly a trip down memory lane for me, some of the items I unearthed were classic and several brought a tear to my eye. Where had the years gone? What memories we are so lucky to have.

We have several friends living on the island and I was certainly well looked after on my arrival. It is a terrific community, similar in a lot of ways to the cruising community that we enjoyed offshore. We have already been invited to a couple of Christmas parties and have meet lots of our wonderful neighbours. We know that we have found the right place to live are going to love it here.

I have joined a lovely yoga group and am starting tennis and a “nine and dine” girl’s golf group in the New Year. There is a delightful movie (theatre) venue close by that has weekly shows of current films, a theatre (plays) and lots of restaurants/pubs and music venues to keep us entertained.

The community is very diverse, relaxed and friendly with lots of interesting people to meet and get to know. We have enjoyed some of the gorgeous hikes around the island and hope to join up with a weekly hiking group in January. The Saturday market is still running and there are some very talented artists around the island who have stalls and in the summer open up their studios. The island is known for its fairy houses, so far I have only found one, so the challenge is to find them all. I am looking forward to creating one next summer to add to the list.

I could go on, but want to get this out before Christmas. Not sure when our next blog will be, probably before the summer, but from now on I will be posting only occasionally. As many friends have asked that I keep the blog going, and as it is a great way to keep in touch it will continue.

May you have a Great New Year. Please stay happy, healthy and have a ton of fun in 2018.

Cheers and beers
Jane and Russell