Lund Blog

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CHRISTMAS LETTER FROM THE LUND,S  2012

 

2012 has been another good year for the whole Lund family.. We are blessed with reasonable good health, two nice children, three lovely grandchildren, lots of dogs, lots of good and loyal friends and two big overseas trips, so we are very happy with life and try to enjoy every day together.

 

2012 has been a fantastic year here in UK, first with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in June which was fantastic and then we hosted the Olympic so it was a really fun and busy time. Despite all the festivities we have had time to visit several art exhibitions in London from Da Vinci  to Picasso, enjoyed several plays in our lovely Royal Theatre in Windsor, seen some good films plus Puccini’s opera “TURANDOT” in a magnificent stage production. In June we spend a lovely day at the Royal Ascot Race court together with Jim & Anita.

 

FAMILY:

 

Our three wonderful grandchildren are now six, four and one years old and they are the joy of our lives. Kristien is in year two and doing very well, Mikkel started school in September and he likes it especially if he not have to go their every day; but after the first term he has settled in and likes being busy every day.Helenais a charming little girl with quite a temper if things not go her way. She has just started walking and is a very fast mover, so I have to be on my toes all the time when she is here.

 

“SPOILING THE GRANDCHILDREN”? It is my job.

 

Claus is the families IT guru and the film company he has worked for the last 7-8 years is still surviving but only just. I pray for he can keep his job (the company can not work without him) as he now has three children plus a mortgage to pay for each month. Luckily he has inherited John’s positive attitude to life so he is not worried.

 

Tima is still successfully breeding dogs. She has had a litter of ten Alsatian this summer and yesterday she had another litter of six all doing well. She has a good reputation as breeder so luckily her dogs are selling well.

 

She left the school in Reading this summer to start e new career as teacher for children not fit for normal schools; a very difficult job but she loves it and she is very good at motivating children

 

TRAVEL:

 

From 18 April to 11 May we did our yearly trip to visit family and friends in Scandinavia which is one of the highlights of the year. As always we started out with visiting John’s family in Viborg where we spend some wonderful days with lots of good Danish food and good company. Thank you to Kisser & Ebbe, Hanne, Susanne & Erik and their families for taking so good care of us.

DEAR FRIENDS. (Du kan skifte sprog ved at trykke paa flagene til hoegre)

 

 

It is already December 7^th and times to write the Christmas letter to our friends all over the world. Yesterday we decorated the house, got the Christmas tree and all the lights up, so the house looks nice and cosy especially in the dark evenings.

 

What has happened in our family during 2011? 

The most important thing was the birth in August of our third grandchild Helena Jane a beautiful little girl of course. Kristien turned 5 in June and is now in year one at school and is doing well. He is creative as always, can spell and write most words now, and is good at math so he has been lucky to get into such a good school. Mikkel turned 3 in August and he is going to Montessori four half days a week and spend Mondays in our house.

We often goes to the forest with Claus and the children Saturday mornings and then he and the children come for breakfast every Sunday, so we are lucky having the family so close buy. Tima is very busy partly with her job as teacher and partly with all her dogs. She has had two litters of puppies this year, one Alsatian and one Cocker Spaniel and she managed to sell them all very quickly, but it is a big job to look after all the puppies. Our lovely dog Yoda got cancer so we had to put him to sleep. It was a difficult decision but the best thing for Yoda. We were sitting in the empty house crying all day but then Tima turned up with her beautiful, black Alsatian in the evening and Masai has stayed in our house since that day. He is only two years old and will properly outlive us, I hope.

 

Socially it has been a good year too where we have been together with Anita & Jim to a lot of the events. In March it was to the Royal Chapel inWindsorGreatPark for a talk about “Queen Mary’s Dolls House” followed by drinks & snacks in the park. Next event was “The Kings Speech” one of the best films I have seen for a long time.

 

In April it was the Rolls-Royce & Bentley Enthusiasts parade of 102 old cars through Windsorin celebration of Prince Philips 90^th birthday. What a show to see all these beautiful cars where the oldest was a Silver Ghost from 1907. Then the whole country celebrated Kate & Williams wedding in beautiful sunshine, but we watched it in front of the TV nicely dressed and drinking champagne all day;;; Anita & I went to hear “ The Marriage of Figaro” at Eton college while the men enjoyed a quiet evening home.

 

 

 

In May we all went to the Royal Windsor Horse Show during the day and finished it off with a Windsor Castle Royal Tattoo where the English and French combined forces to create a spectacular display at the tattoo.

 

 

 

 

Then John took a short trip to Denmark to visit family and friends but he returned two days before my 75 birthday in June I celebrated the day with a family dinner, got a new camera which I tried out two days later at Windsor Castle. Jim & Anita had invited me to join them at the most noble order of the Garter show at Windsor Castle, where we spend the most of the day in warm sunshine enjoying the show of all the royals, the Garters, the music corps and I managed to get some good pictures of the Queen, Prince Philip, Kate Middleton, Camilla and Sophie plus all the ladies in hats. Yes, I am pleased with my new camera. Then Lolita came from Odense to visit us for some days and we had a great time together in the nice weather and the boys loved her as she brought lots of presents.

