The Renouf Family Newsletter 2002

Dear Friends and Family

The fourth edition of the family newsletter, has been printed and produced due to popular demand, and we hope that you enjoy reading it and sharing some of our experiences and special moments from the last year.

The year has whizzed by, Philip and Rebecca started Pre-school in February and joined Jacob there 2 mornings a week. They loved it and their big brother did a fantastic job of looking after them for two terms, before he moved up to Reception class in Pennington Infants School in September.

Once again we have visited various places around the country, we spent Easter and October Half term in Cornwall – where we hunted in Granny and Grandpa’s barn for the eggs the Easter bunny had hid there, and watched the fireworks and of course took in the delights of the Eden Project, it was great seeing bananas actually growing.

We took the caravan out for three extended holidays this year – we explored the Chichester area, staying in a field all by ourselves for one night, and waiting until the hours of darkness to fill up with water and as we the last tap on the farm. We spent the Golden Jubilee weekend near Dorchester and explored the area, taking time to visit the cygnets at Abbotsbury, riding the open top Trams on the Seaton tramway and enjoying the fireworks and seeing a Royal Beacon lit at Lyme Regis. For the first time ever we camped for a whole week in a delightful field in Dartmoor where we explored the moor, had a boat trip on the River Dart and conquered at least three waterfalls – including the tallest waterfall in England, (Canonteign Falls) – the scariest (which involved walking along a narrow path, down a gorge in heavy rain) and the most memorable – ‘Becky Falls’ where Rebecca actually fell in!

We also spent a lot of time at the local farm – Longdown, as we had a season ticket this year, but in addition to that we met the Giraffes’ at Longleat, stroked Zebras and Camels on a day out with Auntie Helena and family. Jacob rode the ‘Vampire’ Roller Coast at Chessington, we all sat in ‘Concorde‘ (well, its seats at a local aviation Museum). We discovered everything there was to do with fire engines at the County Headquarters, and met up with ‘Bob the Builder’ and ‘Wendy’ at the steam engine rally, as well as cycling the New Forest as Jacob achieved it without stabilisers.

The latest pet update, is that Badger has now made a welcome return, he has lost a lot of weight and is now much more relaxed, Bill and Ben are still going fine, and the only additions this year have been one or two fish for the fish tank!

Matt’s new career has took off fantastically well, and he has now been working for himself for 18 months, he has done such a variety of work from fitting kitchen and bathrooms, laying patios to shop fitting and has enjoyed most of it. In his spare time, he hasn’t been idle, but instead has started work on our loft conversion and has put in the stairs, which he built himself and refurbished the bathroom.

I myself have experimented this year, and spent a couple of months temping at a local day nursery, to see whether or not I wanted to return to work outside the home, it was great fun but highlighted to me how flexible and versatile Childminding is and therefore I have continued taking on two more children and working towards ‘Accreditation’ I am now one of two childminders in the whole of the New Forest who is able to provide child care places for three and four year olds with government funding, equivalent to the places offered in pre-school and nursery.

Now as the children are getting older I am going to head over to them for them to have their say on the highlights of 2002, and I will take a quick opportunity to wish you a wonderful Christmas and a Happy 2003!

“I liked the colour of the trees in the Autumn”
	“I liked going out with all my family in the sunshine.”

Lots of Love

Helen, Matt, Jacob, Philip and Rebecca

xxxx

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(c) The Renouf Family 2002