121 Blenheim Crescent
London W11

7^th December 1977

Dear Denden,

It seems quite a long time since we saw you over here and yet it seems no time at all since last Christmas, which is always rather a frightening thought. No doubt Mollie tells you about most of what we are up to, so if I just repeat all that you will have to bear with me!

I think the most surprising event of the past year was our television appearance. Some of it was quite fun to do but for myself I dreaded parts of it, such as the live performance at the end, when we met the other families for the first time. Hugo came over very well and the boys were quite entertained by it all, I think. A lot of our friends thought that it was terrible to expose them on the screen but I really don't think it affected them in the least and they just treated it as an eight week wonder.

Andrew is going from strength to strength on the violin although he doesn't really get as much time to practise as he should. Last summer he went on an orchestra course that gave a concert at the Maltings (Benjamin Britten's concert hall in Suffolk). They were all school children under the age of 14 and they performed such difficult works as Stravinsky's Firebird really very adequately. Next week he has an audition for a strings group which meets for intensive coaching twice a year in the holidays. They claim that children entering between the ages of 10 and 12 should by the end of the course (when they will be 20) have studied most of the great chamber music works - classical, romantic and modern. So it would be a fantastic experience but I don't know what his chances are of getting in this time round.

The annual children's opera is about to take place locally. Both Andrew and Inigo have a small solo part although Inigo has a very much nicer voice than Andrew. The excitement really mounts this week and I often wonder how all the children survive to the actual performances of which there are four and which were apparently sold out a long time ago.

I have just been down to Hereford for two days on my own to be entertained at the Cider works. Mollie had Piers and Hugo had the other two. Piers came back with wild stories of how Mollie gave him tea in bed in the mornings and so on. I fear he doesn't get such spoiling here! He adores going to Mollie and spends a lot of time watching her cook. Perhaps he will take after Hugo.

This is the first term since Andrew was born that I have had the day to myself and I must say I am loving it. Piers comes home to lunch on Wednesdays because he has a violin lesson in the afternoon but otherwise he stays to lunch. I still go twice a week and teach the backward readers in the mainly immigrant school which I enjoy especially as I can spend longer there now. I can't actually bring myself to get a regular job yet as there always seem to be so many other things to do.

Hugo has spent most of this year working on his own (in the BP office) on a development in the computer system he originally devised. He still doesn't really know if it is going to succeed or not but we are keeping our fingers crossed. He very much enjoys doing this kind of work although it does mean that he is rather isolated at BP. He has been playing the piano a great deal and has been asked to perform a Mozart sonata at a select party which is to be held in March (black ties and the lot).

It is going to be very nice to have Claudia with us at Christmas. I expect we shall go down to the cottage for about a week or so. Andrew is going on the school skiing party to Switzerland at the beginning of January which is rather fun for him. Hugo and I hope to go at Easter and take Inigo.

I do hope that you are keeping well and that your eyes aren't bothering you too much. When are you coming over here again? We are in the middle of some very nasty, damp weather at the moment and I must go now and see my mother who has got her usual pre-Christmas temperature and cold on the chest.

Lots of love from us all