 

TRAVEL.

 

In stead of having a big party for our 75^th birthdays, we took a 20 day trip to China. We flew to Beijing for three days and celebrated John’s birthday the 12^th on top of The Great Wall with Champagne and Moon cakes. It was a hard climb but well worth the effort. Back to Beijing for dinner at an amazing Beijing Duck restaurant and last stop for the day was a visit to The Chinese Opera. What more could he have wanted for on his 75^th birthday? We continued to Xian then Chongging and a three days cruise onYangtze River to Yichang. We continued to Shanghai, Guilin and then a half days cruise to Yangshore and the last stop on the journey was Hong Kong for a couple of days. I was disappointed with the way Hong Kong had changed since our last visit, but we spend a lovely day in the botanic garden and Zoo, the best thing in the town and in celebrating of our 56 anniversary we had dinner on a boat inAberdeen harbour. It was a great holiday but the long flights are just too much for me now. On the other hand “: There are no short cuts to any place worth going to” so I did it.

 

We missed  the Windsor Festival in September but managed the last performance in St. George Chapel were Melvin Bragg talked about King James Bible which was first published 400 years ago and it was an interesting talk. We then spend a good day out with Anita & Jim going to The Scandinavian Show 2011 in Earls Court, London with lots of good food and drinks, but the highlight of the show was meeting the cast from “The Killing” and hear them tell about how they made the series.

 

I was not going to travel any more this year, but when we got invited to a book launch in Copenhagen 28^th November of Klaus Winkel’s book about “Danes in Africa” as John had help him with the chapter about Bonde Nielsen,s project in Kenya, we decided to take a long weekend trip to Copenhagen.. it was nice to have time to visit our old friends, going to the book launch and not least have time to see Tivoli’s Russian Christmas exhibition

and going down Stroeget to look at all the Christmas shop windows, Illum’s Bolighus, Bing & Groendal’s Christmas tables and to eat “Aebleskiver with Gloegg wine” together with Lone & Soeren then I was in the Christmas mood..

 

Nice to be back to see the children again, going to the forest and look for dragons, drawing maps to find our way and then finish off in the big play ground for an hour, that is a nice beginning to the weekend. Now it is time to bake all our Danish Christmas cookies and on Saturday Tima is coming to help with the “Vanillie kranse” as we must have the baking over before her birthday December 16^th.

 

We wish you all a very Happy Christmas and all the best for a prosperous New Year and we hope to see as many of you as possible in 2012.

Lots of love and best wishes from ULLA & JOHN.

 

If you want to read more about our trip to China then go to: http://www.lunduk.com/china

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vaares Kina blogg er nu live!  Besoeg vaares kina blogg her ; Kina Blog

Our China Blog is Now Live! Visit our site by clicking here China Blog

It is written in Danish, to read it in English just click the American Flag top right. Also if you want to read it in another language click on the appropriate flag.

It is already the 1^st December and time for writing Christmas letters again in order to keep in touch with all our dear friends from Greenland in the north to Australia in south and we look forward to hear how you all are and what have happened in your lives in 2009.When I look at our calendar I can see, we have had a very busy and exiting year and despite our 73 years it does not look like we are slowing down but try to enjoy life to the full.

CHRISTMAS LETTER FROM ULLA & JOHN 2009.

FAMILY;

The grand children continue to give us great pleasure and we are so lucky to be allowed to look after them a lot and I enjoy every minute of it. Mikkel turned 1 in August and Kristien 3 in June and both were celebrated with a great garden party, lots of gifts and wonderful birthday cakes. Our gift to Kristien was a year pass to Legoland in Windsor, and Claus & Stephanie have taken the boys to Legoland every weekend all summer. One Thursday (grandparent day) we went with them and it turned out that Kristien new it all and was dragging us round to show us all the fun

We celebrated Mikkel’s christening in October, where the whole party afterwards was done in the church hall and both boys were running round for many hours and had fun and so did the rest of us. We have started the Christmas decoration in the house which Kristien enjoys. He loves his little Christmas tree and then he helped me bake “Pebbernoedder” last week and was very proud to bring his own cakes home to his family. Mikkel is a very lively little boy so there is not a dull moment when he is around.

Entertainments and cultural events.

In March we celebrated The Windsor Spring Festival together wit Anita & Jim, and in May Anita got us tickets to the member’s enclosure to the Royal Windsor Horse Show where we could get close to the Queen. It was a fantastic five days show which ended with

The Windsor Castle Royal Tattoo and what a show that was;I have never seen anything like it. A sunny Saturday in June the four of us spend a lovely day at Eton Collage gardens with cream tea as refreshments. Anita then gave us tickets to the Windsor Castles procession of the noblest order of the Garter. It was another warm and sunny day where we were entertained by two military bands, the Household cavalry ,the military Knights of Windsor, the Knights & ladies of the Carter, followed by eight robed members of the royal family and of course the Queen & prince Philip in robes with pageboys, what a fantastic day.

