Baggie and Lucy

October update and a weekend in Bath to celebrate a Silver Anniversary

Friday 21st October 2016Baggie

The three week gap between Amélie’s and Éowyn’s birthdays is usually barren on this website unless there is a major event (and there have been a small number of such instances over the last eight years). This year I thought I would treat you to a bonus update because I am feeling generous, however time has crept upon me so it doesn’t actually bisect but has been snuck in just before the birthday update, and just before the half term holiday.

So, as half term looms into view it is probably a good time to reflect on the school term so far. Both girls still thoroughly enjoy school, although the new school year has taken them both a little time to settle in. Amélie because, as mentioned in a previous post, as you enter year 1 you have to leave the childish ways of Reception behind and become much more disciplined in your learning. So, instead of learning through play and breaking up the working day with unscheduled play breaks, year 1 is much more regimented in lesson structure and it wasn’t just Amélie that was struggling with the change in regime.

Éowyn struggled in the first few weeks for a completely different reason. The school had decided to completely mix up the classes of her year as they moved from year 2 to year 3. Unfortunately for Éowyn, nearly her entire circle of friends were split up (probably because they all talk too much!) and she had to forge new friendships as she entered junior school.

Nevertheless we have just had our first Parents’ evening of the academic year and both girls are doing well. They have no problems with Éowyn’s work and she is an intelligent, enthusiastic girl who always wants to take an active role in lessons, however she is prone to bouts of silliness and talks too much! We will work on that! Amélie, on the other hand is top of her class in everything, exceeding expectations in everything and is a ‘delight’ to teach. I think Lucinda and I are both guilty of thinking that Éowyn is the clever one (and she is naturally very clever and is very questioning, it is just that she has a tendency to laziness mainly because she doesn’t need to try so hasn’t developed the tools to motivate herself to learning) while Amélie is just quiet and gets on with it. Amélie means ‘hard-working’, and Iris means ‘angel’ and she is our hard-working angel!

It is not just school that starts up afresh in September. Both Éowyn and Amélie are part of the Girl Guide movement. Éowyn is in Brownies and Amélie attends the local Rainbow group. They both thoroughly enjoy their respective evenings and neither are ever in a rush to leave the respective church halls at the end of the meetings when we come to collect them. There must be something in the blood both Lucinda and her mum loved Brownies while Nanny Fran was a Brown Owl and a Rainbow leader.

It is not just school that Amélie has had to get used to but as you may remember she is now bespectacled. None of our fears of bullying or resistance from Amélie to wearing her glasses have materialised which is a worry off our mind and we now have a confirmed appointment for the ophthalmologist to start the treatment for her amblyopia. Lucinda did have to do some negotiations with the hospital bookings team however as the first date given coincided with the special something that was alluded to in the post Half term and a trip to Nanny Fran’s but you will have to wait to find out exactly what that is. She was initially told that if she couldn’t do the date given we would have to go back not he waiting list but she explained why we couldn’t make it and they relented giving us an appointment for the following week. Well done Lucinda!

It hasn’t just been school, swimming and girl guides though. Those of you that know me, know that I read Electronic Engineering at Manchester University in the early 1990’s (I, know, I don’t look old enough!). In my final year I shared a house in Longsight with four other lads. We have kept in touch through the years attending each others’ weddings, however that excuse to meet up has dried up and so if we don’t make an effort then the years will pass us by and before you know it a decade or more will have passed.

Life is busy and it can be difficult to arrange these meet ups but inertia is the biggest obstacle. Once the notion has been sown we are all happy to become involved, we just need someone to take the upper hand and start the ball rolling. Up stepped Karl and Sara (in fairness to Karl, mainly Sara) who set up a WhatsApp group, found suitable accommodation and donned the cloak of debt collector to ensure that we all managed to pay on time.

The choice of location was the town of Box, just outside of Bath, in a lovely luxury home called Shockerwick Lodge. Four bedrooms in the main house with a fifth in a log cabin in the garden, it fitted the criteria perfectly. A large lounge and an equally large kitchen completed the layout with the added bonus of not just one but a pair of hot tubs!

We hired the house for two nights and could take ownership on Friday afternoon and had to vacate by Sunday lunchtime, so to make the most of the time I decided to take holiday on the Friday so that we could head down the M4 as soon as the girls left school. This meant that the girls could not attend their Friday after-school clubs and Amélie could not go to Rainbows. In addition they missed their Saturday morning swimming lessons but all were a small price to pay for a weekend of fun, or at least we hoped it would be for the children as much as it would be for me.

The decision to leave as soon as the girls left school was a good one. We missed the heavy Friday night London traffic and it meant that we arrived at the house while it was still light. We were the first ones to arrive and so had the choice of bedrooms and we had the opportunity to explore the house and garden before night fell. Gradually the house filled and the weekend celebrations began.

