Al Wood's Blogg: Highlights of 2006

Every year I like to take some time to look over the year just past and think about the good times that I’ve had. The year 2006 was full of ups and downs especially as we had to leave our house in Little Thetford before we’d found another one to move to (but more of that later)! Hopefully this blogg entry will give you a little idea of the memories I’ve got of the year gone by.

January 2006 seems like such a long time ago! We were preparing to move at the end of the month into a lovely house in Linton just south of Cambridge. A week before signing the contracts I received a phone call from our solicitor to say that everything had fallen through – the house was being re-possessed and would be taken off the market! As you can imagine, Ang and I were completely gutted – everything was already in boxes and we were at danger of loosing our sale, something we really didn’t want to do. After a lot of prayer and careful thinking we made the decision to go ahead with the sale of our house in Little Thetford (below) and find somewhere to rent temporarily as we continued to look for a new house. We were desperate to move as my job in Essex was taking over an hour to drive each way – something that was sending me loopy!

Anyway, we started the long job of searching for a house again. We’d originally put our offer in on the house back in September 2005, so the market (and prices) had moved on by then. We were really hoping to move to the village of Linton as this was right in the middle of our two jobs. There weren’t many houses on the market and we were getting desperate… but we wanted to remain patient and wait for the right house to come along.

In amongst the bore of house hunting that took place during most of February we were lucky enough to go to two weddings. Ang’s sister Claire (below) married her long time boyfriend Stephen at a lovely family wedding in Lancaster, and Joel Guiness, a friend also from Lancaster married Sarah at a celebration in London.

March was the month that saw me do one of the craziest things I did this year - camping in a forest near Cambridge without a tent… while it was snowing! This was all in aid of Make Poverty History and was organised with our youth group from church to help them see how refugees have to live all year round. We were given a piece of glorified plastic sheeting and asked to build a shelter with what was available in the forest (nothing!) – I can honestly say I’ve never been so cold in my life! Not even the two sleeping bags, three jumpers and two pairs of trousers could keep me from shaking – but it was all in good cause and we managed to raise awareness and money with the youth group (below).

Our big holiday this year was a trip to Natal in Brazil at the end of March. It was a great time of chilling on the windswept beach, floating in the pool and discovering a tiny bit of the scenery, culture and history of such a vast country. We really enjoyed our short stay in the comfy hotel and came back to England feeling thoroughly refreshed.

Arriving back in the UK we had just a few days to finalise packing everything from our house into boxes before moving it all into storage and moving to a rented room in Cambridge. When our house purchase had originally fallen through we decided that we would move out of our house in Little Thetford at the beginning of April which would give us 8 weeks to at least find the next place to move to. Unfortunately, as we left our place in Little Thetford we still hadn’t found a place to move to and to be honest it was quite depressing. Fortunately Phil Nunn, a friend in Cambridge made us feel very welcome in his lovely house, within walking distance of the shops! It was really strange sharing a house again, with only one shelf in the fridge that we could use – but it did have its plus points, Phil had a nice TV with a Windows Media Centre PC sat underneath it – I want one!

In the middle of April we travelled up to Lancaster for another wedding – this time it was my mate from uni Pete Hambourg who was marrying Louisa (below), a dance teacher in Lancaster. The evening’s entertainment was pretty spectacular with Pete’s music friends forming a huge 15-piece big jazz band and Louisa’s friends showing us all what ‘dancing’ actually meant! It was also a great time to catch up with friends that we hadn’t seen for years.

At the end of April my work (ESco Business Services) moved into its new purpose built premises on a picturesque hillside in the Essex countryside. It was huge step up from the converted piggery that we had previously worked in and has really helped to make it a great company to work for.

Back to the house hunt… finally at the beginning of May we had an offer on a house in Linton – the same one that had fallen through back in January! The house had been re-processed by the mortgage company and was put back on the market with a different estate agent. Ang managed to find who it was being sold by and we negotiated a £10k reduction in our original offer over a period of very tense weeks! Moving into the our new house was a fantastic feeling – there was a lot of work that needed doing but we could see the potential and hoped that it would turn into a real home (below).

The day we moved into the house we also inherited two cute little fluffy kittens called Josh & Toby. Our friends Ben & Becs had had to give them up because poor Becs was very allergic to them. They have brought real joy and companionship since we’ve moved to Linton and they are always a pleasure to watch as they still act like little kittens on their mad half hour.

