2013 was a sad year for our family because my mother passed away towards the end of the year. It was an eventful year in other ways as well. We made our annual pilgrimage to England to visit friends and family, and to visit old haunts in Plymouth. On this occasion we would be accompanied by our friends Janette and Thomas. We also had our first ever holiday in Greece, and discovered the wonderful village Psakoudia, which is in Chalkidiki – part of Central Macedonia, in Northern Greece.
On our return to Hamburg at the end of August, the weather remained reasonably clement throughout what remained of August and into September, which meant that we could enjoy a cruise on the Alster – a tributary of the river Elbe.