The snow started on Sunday afternoon and we woke up on Monday to a white garden.  The snow wasn’t very thick and we could still see grass through it.  By Tuesday morning it had all gone.  We’ve had cold weather all week and rain all day today which turned into snowflakes later this afternoon.

The satellite map shows how Sidlesham missed the great snow belt!

George & Jenny spent 2 days in the autumn at a photography studio and the beach, having their wedding photos taken. They are online: http://www.jennyhong.com/wedding-studio-pics/
They spent Chinese New Year with Jenny’s family in Hunan. Here is George’s online diary: http://www.jennyhong.com/slideshow/hunan-trip-spring-festival-2008/
Click the photos for the big versions.

Daddy celebrated his 70th birthday on 15th January.  The day started with a very windy beach walk at Church Norton for him and Mummy.  After that, a leisurely day with a birthday tea with Sheryl & her girls with a cake and presents.  We had a roast pheasant supper party with Auntie Anwyl, Uncle Mike, Naomi and Sheryl.

Richard came for a special lunch with Daddy at the end of January as he’d missed the supper party.

On 10th February we had a joint party in the church hall, celebrating Daddy and Auntie Anwyl being 70 and Uncle Mike being 75.  It was a really fun occasion with 98% of the whole family as well as some shared family.  Photos can be seen in the February album. Jecca and David stayed at Applefield for the weekend of the party and the Langdons rounded off the celebrations by coming the following weekend.

We celebrated our first wedding anniversary this December with wedding rings from Hong Kong and a micro-honeymoon repeat of last year’s beach hotel stay in Shenzhen.

Still to come: Chinese family wedding banquet in Jenny’s hometown in Hunan at Spring Festival; Shenzhen friends wedding dinner in Shenzhen some time after Chinese New Year; and an as-yet-unscheduled 3rd party back in England! With any luck we might finish getting married by our
2nd wedding anniversary.

2007 was an interesting year for George as the business at Chinavasion.com expanded rapidly. Chinavasion now has over 50 employees including 6 westerners, with George doing his best to keep
control in a variety of management roles. Faster paced than teaching and no time whatsoever for hobbies or a social life!

Jenny is due for a job change and is thinking about starting her own business. To begin with, she’s going to learn to drive in 2008 and take belly dancing classes. So George will have to make new year’s resolutions to feed Jenny enough food so she actually has a belly, try not to be jealous of male dance teachers, and somehow buy a first car that won’t mind getting bumped and scratched.

Shenzhen is an easy day trip from Hong Kong, so anyone in the area, drop us a line and we’ll meet up over some horse milk wine, friedmscorpions, and barbecued sparrows.

Email: jenny-and-george@jennyhong.com

Special times included a harp concert in the garden, 3 days in France for Dan and a family week in Torquay.  We all enjoyed our tent and campfire suppers in the field like good guides and scouts!

Esther and Dan: Moments we get to do the same activity are rare but the animals like to see that we relax sometimes!

Alexandra: I am working with a partner from the Pallant House Art Gallery which leads to exhibitions, workshops and parties.  My 8 new paintings are now Anda Cards and can be seen and
ordered from my new website www.andacards.com

Elizabeth: I continue to edit Wellspring West Sussex newsletter and working as a teaching assistant with a new group as well as  individual booster support.  My Craft Clubs have run through the year with children from 5 to 11 enjoying the art studio. 

This year was the Chinese Year of the Pig, so it was ‘meat’ and right for Applefield to continue rearing piglets!  We love having the little pigs, but then have to think about other things when they go away and     return in freezer bags a few days later.  Sorry any vegetarians!  We also said goodbye this year to 19 year old cats Ginger and Mittens, who both fell asleep comfortably by the Aga.  In the spring, our last year’s lambs became mummies!  One ewe took a whole afternoon and evening to produce twins.  Watched by the cats and dogs, we all helped her in the windy orchard and were so relieved to see the lambs were still tucked up in the straw the next morning.  Now all 6 sheep act as Applefield mowers, moving around the farm.  Meanwhile, the ponies having had too much grass, are on rations and have to be taken down the lane for walking exercise!  During the summer ‘the birds’ hatched 3 chicks, 3 ducklings and a gosling.  The foxes kept us on alert, until we put our life-sized stuffed sheepdog on guard which worked!

