Herrmann Brown New Year message

 

For the first time ever I have failed to send out our annual update before Christmas. Many apologies and I hope it is still worth reading.

At the end of 2022 we are not very different from how we were a year ago: Sam and I are older, greyer and slower but still soldiering on.

For various reasons neither Ben nor Guy was with us on Christmas Day 2021 (although we all got together between Christmas & New Year). Instead we enjoyed Christmas lunch with three friends from Camilla's singing group. Sadly we lost two of them during the year: Mary, in her late 80s, died suddenly in April; Sally, in her early 60s, had an inoperable liver tumour and declined very rapidly, dying early in December. Both of them are very much missed. 

Sally & Mary a few years ago

In January we managed to spend a few days at a whimsical cottage in Derbyshire which was almost accessible for Sam, and to see Ben while we were there.  

Florrie's Rest, mostly on one level, with a mezzanine second bedroom and bath reached by an external staircase

Around the same time I started the lengthy process of getting an electric charging point installed at home for our hybrid Passat. Owing almost entirely to the inefficiency of Ovo and its suppliers it was finally fitted in August. I won't bore you with the details. My experience of charging the Passat away from home has been less than brilliant (in fact only once at a public charging point, although several times from friends' power supplies), but perhaps if it was fully electric I would persevere further.

 

One of many charging points that hasn't actually worked

 

In February I took a short course in Nordic Walking to see if I liked walking with poles. Somewhat to my surprise, I did enjoy it, and have especially enjoyed walking in company with the group run by my tutor on and off through the year. My poles accompanied me on the Macmillan Mighty Hike, 26.4 miles down the Stour Valley, on a hot day at the end of July. They were also with me when I walked the distance of the London Marathon on 2 October. As long as you cover the full marathon distance on the one day and use the official app, it doesn't matter if you walk. I did it in three laps so I could get back to give Sam his breakfast, lunch and tea. I did get my medal but missed out on the adoring crowds... 

With my Nordic Walking group

It was a very hot day but lovely Suffolk scenery and good company. I raised just over £1000 for Macmillan

 

Three laps to walk the virtual London Marathon in October. I started in the dark

London Marathon medal

Not running a half-marathon that day

Running has been less of a success this year. In April I was due to run the Black Dog half-marathon at Beccles. I'd done all the training and felt reasonably good about the event itself. Then three days before, I went down with what seemed to be a bad cold. Three Covid tests were negative but I just didn't feel up to a 13-mile run, so I stayed at home. On the day after race-day I woke up with no sense of smell and tested positive - as did Sam. Despite all the vaccinations I had a week of being not able to do much at all, and my lungs and overall stamina have never got back to where they were. The longest run I've completed since April is the Adnams 10k at Southwold in November. Grrr. Here's hoping things improve. Sam coughed for a few weeks but otherwise was probably less affected than me.

In May my brother Piers managed to get all of our generation of family together - my siblings and our mother, my first cousins and their mother, and everyone's partners, children, and Ivy (our granddaughter) as the the sole representative of the next generation. I had to drive to Chelsea with Sam and my mother, Guy and Ivy, but it was worth it. My mother is now 95 and her horizons are reducing, but she is still pretty healthy and capable, and living on her own in her huge house. (although with the price of fuel as it is, only heating select portions of it at the moment).

All the living descendants of my paternal grandparents, plus partners, in London

Ivy with her second cousins once removed (possibly...)

My wonderful mother, now 95

 

We didn't sail as much as we'd hoped this summer but we did manage a three-week cruise with friends and family to London, Chatham, Burnham and Brightlingsea. If you're interested you can read all about it in this blog entry. We are also looking for crew to sail with us to the Channel Islands for our summer cruise, mostly in June - contact us if you'd like to join in.

Under the QEII bridge at Dartford, with Ben

In August Sam and I cruised on a big Princess ship to the Canary Islands. Our P&O cruises in March 2020 and March 2021 were cancelled because of Covid, but we had another booked in March 2022. In February 2022, P&O phoned to say they were proposing to downgrade us from an accessible balcony cabin to an inside cabin (no window) because our cabin was needed for Covid isolation. We were not impressed, and cancelled. We managed to get a cabin on a summer cruise to the Baltic with Princess, but unfortunately the ports of call included St Petersburg and Mr Putin put paid to that one. We ended up on a cruise at a time of year when we didn't really want to go (school holidays) to a place we didn't really want to go to. With a certain amount of dogged determination we managed to enjoy ourselves, helped by an excellent accessible excursion in Madeira.

Accessible excursion in Madeira

And in September Sam and I took a road trip to the Herrmann family house in what was once East Germany, now in a highly newsworthy location with the Tesla gigafactory just a few kilometres away and the German section of the Nordstream 1 and 2 pipelines running literally through the woodland behind the house. Part of the house is on one level (although with four steps up to the front door) so Sam was able to get about and use most of the facilities. The slightly mad three-storey "tower" was too much for him, however, so I was able to retreat to the top of the tower for time on my own. On the way there we stopped in the stunning city of Schwerin, at an excellent hotel, and on the way back we revisited our old haunt of Dordrecht in the Netherlands, and stayed in an extraordinary hotel in a converted water tower. It was a lot of driving for me but a lovely adventure.

Sam and Schloß in Schwerin

Tea outside the house in Wulkow. Sam managed the outside steps ok

My mountain bike is now more than 30 years old but was perfect for the flat but sometimes very bumpy forest trails

Happy memories in Dordrecht - we have moored here in Kalessin a couple of times

 

Sam is now 82 and is noticeably slower and less mobile than before - and there are many days when I don't understand anything he says. Still, we continue going to Second Chance Stroke Club near Bury St Edmunds each week, communications group once a month, and we're making a big effort to get back to swimming once a week in our lovely local pool. In summer I became chair of the new East of England Patient & Public Voice Group for Stroke (that's the short version of the name), which involves understanding NHS acronyms, structures and strategies, and meeting every two months online to give our views on current projects (and much more stuff behind the scenes). We have managed to get to two workshops, and a conference about stroke care, in person, and Sam has very much enjoyed being a star of the show each time.

Guy has been creating beautiful ropework - it will be on Etsy soon

Ben is now a German citizen

Ivy (top centre) completely irresistible as an angel in her first nativity play

Guy, Kai and Ivy have recently moved from Southwold to Leiston, which is not too far away. Ben and Ann are living just outside Nottingham. It was lovely to see all of them on Christmas Day this year.

Anyway much love and Happy New Year to you all, and may we have fewer UK Prime Ministers and cheaper fuel in 2023...

Old rockers never die. Wishbone Ash on the Argus 50th anniversary tour at the excellent and very accessible Apex in Bury St Edmunds