Happy New Year – Review of 2005

Another year has now come to an end. Here is a brief review of some of the major things for me during 2005.

The most significant event for me was the birth of our baby daughter Amelia. She is now 5 months old and is well. Quite possibly the biggest change to my life ever, but without a doubt the best. Any of our close friends should be able to follow her progress on her own webpage, assuming that I had your email address. If any long lost friends (or just those I don’t have email addresses for) would like to get in touch I can provide a link.

We have taken Amelia onto two holidays, a holiday in Paris when only two months old, and a little more recently to Center Parcs, at Sherwood Forest. I’ve been putting together useful information for other new parents taking their babies on holiday, but haven’t been able to get the blog updated quite as quickly as I’d like. You can see the Paris holiday by following these links (Center Parcs to follow):

• Travelling on holiday with a Baby (Part 1) Before the Holiday
• Travelling on holiday with a Baby (Part 2) Travelling by car and arriving at the camping / caravan site.
• Travelling on holiday with a Baby (Part 3) Travelling around Paris by train, metro (underground) and on foot (push chair).
• Travelling on holiday with a Baby (Part 4) Disneyland Paris.

The year has had it’s fair share of low points. Natural disasters, including the Hurricanes that caused so much damage in the USA, to the terrorist attacks against London. I’ve been fortunate to have not been directly affected by any of these, but my thoughts go out to those that have been.

2005 saw the G8 Summit at Gleneagles, and the Live 8 Concert, organised for the Make Poverty History campaign. It’s not yet clear how much impact it has had on the world, but it has certainly made some progress in reducing the number of people that are dying through lack of food. Lets hope that 2005 really was the beginning of the end of third world poverty.

Things for me to look forward to in 2006 are mainly based around Amelia including her first birthday. The following are a list of some of the other things that I expect to happen during 2006.

• A new version of the Quiz engine, and it’s first release as GPL software.
• All change with the First Aid protocols, requiring an update to The First Aid Quiz Questions
• Revamp some of my websites
• Try out Macromedia Studio 8
• Start work on the latest stage production for Warwickshire St. John Ambulance.

Happy New Year