Unfortunately Anita & Jim were leaving for USA so we had a last farewell dinner together; we miss them very much but I have a lot of Anita’s lovely plants to look after until they hopefully will return to UK in 2010.

We have been blessed with visits from Lone & Soeren and Sven & Inge from Denmark and as always we give people the big tour of Windsor Castle, a trip to Savill Garden and then a day in London to visit Tate Modern, Covent Garden and a nice lunch before returning to Windsor. In June we celebrated my 73^rd birthday together with the whole family by a trip to The Royal Wheel of Windsor. We had our own carriage where John had ordered Champagne to be served during our ride and we finished the day with a birthday dinner in our sunny garden.

TRAVEL.

We have done a lot of travelling this year, the first one took us to John & Lita’s house in Portugal in February, where we enjoyed the sun, lots of excellent food, a jazz dinner/dance and not least the 106 years old carnival in Loule (pictures from that day can be seen on my Face book site.)

The next trip was a week’s holiday in April to visit Ann Kerstin & Jan in Fazana, Croatia, where they have bought an old, charming house next to the harbour.

The four of us drove round the Istrien peninsula enjoying the beautiful nature, and we spend some time in Pula as well, a nice town with lots of archaeology. We took the ferry over to Brijuni National park and saw Tito’s summer resident with all the photos and not least his stuffed animals. Every evening we went to a new restaurant in Fazana for some lovely food and wine, it was a very good week in a new country. We spend the most of summer in Windsor where I enjoyed the garden & the nice weather, while John spend time at the computer planning our next big trip namely a months train/tramping holiday to Japan.

We left with Asiana Airline the 24 September for Tokyo with a brief stop in Seoul. It was a long journey but the airline was first class with a service like in the good old days so it all went well.

We stayed two days in Tokyo to get over our jet lack and try to familiarise us with the Japanese lifestyle, and not least to try to find our way round with the underground system, which is very complicated especially as we neither could speak nor read Japanese. You could only by tickets in machines outside stations; extremely difficult until we found the key to give us information in English, then we got out tickets to central Tokyo where we spend the whole Sunday. We had bought a two weeks rail pass from home but kept it for the long distance trips with Shinkansen (the bullet train), and then just bought day tickets for the shorter trips and day bus passes to get around in the bigger towns. For the ones of you who has not seen our daily blocker on: www.samurai2009.co.uk here is the route we took:

Tokyo-Nagono-Yudanako-Nagoro and from there the Alpine route to Toyamo then Kanazawa, Kyoto-Hiroshima-Osaka-Yokohama and then the long journey to Sapporo on the North Island and than back to Tokyo for the last three days before the long flight back to London, it was a fantastic trip. We visited so many temples, beautiful gardens, museums, art exhibitions, botanical gardens, the Aquarium in Yokohama (something out of this world), two Zoo’s which were the most fantastic ones we have ever seen and we have visited a lot of Zoo’s all over the world. We had a day trip in torrential rain to Jigokudani Yaen-Koen national park to see the interesting lifestyle of the Japanese Macaque ( the snow monkeys), the ones who sits in the hot springs to keep warm during the winter.

Japan is a remarkable country to travel in, everything is clean even the toilets on the oldest stations are spotless, their gardens esthetical beautiful, flowers everywhere and as I love the Ikebana style I just could not get enough of their gardens. People were so nice and helpful; even if they did not speak English they tried to help us by taking my hand and saying:” Follow me”, and then they took us to the right place. Whenever we was looking in a shop they gave us something and walking through their food market they insisted we tasted everything which was a funny experience. We stayed in Tokyo-Inn- Hotels nearly all the way, as they were reasonable in price, excellent service, clean with free internet access in the room, trouser press, fridge, air con, and best of all they had two washing machines & Tumble drier for the guests for £ 2 pr wash. On these hotels the breakfast was included but fish soup and cold rice cakes is not the best start on the day for us, so sometimes we went to Mc. Donald for a proper breakfast, I never thought I could sink that low;;; Apart from breakfast we really enjoyed the food and loved walking round looking at the restaurants windows with the display of all what they could offer; then we just pointed on the pictures of the food we wanted, no problem.

Well home again where Claus picked us up in Heathrow. and we were met with the most fantastic firework as we drove up to the house ( it was from Legoland) what a welcome. It was nice to see the family and not least the grandchildren again and nice to be home after such a successful trip. Two weeks later we were off again this time for four days to Denmark to celebrate our oldest friends,

Hanne & Henning’s Golden wedding Anniversary in the good old fashion Danish style. We managed a visit to my favourite museum-Louisiana in Humlebaek, and then

I did the food shopping to enable the family to as always have a proper Danish Christmas dinner of roast pork with lots of cracklings.

John was not feeling well when we came back and it turned out he has got Shingles down the whole left legl. He is much better to day 2^nd December and he is eating all the vegetables I serve him without complaining but of course he  still have his glass of red wine with the dinner so we continue to enjoy life to the full.

We wish you all a Merry Christmas and all the best for a Happy en healthy New Year.

Best wishes from ULLA & JOHN

You can se alle ours pictures if you go to www.lunduk.com