My birthday turned out to be rather different to how I had planned, but it was a lovely day.  After a busy half term week of visitors, we had an empty day so had decided to go to the Brighton Aquarium – just the four of us.  We set off in the van and got onto the A27 when the van started to fail (again)!  So we had to turn round and come home again; all of us girls were very cross.  After we’d had lunch we went for a lovely afternoon walk on a farm track.  The dogs really enjoyed it as they were able to run free.  We picked up some reject potatoes from the edge of the farm field and brought them home for our supper which we ate with our ham!  The next day we had Auntie Anwyl and Sophie and her family for coffee.  We had Jecca (my godmother) and David to stay from Monday to Wednesday which was really lovely.  Then on Wednesday we had my Halloween birthday party with Sheryl and her girls.  Kory didn’t enjoy it very much as Mummy, Daddy and Jennah wore masks and Daddy kept appearing round corners!  Kory said “don’t like it, want go home”!!  My final birthday event was on Thursday when my friend Joanna came for the day.  It was great to see an old childhood friend again. 

We’ve just spent 5 days in a hotel in Torquay. It was so much more brilliant than we had expected, so much so that we stayed an extra night as we couldn’t bear leaving so quickly! The hotel was wonderful. We had rooms which opened with French windows onto a sun terrace which overlooked the sea, a 10 minute walk away. We had delicious food for breakfast and supper in the hotel every night, and ate at harbour side cafes at lunchtime each day. When we arrived on Monday the weather was grey and cloudy and we weren’t too sure about Torquay as it all looked a bit dull. But by lunchtime on Tuesday the sun had burst through and the dullness turned into a technicoloured hive of activity. From our hotel we walked 2 miles along the beach and marinas every day and visited a penguin zoo called Living Coasts where one of the little penguins waddled out of the enclosure to peck some mud off my wheel! We also did a bit of shopping at various gift shops along the way!

On the first day Daddy lost his car keys so spent the next 24 hours making calls and trips to the local police station as well as retracing his steps without any luck. When we got home to Applefield there was a message on our phone from a man who’d picked them up, probably 5 minutes after Daddy lost them, and had handed them in to the tourist information office – the one place none of us thought to go to ask!

Once our spare keys arrived in the post on Thursday, we went to Thurlestone to see Auntie Jobox and Wuzzy at Coolbawn. When we got there we found that Naomi and Barney were still there as they’d been staying for a couple of days. We also saw Sarah and Caroline and her 3 girls. We visited Caroline’s house too which was a short walk up the road. The weather was really sunny and the views from both houses were just stunning; apparently it was the best weather they’d had all summer! Mummy enjoyed swimming in the pool at Coolbawn and Daddy had his first sea swim this year! It was really lovely to spend a day with our family and to see our little cousins again.

We hope to go back to the Toorak hotel again, as the rooms on the terrace were brilliant, we loved the food, and all the staff were so friendly.

There are 2 new albums in the gallery, one for Ginger, and one for Mittens.

Mittens fell asleep by the Aga on the 11^th August.  He had become very weak in the last 2 weeks of his life, and became very fussy about food and in the end, he was only drinking water.  We found him lying in exactly the same position as Ginger was when he died.  We have buried Mittens next to Ginger in the old pig pen.  We miss both of them a lot, as they were both such big personalities!  When I was making the photo album for Mittens, it struck me how there were not very many pictures of him on his own – he always craved love and attention, while Ginger was more solitary but still enjoyed being cuddled.