Although we do not see each other that often it wasn’t long before we were all chatting and mickey-taking as though we were 20 years old. Indeed we sat up until the early hours discussing Brexit, Trump and reflecting on our time in Manchester. I crawled into bed around 03:00 leaving some of them still putting the World to rights.

There was no lie-in for the Bagnalls on Saturday morning though, not with Ezra! So, we were first up and washed and dressed and gradually we all arose proving that we still have the stamina to drink to the wee hours and be up and functioning at a reasonable hour. Which I think surprised us, as much as you dear readers!

A fairly relaxed day followed with the kids getting on extremely well. Éowyn and Amélie got on extremely well with Andy’s eldest daughter, while Ezra latched on to Charlie’s youngest mainly because he had lego and a lightsabre. This definitely puts him high in Ezra’s estimation especially since the lightsabre was modelled on Kylo Ren’s lightsabre replete with the cross beams. (Although Ezra’s current favourite Star Wars character is Darth Maul – I am concerned about my youngest!). Advantage was taken of the hot tubs – mainly by the children but we didn’t just stay in the house. Karl had done some research and found that we were not too far from the Avon and Kennet canal and so we headed in convoy the couple of miles or so for a pleasant walk along the canal looping back to a pub (it would be rude not to!). Then we headed back to house for a repeat of the previous night of drinking and chatting.

Again, we were woken early by Ezra and got up and begun the tidying and packing ready for leaving the house. Éowyn was extremely upset to leave her new friends and we have promised that we will meet up soon, especially since Andy and his family only live a dozen or so miles from us. It is nonsense really that we don’t meet up that often – but,as this website is testament, life can just be a little busy.

Andy and Máire had to leave to get back home but the rest of the party decided that we would try and find somewhere for the remaining 8 adults and 5 children to have Sunday lunch. That proved to be a little difficult, nevertheless we found somewhere along the way and so decided to take a punt. I think it was probably the worse Sunday lunch, if not Pub grub that I have ever had. We waited for what seems like an eternity to receive our food after we ordered it (in reality it was probably close to two hours!) and when it arrived it really wasn’t worth the wait. We were all so hungry that it didn’t matter I think we all managed to eat it and Ezra invented a new favourite. His garlic bread was so dry and hard he dipped it in the gravy boat. Garlic bread and gravy – a winning combination!

We first met 25 years ago and we have all done pretty well for ourselves putting our degrees to good use and I truly believe that we will since be friends in another 25 years we just have to keep this momentum up and not leave it too long before the next Manchester Alumni Moot.

Before I leave you just a quick funny from Ezra. When you are getting him ready for bed he has a tendency to hide, usually under the bedclothes. So the game commences and you loudly province ‘I wonder where Ezra is?‘ And then you eventually discover him under the giggling lump of bedclothes and he thinks it is brilliant. I was playing this game the other night and I loudly pronounce ‘Who is this under the bedclothes?‘

‘Not me!‘ came the reply. I am not entirely sure he has got this hiding malarkey down to a tee yet!

Stand by for an Éowyn birthday write up and see you soon

Peace and Love

Baggie

Hot tub fun

Amélie!

Splash!

Seesaw

Margery Daw

Johnny has got a new master

Amélie

A nice cuppa

This is fun

Ezra and Éowyn

The Baguettes

I’m going fishing

Best friends

Shockerwick Lodge

Stopping taking photos

We can still parent!

The Rushford Ruffians

The Manchester Alumni

Amélie’s Sixth Birthday

Tuesday 4th October 2016Thursday 6th October 2016Baggie

It has become somewhat of a tradition that each of the Baguettes has a page dedicated to their birthday each year and despite the number of updates recently I am not going to stop that tradition just yet. This year is flying by and without so much as a by your leave we find ourselves at the start of Autumn and Amélie’s birthday. As somewhat given away by the title of this update, Amélie has just completed her sixth trip around the Sun.

This year Amélie’s birthday fell mid-week and with busy school lives it is not the ideal time to celebrate one’s birthday. With my break in the lead up to the weekend before her birthday it seemed like a good idea that if were we going to do anything for her birthday then we should do it then. This also meant that Amélie could spin her birthday out for 5 days – and who doesn’t want to do that?

With the girls birthdays a mere three weeks apart it has been known that they get rolled into one celebration, indeed birthday parties tend to be joint affairs. However, as they are growing older they want a little more self-identity and more independence (although they are both very close) and so it was when we offered them a birthday party. Éowyn didn’t want to share and indeed would rather have a small gathering with her close friends, while Amélie likes to be everybody’s friends and wanted to invite everyone. So just a party for Amélie then. We asked Amélie what she would like to do for her party and with her new love of swimming she asked if she could have a swimming pool party. Now, personal swimming pools are not very popular in Staines and Bagnall Manor does not have its own pool so we looked to the local leisure centre to host the party. This was duly booked for the Sunday evening before her birthday. Invites were sent out with a request that they needed to be accompanied by an adult for pool safety reasons.

