Christmas message 2009

         Dec 6th, 2009

Dear all,

As we all say..another year has flown by, same old cliché, but always true. We started as we normally do with a few days ski ing in the 3 Valleys, fantastic snow this year. But we have to admit we haven't done our usual amount of travel this year partly because Rob is at uni so we don't go away when he has just arrived home and partly because Helen has so much more work this year, we just couldn't afford to take a long summer break because she had 2 big pieces of work to be done by the end of the holiday: her 'Extended Essay' which she wrote in German, 4000 words (!) and a 'Theory of knowledge' essay written on the theme of: ' you see and understand things not as they are but as we are'; so you can see a bundle of fun for her.
Rob had some friends over from uni for a few days in May...and went away later on see later.
We went to Iceland for 9 days with Helen in August-which she was NOT looking forward to at all, but as it turned out it was great, weather much better than expected and some fabulous scenery. Highlights for Ed were the waterfalls , walking on the glacier, whale watching (actually saw several sightings right up close to the boat too) and wonderfull Fjords and geysirs. Definitely worth a visit

Ed went away for a week with an old school friend in June and sailed his friend's boat around N W coast of France and sighted dolphins...had great weather and wind so he was a v happy sailor.

Celia went to the UK to look at Camb, St Andrews, Durham and Bath uni's with Helen at the start of the summer, for 4 days,managing to get to see friends on 2 of the stops, it was a really useful trip. Helen came away wanting to definately wanting to apply to Cambridge and in fact she has a whole days worth of interviews there in 2 days time (8th Dec)

Rob worked again at Nestle HQ for 1 month in July and then spent August working in Costa Rica on a humanitarian /sustainability project , managing to get 5 days of travelling at the end by taking a series of dodgy bus rides and hostels down to Panama and then up the Caribbean coast before flying home 2nd September. He loved Costa Rica and would love to go back, the beaches are out of this world apparently, but inland is also beautiful. He had to work very hard on a farm where they spoke no Spanish and there were no other students around. In fact it was just him and the family that he worked for, so it worked wonders for his Spanish and has now inspired him to take up Portuguese as well this year at uni!! New skills acquired apart from improving his Spanish: he built a bio gas generator!!!!

Ed plugs on at Nestle, enjoying it, getting in some good trips having travelled to Mexico, Columbia (twice), Thailand, US, India & the Philipines. Celia on the other hand goes to the kitchen where she tends to do her work in reach of the coffe machine, v exciting!

We also spent a fortune having our drive re tarmaced in the spring, another reason to have cut back on foreign trips!!

Unfortunately some very good friends left for India in the summer, the number of people to socailsie with dwindles with this sort of thing and more of my friends going back into work; but we have been lucky most people come to Geneva and settle it seems, so we dont looose too many to job moves. I will probably look for more work next year to suppliment what i do for the WWF; an opportunity has arisen recently which looks promising and v interesting

We have just come back from Freiburg in Southern Germany with Helen and a friend to visit the xmas market and get a break before xmas when we have friends coming over to stay and the usual drinking and eating events.

We wish you all a very happy xmas and look forward to hearing all your news, we love round robin letters so no need to apologise!

All best wishes

ED Celia Rob and Helen xxxx