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Leech Family Newsletter
Well, another year has come round again and Steve and I are still behind with our newsletter. This year we are more disorganised than usual because my Mum has been ill. A few weeks ago she went into hospital with bad stomach pains and after many tests they said she would need an operation. When she had the operation, they found that it was a malignant tumour, which had been in the intestine. After testing it they discovered that it had already spread to the lymph nodes, so is now going round the system. She has been offered 30 weeks of chemotherapy but has declined it as she was told she had only 10% chance of it working. We are all in a bit of a shock and do not know what the future holds for her. We have all rallied round and all of us have spent as much time as we are able to at this busy time of year going to the Mill laden with ready to cook meals for Dad to prepare for Mum (he was never very good in the kitchen!) Having been quite a lot, we are now seeing a change in her and she is definitely recovering from the operation. Lets hope she will continue to improve. In April of this year we decided to go back to our old haunt, Lanzarote. We could not get in to our usual place so decided to go to an all-inclusive package deal. BIG MISTAKE! I persuaded Steve to stay for two weeks so we set off for this wonderful holiday where everything was included, even the booze. The first shock was the size of the place and the Colditz type fencing all round. This was presumably to keep non residents away from all that free drink. The apartment was not that much better, being quite small, and only one bedroom. We were used to a two-bedroom apartment so the kids had to sleep in the living area and not have their usual room to themselves. The food seemed quite good to begin with and you could eat all day long if you wanted to. There were burgers and fish fingers available all day long. This turned out to be our biggest problem. Not only was I eating too much but Kate and half the kids eating the snack food ended up with terrible tummy upsets due, we think to the unhygienic way the food was left out all day. Anyway, apart from all that and the rather grabby type people, it was nice to sit in the sun (just make sure you are up at 7.30 to bag a sun bed) and not to have to cook at all. The kids enjoyed it as there was a kids club and lots of things to do. The other major thing that has happened this year is that we have built our Conservatory. It has been a plan of ours for a long time and Steve set about it in May. He did all the building himself apart from an Irish guy who helped to dig the foundations. I helped quite a bit, mixing mortar and generally being a labourer. I really enjoyed it and found the technical side of it fascinating. The whole building was finished in October apart from some snagging (see, I have learnt something). The children have had a very good year especially academically. Tom won his first ever prize in school for English which he was very pleased with. He had a really good parents evening with everyone saying how well he had done. I don't think we had any 'could do betters' which were quite regular before. He is still very interested in making things and painting these small 'Warhammer' models. His other interest is music. Since we have had the piano, he has taught himself a lot of tunes by ear. Last year he was learning 'Moonlight Sonata' and played a short version of it in the School Arts Festival winning himself some house points. He has now decided to have proper lessons so that he can learn to read music and then he can play anything he wants. He also seems quite good at languages and has been put in the scholarship classes for Latin and French. Kate has also had a good year and is in the top stream. She seems a good all rounder, enjoying most subjects and sports. She is extremely organised and is constantly making lists and charts. She recently organised all her friends on a school trip to York. Who was sitting next to whom on the coach, who was sleeping where! She has taken up springboard diving and has entered a few competitions. She is very brave and does all sorts of things I wouldn't dream of. She hasn't won anything yet but she's learnt a lot and gained more confidence. She likes drama and had to read something out at the School Carol Service which was very good.
My turn now. Gay and I continued to be busy and this year seems to have lasted about 5 months so far. Still we managed to build the Conservatory after an eight year long wait. It was always our plan to extend at the back of the house but time and money never allowed it. This year through the summer, I managed to work 'at home' on a regular basis so was able to make most weekends in the summer into 'long weekends'. This gave me a good run at doing some serious building work uninterrupted for 3 or 4 days a week. We finally finished it in October and immediately bought a table tennis table, which fits in nicely. The kids have improved their game and Tom's teacher even commented about the improvement on his school report. I still have few bits to finish off but it has been too cold to mix any mortar. Next year we intend to start a swimming pool …….. money permitting but this will probably take another eight years. The only problem with this is that we would maybe rather spend the money on a holiday and maybe go to California with Tom and Kate and then possibly Tim and Ellie in the Caribbean ……..? We had yet another good year with the caravan touring around the UK. Wales in August figured highly in our plans as usual and this year we took Bobbie as well as Tom's cousin Ben. We all crammed in somehow and the two boys slept in the awning. We ended the holiday in Derbyshire again where it rained again and was cold and grey again and we said we're not going back again and we will probably end the August 1998 trip in Derbyshire again. Creatures of habit or gluttons for punishment? Wales however it getting the reputation for having fairly good weather in August over the last few years so we may stay longer! (Must be going mad - again). The south coast and the Isle of Wight were again tremendous for weather in the early part of the year and we spent a few days down there. Tom and Kate always seem to make good friends on camp sites and we keep in touch with some of them. We finally built a permanent computer into the Caravan this year, which keeps us all busy on rainy days. All we need is a modem connection to the mobile phone and we can run the world from our five berth …… We also got our own web site this year but apart from the first flurry of excitement, I have not really had the time to update it regularly. For those of you who can access and understand these things, it is at http://www.leechfamily.mcmail.com and if you want to e-mail us, use swl@mcmail.com or tomleech@earthling.net or kateleech@cybergal.com. They will all find their way to us one way or the other.Well that’s it for now. Visit our web site and keep in touch. Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Steve, Gay, Tom and Kate |