It only happens once every four years, and although this blog started with the birth of Éowyn in 2008, its (and, obviously, her) birth was in October, long after 2008’s leap day. Therefore despite running for 7½ years it is only the second time that this blog has seen bissextus (the leap day). The first leap day of the blog (and Éowyn and Amélie’s first) deigned a day specific write up so, too, does this second (and Ezra’s first) deserve a whole write up to itself; let’s make it a tradition.
As you may know the leap day is an extra day added to most years that are divisible by 4 (except, of course, ‘end of century‘ years that are not divisible by 400), this is to compensate for the reality that the Earth does not take 365 days to revolve around the Sun. In fact, the Earth takes 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 16 seconds to complete its journey around our local star hence the need for the additional day to keep our fragile grasp on notional time in sync with nature. Therefore, our calendar repeats itself every 400 years, which is exactly 20,871 weeks, which includes 97 leap days. (This extra day is entitled a ‘Leap Day’ because the usual convention is that a fixed date normally advances one day from one year to the next. In a leap year is will advance two days, thus leaping over one of the days in the week). These 97 days are divided thus: 13 times on a Sunday, Tuesday or Thursday, 14 times on a Friday or a Saturday and 15 times on a Monday or a Wednesday. In 2016, we find that the leap day is on a Monday, which, along with Wednesday (the day on which the previous leap day fell) is statistically the most likely.
So what happened on Monday 29th February 2016, in our little enclave of the world?
The new Monday morning regime began with ensuring all three Baguettes were ready for school, on time and leaving the house by 0810 to allow Ezra enough time to walk to school. It was a bright, crisp and frosty morning to greet the extended February. Thus we wrapped up warm and headed off into the winter air. The first destination was Our Lady of the Rosary where I dropped Ezra off for the start of his second week at school; before then dropping Éowyn off at her base and then Amélie off at hers before walking back home and starting my work day by driving around the edge of Heathrow to Stockley Park. Lucinda had no children to mind and therefore was alone in the house for a couple of hours before having to return to Our Lady of the Rosary to pick Ezra after his morning session of pre-school.
Therefore, like the first bissextus of this blog the second saw the Bagnall family members apart (five now as opposed to the four as was then) each in their own environ, for the morning at least.
As usual, Lucinda collected the girls from school but bought one extra home. Amélie had one of her new friends around for an after-school playdate. This, coupled with inviting Nanny round for dinner and taking Éowyn to Brownies made for a busy evening for Lucinda before I walked in through the door.
I had a very meeting-centric day at work (we are going through a very busy period at work with lots of exciting projects in the planning stages). I walked through the door with just enough time to warm my dinner up, say ‘hello’ get changed and head back out to pick Éowyn up from Brownies.
As I returned Lucinda took Nanny back home before heading to her Slimming World meeting, while I read with the kids and put them to bed. Then it was a week’s worth of ironing (see I am a domesticated husband), a quick tidy of the lounge and then relax! The glamour of the Bagnall household on bissextus 2016!
This is a bit of a departure from the usual fare on BaggieandLucy.com and so there are no photos today, although I am hoping (time permitting) to complete a more traditional update with photos (and there are some on our Flickr pages that have been recently added) later this week – although do not hold me to it.
Hopefully Saturday 29th February 2020 will be a little more interesting than today. At least being a weekend there is a chance that we will be together as a family (assuming I am not in a similar role to my current one).
Peace and Love
Baggie