After an eventful 2003 perhaps we expected 2004 to be a bit quieter. Jen and I still managed to see some new places and enjoy some new life experiences.

There was some work needed over the winter months on the Jupiter, to prepare it for its trip to Sweden and Norway, and the Javelin engine, so that Amy could impress those modern cars and get it on two wheels. Amy is now very pleased with the extra power. This filled in the leisure time when not supporting the Saracens rugby team.

Amy encouraged me to help her in the garden as she planned to grow some organic vegetables. We made an early start by using the greenhouse for some early veg and designed some ingenious ways of propagating sweet-corn, peas, beans, parsnips and onions before transplanting to the cloche-warmed soil in April; a month earlier than usual. Carrots, beet, spinach and rocket were producing in the greenhouse before the tomatoes and capsicums had grown to full size. Luckily there were no late frosts. I also helped erect a fence around the neighbour’s garden and laid a path down to the garage. I also did some tree felling/pruning in our garden to recover the light we had lost over the years. We also grew Marigolds to fend off the bugs. Some grew so tall they made it out of the greenhouse top windows. 2.5m tall!

We met a whole new crowd of car nutters on our trip to Scandinavia organised by a rallying friend in conjunction with the Swedish ‘British Car Club’. We were well entertained by the locals and by ourselves! You can view the pictures on the website so I will not relate all the action packed days.

We returned via the Jowett Annual Weekend held in York; albeit after mending a broken gearshift that, by amazing luck, broke outside the workplace of the only Jowett owner in Norway. The ensuing full repair on return home took the combined effort of myself and many friends. This satisfied my engineering desires. I always like to get my hands dirty once a year! Our neighbours, Bill, Anne and Emma, moved into the village so we had to celebrate their new home. Bill’s priority was to get his lathe working to assist in the repair.

Amy’s marvellous achievement of being called to the Bar, after years of diligent work, was celebrated in July (more than once). All the very proud grandparents attended the Gray’s Inn ceremony to declare Amy ‘an Utter Barrister’.

I went with some friends to a sweltering day at Lords for a cricket test match, and followed this later in the year to a match at Barnstaple Town’s new cricket pitch whilst Barbara was in hospital having a new knee fitted! My ‘old’ school friend, Jo, looked after Alf for a week before Jen and I went down to bring them both back for a few weeks to convalesce.

Johanna, the friend with whom we stayed in Western Australia, visited us for a few days and invited us to do a trip across Australia in the Jowetts in 2006. That will take some planning!

The rugby season kicked off at Twickenham with a great win against the cup holders by our team. This was followed by many defeats! But we have made it through to another round of the European Cup, meaning we will have more visits to France and Italy. Biarritz was really superb. I can recommend it as the best seaside town in Europe especially for surfers; even better then Nice/Antibes/Monaco (not that they are any good for surfing). It was 75deg F in November. I started taking my drum to matches and now lead about six noisy individuals, (we dare not call it a band). You often see my stupid face on telly, possibly disguised with various moustaches.

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