Dear Friend

It’s been a busy and snowy old week – here’s the view from my office last Wednesday. That bank you can see is the stones on the beach (we are VERY close) and I’ve never seen snow on the stones before. Beautiful.

And a bit of a sad old week. (This bits for you, Nicola King)

We said goodbye to two of our pets this week, the heroic and David Bowie lookalike, Maximilian the First, who we finally had to send to sleep. We thought he had the mange (caused by mites in the food which, when a hamster is old, they are not so able to fight off. He suddenly lost a lot of his lovely white and ginger fur, and started scratching furiously.

Now, one shouldn’t count the cost of looking after one you love, but let me tell you he cost us a pretty penny towards the end, with his drops and injections and fresh fruit and veg diet supplements. Turned out not be be mange at all, but some awful skin problem caused by his advanced years. He was nearly 3 years old, which in the words of the vet, was “methuselan” in hamster years.

Always known for his great escapes, to the great detriment of the under-sofa area (his favourite bolt hole) Max kept us on our toes to the last, with Steve being most surprised to meet him in the kitchen one morning, just when we thought his spectacularly agile escapologist days were over. Here’s a picture of him trying the great outdoors under the watchful eye of his “mummy” Phoebe (seagulls are killers!). Look at the little pawsies…so sad. RIP, Maximilian The Hamster 2004-2007 Much Loved By All At Money Gym Towers.

Then we lost Albert, the first and the best fish pet, who outlived five others and was a “black moor with butterfly tail”, who started out all beautiful, black and velvety with a tail like midnight chiffon

He rather surprisingly turned blotchy orange over the course of his life, not wanting to stand out in the crowd of the orange gang, Sunny II, Son Of Lava, and the new arrivals, Will, Keiran and Nelson I. Although HE had to be helped on his way by Steve, (who has taken the fish as his own domain, exercising housekeeping on that tank beyond any of our previous efforts) who let him drift off in a gentle manner, by laying him in a bowl of water in the freezer. As the temperature drops, they just go to sleep apparently (following my brother in law Nick’s instructions – and he should know coz he’s in the navy!!).

Steve’s been doing a great line in cardboard coffins, cross making and grave-digging and he is now describing himself as “right hand man, butler, boy-who-makes-the-tea and funeral director”.

On the work / busy front, we have been getting ready for the re-launch of The Money Gym Platinum Level at the new membership fee (and having “complimentary introductory” calls from those of you canny enough to want to join The Money Gym before 14th February, when the fee goes up.

We are just about to do a final survey to see which elements of the programme are perceived to have the most value and that should be interesting. We will use those results to hone our offering and decide what to include in our Money Gym Graduates Mastermind Group.

We have also been out and about at the Yes! Group, and getting Andy Shaw’s Private Label Book Launch (with extra goodies) out to my ezine readers. I was also helping Marcus promote his upcoming and highly recommended stockmarket course – Marcus does our Money Gym stockmarket workshops of course.

He’s lent me one of his homestudy courses, as I think we don’t blog enough about stockmarket investing and I need a hobby (!!) I’ll be going on his next two day course, but I want to get started now.

Have fun, I am!
Nicola