Dear Friends,
This year has been an intersesting one for us as a family, with its highs and lows. Andrew is now working at Lydd (London Ashford) airport as one of the ground staff personnel. This has meant that he has had to find accommodation nearer his job but he regularly pops home (washing, ironing, free meals etc). He still runs his mobile disco company and is taking flying lessons.Rebecca is still at Winchester University and has completed her second teaching practice, despite being dogged by illness. We called in to see her over the October half-term and were pleased to see that she appears to be enjoying her self-catering accommodation as part of the halls of residence. Her big news is that she is engage to a bo from st Margaret's called Russell who is serving his apprenticeship with Renault as a car mechanic.
Barbara continues to enjoy working in the boarding house and teaching maths. She has completed six years, it hardly seems possible. She has an excellent team of tutors, matrons and housekeeper. One major disappointment this year has been the closure of the gym, totally unannounced - just turned up and they were gone, with all our monies!!!! No more sneaking out to de-stress when no-one was looking.
JR is teaching RE and is pleased to be working in a very successful department. We have switched to a twelve day timetable which is proving quite a challenge to such a traditional institution as ourselves. We have had some excellent speakers in chapel throughout the year and are looking forward to the Confirmation in January with the Bishop of Dover, with one of our largest groups to be confirmed in years. (You can access the capel page on www.doyrms.com) The Dover Sea Cadets unit where hs is chaplain is going from strength to strength and we are having to put new allicants on a waiting list as we are running out of space.
Our summer holidays this year saw us in a campsite at Luz St Sauveur near Lourdes in the Hautes Pyrenees and we did indeed dust off our walking boots. Because of the long journey we decided to take the French Motorail from Calais to Brive and met up with a former colleague who has retired to that part of France. It was lovely to visit the English church of St Andrews in Pau and have a delightful lunch with some members of the congregation. I thinkg they were eyeing JR up as a potential chaplain. Next summer will be a complete change when we go to a campsite near Royan on the Atlantic coast.
We also have our own website. All you need to do is lon onto our site at www.broughtonfamily.co.uk. Finally, we look forward to having friends from differant parts of the country stay with us or simply call in en route from their continental holidays.
Best wished and God bless.