Merry Christmas Friends and Family

Here's Hoping for a GREAT 2016!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

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Hello everyone!! We are just about ready for the festive time, and our excited Tabby wouldn’t even stop pulling crazy faces for the photos!
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More than we can ever write in cards to our friends and family, we get to put together on this page. We can’t mention everything, and I keep thinking of more (for example when laying out the site I thought about getting to see our good friend Ruth Ashdown fight at a Muay Thai Mayhem).

It has been a year of even more changes than most years, some sad losses, but some very bright things for the future too!

Tabetha is most of the way through her fourth year, and after being full time at Treetops Nursery for a few months, moved in September to her first school, St Wilfrid's C Of E Primary School. She has settled in fantastically well enjoying her learning there, especially when it is creative (making things and singing). She has enjoyed going to some lovely birthday parties for her classmates, even if she seems to have something against bouncy castles we can't quite fathom out! She spent most of the summer on the trampoline in the garden, so it's not the bouncing that's for sure!
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Monopoly
The summer was good for both her and Kieran, starting with a fantastic trip to Cornwall to see not just Bubs (Karn's mum) but also Heidi and Grace! A real treat. This included the best game of Monopoly any of us can remember.

This then continued with a lovely visit from their cousins and their Auntie Claire. It was great to see them all! Zach and Kieran spent the majority of their time gaming together (not much of a shock that) leaving Delilah to lead the play of the younger 3 which she did beautifully. We enjoyed Claire's company a lot, pity she could only be with us for a few days at the beginning and end of the stay.
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Kieran is now well into year 9 and getting the sort of school reports that make us proud parents! This will soon bring the time he chooses his GCSE subjects. Drama is very likely to be one of those choices, and going by the brilliant performances he and the other members of the team at Perrymount Players did in the autumn, he should do well! We all got a chance to enjoy Kieran's performance, his performances as a King and one of the masked performances particularly standing out.

Sarah has been helping more and more on the musical side of things here, both getting her first chance to perform live with Karn on his birthday at Fletching Glasshouses (thanks to the wonderful Isobel and Alan Rae for their hospitality) and also on recordings such as those for our friend Dave Fisher, a man with some considerable writing talent.

What Sarah does for the rest of us here, keeping us all on the straight and narrow, can't be underestimated, we all owe her so much.
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Karn's music has taken a lot of turns over this year. Getting the upright electric bass used now in Newick Folk was a good one. Getting it the Friday before St Patrick's day, gigging it on the Saturday, then twice again on St. Patrick's day itself was a good start! The musical performances of Newick Folk continued to develop, but unfortunately the health of our good friend and founding member Jem Cooper continued to suffer, with many visits to the hospital. We finally could get all of us together and record a wonderful album, Burnt House Sessions, only a couple of weeks before we were to lose Jem. It was recorded all on one Sunday in September, and fortunately there was enough time to edit and mix it, so Jem could hear, see it, and get the chance to give copies to his lovely family. We have some beautiful memories of Jem, including some videos we synced the multitrack audio to which are on Youtube. He will be sorely missed as both man and musician.
Just Tina did some great gigs, the highlight being a charity festival at Horsham Rugby Club in the summer. Although the project has sadly come to an end, there are some good laughs and memories in the bank for sure! Some of us pulled together for a really fun soul show with Cylvian in September for a birthday party. Extra thanks go to Paul Stenning on drums for stepping in last minute and making happen!
Dave Fisher has been busy writing some great songs, particularly one called Walk Another Mile which he sings and is backed by Karn and Sarah. That's a song we hope to use to make money for The Parkinson's Society. Things are currently in the pipeline to see what's possible on that one. Look out for news!
Karn still works in the online world for the likes of Nimblehost (talented software and web developers) and this month has teamed back up with Patrick O'Keefe to make a new podcast, Community Signal. Patrick is a man who has deep experience in the online community world, and is also a very skilful speaker, making him the ideal man to write and present this podcast.
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Outside that, Karn has taken a direction change in his career, and has joined Oathall Community College as Teaching Assistant in the Performance Faculty. Karn loves the job much more than expected, so much that he is going through the application process to get into teaching Physics next year, using the School Direct program, where 4 days a week working in school and one day a week at University give you the chance to qualify as a teacher in one year. Lots of work, but a very rewarding career awaits if he is successful!

There are so many people we could be thanking this year, both friends and family. Thanks so much to all our family who have helped us in many ways. To our friends, from long standing friends like the Rayner-Brown family, recently made friends like Dave Fisher and his family, and to huge help we have had from the family of Jem Cooper and our good friends Alan and Isobel Rae. These are but a handful of those to whom we owe great gratitude.

Onward and upward to all those reading this, we have a lot of hope for 2016, and wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a fabulous New Year!