Dear Friends,

What has this year brought? As is usually the case , both good and bad.

Unfortunately, as I'm sure most know, our last remaining parent, my dad died suddenly in February of this year. He was where he wanted to be, up north in the country where both him and my mom had retired to. He was evidently gathering some firewood to bring into the house when he died of a massive heart attack. We miss him but I am grateful my kids did have some lovely times with both sets of grandparents unlike many who never knew their grandparents (like Jim and myself).

My dad, isa, left me the place up north and my brother the place in the city so we have spent some time up in the country which for me has been peaceful and pleasant. Jim is not thrilled by this country home and is still looking around for a place on a lake someplace but in the meantime, we'll keep isa's place. So, for anyone who wants to come and visit, we actually have an extra place just an hour outside of Toronto for people to stay in if you get claustrophobic and need extra space.

The year has been busy business wise for Jim and he generally seems to enjoy it. My career has been on hold with the exception of a shift this past weekend and also I was involved in The American Psychiatric Convention manning a booth which demonstrated, rather realistically what it must be like to experience auditory hallucinations. Interesting, but otherwise, I have been playing mother and wife with various degrees of success. I injured one knee then the other one which kept me incapacitated for awhile.. The docs say it could have been from activities such as squash plus the aging process. Pleasant thought. So. like my career, my squash game is on hold until a new rejuvenation process is discovered or my next life.

Jim continues to pretend to play squash once (sometimes twice) a week withonly his elbow giving out occasionally. He continues to be involved in his debating club which is meeting twice a month now and which seems to be flourishing. Let's see, the most recent debate was: Baseball bats are better than pepper spray. Quite stimulating stuff, right? Aiden actually went a couple of times and I hear did quite well on the impromptu portion.

The kids are maturing rapidly but still at an age that we manage to maintain some contact and control. Aiden is 11 now and continues in his gymnastics endeavours and is training three to four times a week with intentions of going into a couple of provincial competitions next year. So gymnastics, grade six French immersion and drum lessons keep him busy and amused. He just picked up a part time job delivering a local newspaper and flyers in the neighbourhood to supplement his meagre (as he sees it) allowance.

Kayla at 8 is trying it all at the moment. Monday, she goes to rhythmic gymnastics and tap dancing after supper. Tuesday, she is taking flute lessons. Wednesday is music and movement and then Brownies with choir at lunch time. Thursday is lunch time French and piano lessons after school. Friday, she is off to gymnastics. Saturday is her free day and Sunday she takes horse riding lessons. These are this season and therefore I believe some of this will be left behind in the winter season. Though, she wants to go to skating lessons then. At this time, she enjoys it all with her favourites being the riding and the flute.

So, both kids are doing well and so far are not hanging out in the malls. I do spend alot of time chauffeuring the kids to various activities and then often watching these activities. I do get to do some volunteer work at school as well so most of our time is spent on the kids at this time. Which is fine by me.

Our cultural pursuits continue from last year. Myself and a group of women have season's tickets for a theatre group in Toronto. We have Toronto Symphony season's tickets for the family and family tickets for a children's theatre season. I am continuing with my book club this year and it has grown as well--read some wonderful books. Last year's spate of books though seemed all to involve abuse in some form or other so this year we're trying to choose more light hearted subjects. Any suggestions?

So, over to Bat Smith, who will use the full page size to make full use of the page for his missive givings.

Busy year, lots of action whether we wanted it or not, some good, some not so hot.

We have finally settled into the reconstructed house inasmuch as we now take it for granted, only 2 - 3 parties this year as opposed to 15 + the summer before. Also, cut down on the cottaging and vacational summer leapings this year. Well, I did anyway. Mad, hectic business schedule on my part meant that I'd see the kids on the way to school/ camp etc. In fact we hardly got out on the bikes, picnics etc. We did however get Kayla riding her bike during an early camping week in May. Too damn cold for swimming etc., sand in the grub, raging thunderstorms......... great eh?

My take on the kids this year, well they are certainly growing up, they have definite personalities, which as every parent knows, is both a plus and a minus. They get on very well with each other (mostly), and with us parents. At 8 and 11, we can only hope this lasts a bit longer, teens are already peeping out of the muttered conversations snippets, and while the mall is not yet a hanging out spot, must be on the cards within a few years. They have been inundated with most imaginable past times this year (see above), and are able to decide if they like it, or not. Aiden tried his hand/ brain at the debating club this year to rave reviews, both were (finally) in the same soccer team that I sponsored and coached this year. Got out to downhill skiing, and we all learnt how to get down hills fairly well.

My office (under the sun room) is now very high tech, fully functional and, even better, 100% writeoffable. Thankfully, it does not flood, and has not blow up due to excess natural gas build up yet. I find it very relaxing being able to hook into my clients, do my projects, coding, write ups in my own space: I've found just about all of the bits I lost/ had stored from the fire/ and before, identified as needed or not, bought filing cabinets, office furniture stuff 21" monitors, laser printers and have a place for all of it: - sure beats the attic. We also wired up during the renovations, and now have a fully functioning "in house" network, both kids are on the net and plus web pages (I'm trying to get www.kingsway.com/family running before Christmas complete with photo's of us, house, kids etc etc.) Watch this web space....

Business has been berkserk, as seems to be the way it works now with computing stuff, lots of people getting actively involved in the year 2000 paranoia. As long as they have a budget, I'll talk to em. I expect to remain crazy until about July 2000, then I've promised the kids that we'll take a year off for our much delayed round the world trip, possibly coming to a residence near your within a few years, especially if you live somewhere warm or have good scuba diving close at hand. You have no choice in the matter if you live somewhere that has both. Attached to the berserk business, is also a really strange phenomena which I refer to "having the world by the balls". Having companies actively seeking your skills/ time/ advice, being in very high demand and able to turn down the stinky jobs and/ or bosses, and pretty well naming your price, gives one a certain feeling of being totally in control of ones environment. (At least, I can live on the perception of this for a while yet).

Extra curricula activities include but are not limited to: 1: Debating, lots of fun, now have 25 regular members, and 3/ 4 new faces per meeting. We now have a steady stream of new members, there's only 2 of the original 7 who started, but its quite mature now with good people in exec positions. I'm no longer booed off the stage, we are a little more professional than that these days, and now we are running twice a month, the quality is definitely improving. Next year we will be scoring debates as a prelude to competition.... we have the talent, whether I am in that category I have yet to find out. 2: Squash, still pretty badly, but now I have the added excuse of age, fat, tennis elbow, weak joints, receding hair line, once or twice a week suits me fine, 3: Progress Users group, great for that need to feel useful feeling. Organise a few successful meetings, and it really goes down well with large executives of large corporations, bi-monthly 5 times a year. 4: Football coaching, that's real British football of course - well, we have never won anything, but generally, we have a good time - this year 8 - 10 year old's. Just got Aiden & Kayla into the same one. As I (KCS) also sponsor the team, I don't think I would have had much of a problem anyway.

Everyone appears to be healthy, happy and enjoying the Canadian experience. This is certainly home for me now, all that's missing is the dog. Of course, the kids are constantly on my back to get one, but I simply cite how we could not travel around the world with a dog, and that shuts them up for a day or two. Toronto/ Canada still gets top marks for just about everything - especially how people here are quite happy to let you live your life without inflicting their ideas onto you at every opportunity. A rather gentle and relaxed nation. Still suits me down to the ground, in fact I feel that this is the home I feel at home at, even if it is not "home". UK I'm afraid, is now just a distant memory, and likely to stay that way.

Bat Mob

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