so that was Christmas 2016......

Grandad playing subbuteo with Alfie!

well it's been over a month since we last posted and once again so much has happened since our last update, as we sit here back in sunny and warm South Africa we can hardly believe that Christmas 2016 has passed, however we move into 2017 with excitement and expectation, we hope you do too!


as a brief update we enjoyed a wonderful month in England celebrating the Christmas season with our family and friends which was a true blessing and one that we wouldn't have wanted to have missed for the world, we hadn't seen these precious people since leaving for Madagascar on the 6th September and what with our current scehdule won't see them again for another six months! ;-(

we arrived home in time to celebrate Maz's sisters birthday which was important to us as she and her husband have been hosting us for all of the time we were 'at home' in 2016, it was a lovely evening in the fancy dress theme of 'the 1950's'.

it's Christmas!

we also managed to get to see Josh (our middle son) and his fiances new home in London before rushing down to Bristol to join our eldest son (Chris), his wife and our three awesome Grandchildren to help out with some 'babysitting' prior to spending Christmas Day with them and seeing the children enjoy that special day.

New Year eve was a blast from the past, where we spent it with our good friends, along with their children, we must be honest and say that we didn't get to bed too early and were soon up again to travel to Northampton to spend New Years day with Tim's sister and brother in law, his Mum and Dad, Faith, Joel and Charlotte (who were married earlier in the year (2016). 

Grandchildren full of delight

whilst we didn't experience the 'white Christmas' we had wished for we did spend a night in Tim's sisters summer house without any heating which certainly tested our resolve as the temperatures dropped below freezing, however we soon warmed up as we ran about 7 miles around a local reservoir the next morning!

Happy 2017 everyone!

our friends at the Aylesbury Vineyard church made us feel welcome as usual and we very much enjoyed their carol service and had a chance to share our vision for 2017 with the congregation prior to our return to South Africa last Sunday. 

one note of sadness was that we didn't get chance to see our youngest son (Arron) who was sailing away to the Caribbean with his new job, however we are looking forward to catching up with him during some special days in 2017, more news of which will follow shortly.

a New Years run...welcome 2017

so we sit here with the doors of our rented home open to the sounds of Africa which are bursting through the darkness with great expectation of what is in store for us both in 2017, some known, like a trip to Uganda following this time in South Africa, prior to a return to Madagascar for a month or so in May and some unknown, we hope you will continue to journey with us and we thank you all again for joining us so far.