Milnes Family News – Christmas 2021

Callie and Heather in Southsea on 6th September – the last really warm day of the year!

Hello,

This year has flown by and I don’t feel like we have done very much. We tried to take photos in order to remember what little we did do – I hope you enjoy seeing them and send me your news in return.

Happy Christmas and best wishes for 2022!

Heather x

JANUARY
Do you remember, this year started with some quite good snow….

MORE LOCKDOWN – PAINTING, WALKS AND VACCINATIONS
With the lockdown at the start of the year I managed to do quite a bit of painting although as the year went on I got busy with other things (such as more teaching) and had less time for painting.

I painted this over several weeks in January and February

Being unable to meet up in houses meant that socialising had to be done outdoors. On 15th April I went to the Malmesbury Abbey Gardens sculpture exhibition with mum and dad. It was brilliant! I hope you can see how happy mum and dad are!

On the very next day I went to another sculpture exhibition with friends.

PORTSMOUTH
Every Monday we go down to Portsmouth (no really!) to babysit Callie whilst Matthew and Sophie go to work. It was very nice during the warm summer weather but in April it was really chilly.

MAY BANK HOLIDAY
Matthew and Sophie came to visit in May and we had some lovely weather that weekend. We couldn’t get everyone together that weekend as there were still some restrictive rules on social gatherings at that time.

Sophie, Matthew Callie and Martin in our garden, May 2021

SCARBOROUGH

We did get in a short break just after the May bank holiday, going to Scarborough. We decided to walk along the Cleveland Way which runs along the coast from Whitby to Scarborough. We walked 18 miles that day, up and down the coastal cliffs. Martin wore his trainers as it was quite a sunny day, but he ended up with two black toenails and was unable to walk much at all the next day. I wore my walking boots which were really warm but my feet recovered really quickly afterwards helped by the fact that on the evening of the trek I walked in bare feet in the waves all along the mile long north beach at Scarborough. The water was perishing but my feet felt so good by the time I dried them and put my sandals back on. I really loved the north beach at Scarborough. Our B & B had a view out over it which was fab and each morning we had breakfast in the bay window overlooking the sea.

NORTH BEACH, SCARBOROUGH

SEPTEMBER

In early September, dad came to Portsmouth for the weekend and we had a walk round the ‘japanese’ garden near the Canoe Lake.

A week later, Martin and I were in Portsmouth again and decided to go for a walk to and around Hayling Island. It was further than we thought and we ended up bailing out when we got to the north of Hayling Island, catching a taxi back from there to Matt and Sophie’s house.