From Bergville
24.12.1997
Dear Lorna,
As usual, I am late with my Christmas cards, but I still try
to get them posted before Christmas day. This is just an update on our news for
the past year.
Jim is still in the hotel, we had some ups and downs lately,
but we are very busy this Christmas and hope that things will look up in the
New Year.
Tam-lyn went to the UK at the end of May and came back for
Christmas, but while she was there went for job interviews for a job as an Air
Hostess with British Airways. We heard last week that she had been accepted,
and so is going back to London in the middle of January to start her training
on the 29th January.
Regan left boarding school this year and started at the
Technical College at Ladysmith, which is very convenient because he stays at
home with me. He is very keen on his electric guitar, and plays “heavy metal”
day and night. He has a group of friends who come around and play with them.
It’s quite nice having a house full of young kids, but the coffee consumption
is enormous (this means that we seem to wash coffee mugs all day long).
Tara goes to school near us in Ladysmith and she has her own
circle of friends and generally does well in all her subjects (without much
effort). She still has three years to go at High School.
I have passed all my exams for this year, (I have gone
backwards, and I am now doing a two-year Postgraduate Pre-primary Teacher’s
Diploma). It is useful, because we are
opening a training pre-primary school at the College as we are offering a Preprimary
Teacher’s Training Course and I am involved with it.
I am also very busy running a Further Diploma in Music for
qualified teachers to upgrade, and,
apart from my official job, I have initiated an arts department at a local
school for black students and an annual Arts Festival for the youth in the
Ladysmith region which is scheduled for the end of May.
We don’t play very much bridge but I joined “Toastmasters”
this year and have done my first three graded speeches.
I sold the flat and bought a house (trying to upgrade before
our retirement) and we moved in last week.
We haven’t stayed in it yet because we are at Bergville on school
holidays. It is a big old house that needs a bit of work, but it suits us.
As for the rest of the family, we still have the dogs, cat,
birds and ducks (which annoy Jim, because they keep coming into the house and
leaving presents on the carpet for us), and although our donkeys went to live
on a nearby farm, we see them regularly and they had a baby early this year.
That’s a brief 1997 history of the Collighans, so Merry
Christmas and a Happy New Year from all of us,
Jenny
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