BOURSNELL FAMILY

No great excitements in 2025, which is probably good. Mostly gigs and holidays I suppose.

Our years tend to have recurring elements, like going to see Kate Rusby's Christmas show, and seeing McGoldrick McCusker & Doyle at the Junction. Going to see a Beethoven Symphony at the Proms has now been added as a staple (until we run out of symphonies).

One of the themes of this years gigs was going to see people for maybe the last time. We saw Roy Harper at the London Palladium (84), Al Stewart's farewell tour (80), and Peggy Seeger at 90, still going strong. Very uplifting! Having seen Robin Williamson (81) last year, we saw Mike Heron (82) at a concert in London. We'll be very happy if we're half as good as they all were.

We managed a couple of visits to friends -  in Hampshire in February and Dorset in May. Lovely to see them all - we keep on saying 'we must go more often' but never seem to manage it. That's another theme actually, never quite getting down to things. Sigh...

Three holidays too! The Lakes in April, with all the family. Kate and Mike had gone to Broughton in Furness a week or so earlier to test the functionality of Mike's new hip. Seemed sort of OK - we got up a few small hills! We also went to Northumberland in August, with John, Holly and Hana. Our most intrepid holiday was to Paris, in October, to see the renovated Notre-Dame. It nearly all turned out to be a debacle, with everything fully booked up, but we managed to wrestle success from disaster. Phew!

We keep ourselves busy with this and that. Kate was involved in running several Repair Cafés, which seem to be going from strength to strength. Mike has undertaken the usual range of projects to keep him busy.

So, no great excitements, and both feeling a bit more crocky than last year, but not too bad.