Dear Family and Friends

What a year! Perhaps you remember that last year we moved house in April and in November Antonietta was made redundant from her job, so Xmas 2003 was not very festive. In April 2004 Antonietta found a new job as an ICT Lecturer at a college in Coventry. Unfortunately the post did not commence until the start of the new academic year in September therefore we only just survived until her first pay check.

The new job is going well. Antonietta enjoys it and gets great satisfaction from the challenge of teaching the exceptional students. The new role is very different from her previous teaching jobs, even if they are aged 16 to 60; they are disabled students either physically or mentally. The classes are a maximum of 8 students but it is like teaching one to one because of the variety of abilities and disabilities. For example in a class there are students that cannot speak, others have problems with memory, others cannot use keyboards and have to use a special  “Joystick”.

Paul, (the youngest), had a good year  He completed the final 6th form exams (“A” Levels) and obtained sufficient grades to get into his first choice of university - Aberystwyth “The University of Wales”. It’s about 4 hours from home on the central cost of Wales. As a place to study and live, Paul seems to have settled in. The only problem is that he is always penniless, but we keep telling him this is normal student life so get used to it!

Mark, (the oldest), has returned to college because he has decided he wants to continue studying. He is studying maths, English, IT and Psychology. He misses his brother since he went to University but they regularly chat and play computer games together over the Internet.

John still works for the Gas and Electricity Company. He has aged rapidly this year with all the stress of Antonietta being out of work. He had to control every penny so that we would not have to sell the new house. Lets hope that he can now relax a little. He has put on weight so has decided to buy a bicycle to do a little exercise in the spring.

We have not organised Xmas yet but probably we will have Antonietta’s mother or John’s sister.

Let hope 2005 will be less stressful than 2003/2004.

To all of you “Merry Christmas for 2004 and a Happy 2005”

Antonietta, John, Mark and Paul.