Happy New Year 2005
from Martin!
This year began with a super holiday in Tunisia with my father. Unfortunately he had a blood vessel burst in his eye at Gatwick airport on the way out, so we had to spend some time traipsing around clinics and pharmacies in Tunisia. I found Carthage fascinating although the remains are Roman not Phoenician. The old cities of Tunis, Sousse and Monastir were delightful. We also visited the enchanting hilltop village of Sidi Bou Said twice. The star of the holiday was our wonderful rep Clara.
At work I continued as Academic Leader on our new MSc programme in Knowledge Management Systems. This course is the first of our technology MScs to be adopted by the Ministry of Defence as part of their modular masters by distance learning. With our current run down I gave up all my undergraduate teaching, so my load dropped by two thirds. However new MSc courses in the pipeline mean that early retirement is now less likely for me (damn it!). I moved offices for the last time during the year.
I continued to be an external examiner at University College Worcester, but with a larger number of courses to inspect. I supervised one MSc student for the Open University, which involved three visits to Rochester in Kent. I was interviewed and accepted as a supervisor for their new MSc in Information Systems, but students won t be coming through for two years yet.
I upgraded my NTL cable service in Poole to broadband and took up Sky s FreeSat system in Ashbury. The former is GBP 18 ($32) per month for a 300 KB/s service and the latter involves a one off charge of GBP 150 ($260) for mini-dish and digibox.
On the line dancing front my Monday class has continued successfully, but I had to give up my Wednesday class and an alternative Thursday venue didn t take off. I ran various Friday evening dances and went most Saturdays to other people s social dances. My fifty first birthday party was a line dance social for 56 people in Wroughton. LineDancer Magazine also published five of my dance reviews.
Visitors to Poole included Sue, Karen, Mina, Frances, Ian, Corinne, Mike, Stephanie, Rene & my father Harry. The latter couple visited in January to tour the new Queen Mary 2 in Southampton and at Easter which included lunch at Lulworth Cove our favourite beauty spot.
Harry also visited both Poole & Ashbury in the summer. I went to stay with him in Clacton where we took in the Lowestoft air show. I then drove him back to Ashbury where we visited Karen & Sue s new house and father sat in on one of my line dance classes. We then went down to Dorset where we had a lovely day out in the New Forest. Back at Ashbury for a social dance, we had a fine day out in the Cotswolds before I returned him to his Clacton home, where we visited Walton-on-the-Naze. I ended up seeing the Red Arrows three times in as many weeks at Shrivenham, Lowestoft and BoMo. I m still captivated by the fireworks on Thursdays in Poole and Fridays in BoMo during the summer!
My friends Stephen & Brian visited Ashbury in May when we toured the megaliths at Avebury. I went to Harlow for Father s day in June en route to one of my three days in Kent to see my OU student.
During the year I went walking a couple of times most months mainly with a group in Dorset, but also with a Solent group. The finest day out was to Lyme Regis with my friend Mike from Southampton. We also visited Brownsea Island in Poole harbour with Ant & Mark. This was something I d never been able to do whilst Jasper was alive as dogs are banned from the island.
I visited London a few times during the year including a former Prizewinners choral concert at King s College Chapel. I also tried out the newish trams (trolley cars) from Wimbledon to Croydon and visited the National Gallery s new entrance hall.
In the Autumn my father suffered from burst blood vessels in his leg which necessitated a stay in Colchester General Hospital and three weekend trips across for me. Two of these I managed to coincide with trips to the OU HQ in Milton Keynes for an MSc marking briefing and to Cranfield University s HQ in Bedfordshire for two days of teaching.
The year will be ending with another weekend in Clacton before I take Jake, Kevin s lurcher dog down to Poole for Christmas and the New Year. The trial weekend went just fine with Jake loving the lovely beaches and the tempting squirrels.
If we haven t managed to meet up this last year I hope we can sometime soon! You are of course welcome to come and visit me anytime in either Ashbury or Bournemouth.