One of my highlights from June was a church day out to Thetford Forest. It was a lovely sunny day and we had a picnic under the forest canopy while chatting to all our good mates from church. Ang went for a cycle ride with the vicar and family (!) but I stayed under the trees and caught up with all the techy gossip with Ben Rexworthy.

In July, the Football World Cup passed by very quickly but I did manage to capture some atmosphere on Parkers Piece in Cambridge (a park) where they’d set up a giant TV screen for the 10,000 fans to watch England loose! Toby and Josh enjoyed the football too as you can see in the picture below!

One of the best parties we attended this year was for Laura, a friend from work. It was held at the beginning of August to celebrate Laura turning the grand age of 21! The theme was a Hawaiian Beach Party and her family had spent ages preparing all the decorations, food and home made bar for the evening!

Soul Survivor 2006 was one of the highlights of the year for me. It is a Christian annual youth event held in Somerset and we took the youth group from church down. The week was full of good sung worship, teaching, great bands and fun back at the campsite. It was great to see the youth group bond with each other as well as grow in their own relationship with God.

At the end of August I flew to Berlin to help with the logistics of a Christian conference aimed at emerging leaders in Europe. It was a really encouraging conference with so much good material to try to absorb. I was mainly involved with the sound engineering for the fantastic Danish live worship band (below) and the British theatre group but also had a chance to lead some small group discussions and get to know people from all over Europe!

September was also a busy month with a trip to sunny Plymouth to see uni friend Emily marry Gareth. The day started out with our Vectra breaking down on the way which meant we were late to the wedding itself – but we still managed to arrive in time to see them say I DO! In the afternoon we walked around Plymouth harbour with friends Pete and Louisa before heading to the reception to see some great singing!

On the Sunday we drove to the Eden Project (below) which was pretty awe-inspiring and kept us entertained for the day, but as we were just setting off to head back to Cambridge the car made some very scary crunching noises... that was the end of the Vectra! We had to make the long journey back to Cambridge in a little Corsa – never again!

The end of September saw us take a short trip north to Thornham in Norfolk for our cluster weekend away. (Our cluster is a group of about 30 people from church who meet together every 2 weeks.) Again we were blessed with lovely weather and managed to do a walk across the muddy/sandy beach before heading back to the cottage (below) for a lovely dinner with everyone else.

Our second major holiday this year was a long weekend break to Ireland in October in which Ang and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary. Ang was already in Ireland for a meeting in Dublin, so I flew out in the evening, hired a little sports car and then started the journey together across to the west coast where we stayed in a hotel overlooking the Ring of Kerry – a combination of high mountains and coastline. It was a good holiday with some really stunning scenery (below), good food (and beer) and a great castle near Cork which Ang absolutely loved! It also gave Ang and I a chance to look back on the last 5 years of marriage – an exercise that we’ve really valued as we look forward to a lifetime together.

In November I turned the grand old age of 28 and we held a birthday party at our house in Linton for all my friends. Ang did an amazing job of providing huge amounts of tasty food (below) and I had a great evening catching up with everyone who’d come to celebrate me!

In December, we held a few pre-Christmas parties, travelled up to Ang’s parents in Kirkham, and then came back to Linton where we hosted my parents and brother for Christmas and boxing day celebrations. Angela again cooked some fantastic food and really spoilt us with a perfect Christmas turkey. It was also a good time to spend with my parents and brother, playing games and watching the Christmas films on TV.

The final highlight of the year was our New Year’s Eve party which we again hosted at our house. Ang had arranged a murder mystery evening with our friends in Cambridge and everyone made a great effort to dress up and act their characters. Unfortunately I ended up being the murderer so couldn’t take part in the sleuthing, but it was a great evening topped off with karaoke at 1am!

I will definitely look back at 2006 as a year of changes. Moving house was a hard experience, especially as for four months I didn’t know where I was moving to, but looking back now it has definitely been worth it, I am really feeling like the house is now becoming a home. It was also hard to see good friends move on from Cambridge, but at the same time I have met new friends and will hopefully develop just as good friendships in 2007. I am really forward to the year ahead and the ups and downs that will come my way!

If you would like to see some more photos for the year, click on the links below to see my photo albums: