Remembering 2009

As 2009 comes to an end I've been looking back over the last year. I didn't post here every day in 2009, as I had done in 2008 but it's still a good place to look for reminders of the year.

In my posting at the end of 2008 I was looking forward to 2009. I ended it:

So all in all it's not been too bad a year and there's already things to look forward to in 2009.

Well, yes and no. If we did but know it the writing was already on the wall as my postings a few days before had hinted. On 22nd December Beth went into hospital to have an abscess lanced and I spent two days (as I couldn't drive then) bouncing across Cambridge by taxi and (mainly) by bus trying to keep her and the dog happy.

This was the start of a journey for us both that Beth posts about here where we discovered she had Crohn's disease and we then spent the year watching various consultants struggle to find ways to get it under control and also to sort out some other problems down that way. Her post, which lists the many indignities she went through, puts some perspective on it.

From my point of view as well as the frustration of being able to do very little to help other than be there to hold her hand and try to remember what the doctors were telling her the additional problem was that I was unable to drive until early December (by which time we were pretty much done). So we had to use taxis a lot to get to the various hospitals which was frustrating, especially when trying to juggle holding Beth's hand and looking after Jake at home.

Anyway to cut a long story very short by a strange quirk of fate we had the appointment at Addenbrooke's for Beth's first injections with the fourth immunosuppressant drug on 22nd December, so exactly a year after this all kicked off.

And, touch wood, she does seem to be coping with this one thus far without side effects. Let's hope it works.

So if that was the bad side of 2009 what was the good?

Well, in truth it cast such a gloom over 2009 it was kind of hard to remember so I looked back over past postings here and it wasn't all bad. For example:

I went to the King's Mathematics Dinner in January¹ and met some old friends.
Beth did a Winter Skills course at Glenmore Lodge in February and had a thoroughly good time leaving Jake and me on our own for a week so I bought a pedometer to record our walking.
I did some excellent sailing in Scotland, both with Ted and Jane in the Firth of Clyde area rather adverse conditions in May and with Hugo, Jenny and Jennifer around Mull in June. And Beth got to sleep on a boat in a storm.
We had a lovely week in Ullapool with friends - so good that we're going back there this year.
I went to Open Tech 2009 which made me feel extra geeky.
I got some new toys includes a Panasonic TZ7 camera, a Chumby and a Nokia 6760 phone.
We got to know Cassie, Mitch, and Flo.
I learned more about video which served me well as shortly afterwards I had a rush of customers wanting video added to their web site.
We went to Fawber in September and did a couple of good walks despite the rain.
After a bit of a falling out with the parish council we set up a new web site for Milton which is proving a success.
We finally got to see the Vulcan fly.