Off for the year
Merry Christmas! It’s been wonderful to hear news from around the world with Christmas letters and emails pouring into my inbox.
This year has been an interesting but very fun year for me. I have (in no particular order):
- spent New Years with my lovely sister
- attended the ANZAC Day dawn service at Hyde Park Corner followed by the service at Westminster Cathedral
- organised three national conferences for work and run around the country trying not to look flustered
- been to the Red Bull flugtag in Hyde Park
- held a surprise birthday picnic for a friend, involving me pretending to have been proposed to (she was completely convinced by this)
- been to the Nelson Mandela birthday celebrations in Hyde Park
- spent a day in the Royal Enclosure at Royal Ascot
- travelled around parts of France and Spain for holiday with my LSE friends,
- attended the International Eisteddfod in Llangollen with my mum and her friend Kay (was so wonderful to see them both!)
- spent a weekend with pastorate at the Malshanger Estate, owned by Colman’s Mustard man but part-gifted to church
- helped out on the Worlds End council estate with my church posse – we painted most of one flat in one day. It was madness!
- attended too many of the BBC Proms and made lots of new promming buddies – favourite was probably the Dr Who Prom I think :o)
- been to Ireland with 7 friends from pastorate for the weekend
- been to a Madness concert (80s ska/crazy band from London) followed by a Christmas pantomime the next night
- had loads of lovely Kiwi friends visit and/or stick around
Quite astonishingly, I have now been in London for 2 and a 1/4 years and feel like a proper little Londoner. I’m very lucky to have a wonderful little flat in Zone 1 (near Russell Square for those that know London) with an Aussie girl and a Swedish guy. I am really lucky to have plenty of spare time to pursue other interests.
I am really enjoying being more involved with my church, Holy Trinity Brompton, and one of the highlights for my pastorate (a small goup that’s not so small) has been involvement in a homeless shelter over the Winter months. I’m also involved in a start-up charity that will be setting up a halfway house for women coming out of Holloway Prison and looking forward to our first major fundraising event in mid-February. In a moment of total work boredom I also agreed to be a voluntary project manager for a major youth development charity based in Toronto, the wonders of the internet mean I can do this virtually. It’s fabulous to have time to do all these things and in some ways this makes up for the less interesting parts of my full-time job.
Next year holds a number of delights – the most exciting of which right now is a trip home for a month in March/April. It’s my first trip home since September 2006 and I am really excited at the thought of seeing friends and family again. If you’re keen for a catch-up, I’d love to see you. Send me an email and we’ll organise a date/time.
For a few photo highlights of 2008, visit my Webshots photo site and head for the “Best of 2008” album.
It would be lovely to catch up with as many as possible while I’m home next Easter.
Have a Happy New Year and I hope to see many of you in three months or so.
Love and hugs,
Fi x
Adventuring with Fi 