With a party booked on the Sunday evening and her birthday not until the following Wednesday you can see how this was going to become an extended birthday celebration. Then why not extend it another day and so Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz came down on Saturday, staying over and returning before the pool party on the Sunday, really making it a weekend of celebrations.

Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz arrived around lunchtime with Auntie Mary joining them a little later. As always the Baguettes were overexcited and Amélie doubly so when she saw the presents that Nanny Fran had brought with her. She was given special permission to open her presents from the Bagnall family and was even more excited when she saw what she had received. A double buggy from Nanny Fran (Amélie told Nanny Fran that she wanted one when she stayed with her in August) and the beginning of her Sylvanian Families collection (not Slovenian Families as the autocorrect seems to think that she received, that is a completely different kind of collection) – something that was to become a feature of this birthday.

A Saturday evening meal with both Nannies, Bagnall Aunties and close family was a treat in itself for Amélie and was a fantastic end to the first day of Birthday celebrations. Those celebrations moved up a gear the following day. The morning was spent with Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz. The pool party wasn’t until 4pm so there was plenty of time to get ready, making sandwiches and ensuring that all the party bags were evenly filled with sweets, bubbles and the all important Whoopie Cushions.

As we were booking a party for a six year old we were given the small pool, which was perfect for the kiddies but a little too shallow for the adults, 80cm only comes up to my knees. Most of the party the adults were sitting on the floor of the pool, indeed it was a little safer than trying to swim or kneeling. This was because the bottom of the pool was rough. I assume that this is to stop the kids from slipping on a smooth floor. In theory, that is quite a good idea however, it is not too good on one’s knees if you kneel and it certainly it isn’t very good on your chest and belly when you try swimming under water to pretend to be a shark when playing with the kids. As you can probably guess I know this from bitter experience and the scrapped skin I received seemed to sting even more as the chlorine reacted with the scratches.

The only downside of the party was it felt a little rushed as we left the pool. Obviously we had to get dried and dressed before moving into the party room. We barely had time to eat the food and there was no time for party games, however I don’t think that really mattered as after swimming all the kids (and the adults) were ravenous. The food was decimated (which was good) and all the birthday cake disappeared (not so good – I didn’t even get a slice). Nevertheless the party was a success. The feedback that we got was all good, everyone seemed to enjoy the pool party and the party bags and especially the Whoopie Cushions were big hits. Indeed we feel quite proud that we have introduced a new generation of children to the simple delight that is the Whoopie Cushion.

Amélie’s actual birthday was on the Wednesday so apart from a flying visit from Uncle Michael on Tuesday night there was little birthday celebrations on Monday or Tuesday. To help celebrate her birthday on Wednesday she had two friends from school come over after school for dinner and to play with her ever growing collection of Sylvania Families, after further additions from Uncle Michael as well as her main presents from Mommy and Daddy. Indeed the collection wasn’t over for this birthday as a late visit from Uncle Steven and Auntie Zoe completed the haul for this birthday.

Amélie thoroughly enjoyed her birthday week and was completely spoilt with the number of presents that she received from everyone so we would like to thank you all for her presents and cards and kind wishes she is a very happy girl.

Happy birthday Amélie

Love Mommy and Daddy

Birthday girl

Birthday Cake

Birthday smile

A quick term time catch up

Friday 23rd September 2016Friday 23rd September 2016Baggie

I am really spoiling you with all these updates of late. Mostly trying to catch up on the Summer holidays, which seems a little strange as we tiptoe into Autumn (Fall – for our North American viewers). Obviously the last topic deserved an update all of its own, however I thought that a quick catch up was probably necessary to get you up to speed with the goings on over the first few weeks of term.

As alluded to in the previous posts I have been busy at work. This is always the case with the beginning of the football seasons but tagged on to that has been UHD (4k if you must – although I am inclined to argue with you that point out that you are wrong on that account), IBC and the World Cup qualifiers to name but three. The other members of the family have been busy too. All three children have returned back to school; Éowyn has returned to Brownies; Amélie to Rainbows and Lucinda has the return of the after school wards in her childminding career.

Lucinda has been given the nod that Ofsted have her in her sights for her first proper inspection since the first one when she started childminding. Ofsted puts the panic into all institutions when they announce that they are coming for an inspection, whether you are the best school in the area or a childminder trying to carve out a career that allows you to spend some time with your own family. So it is for Lucinda. Childminding isn’t just minding children, you have to demonstrate the methods that you are using to educate the children, keep them safe (including creating risk assessments for every activity type) while noting their development and any signs of abuse. The amount of paperwork involved is enormous.

Lucinda had been using an app with an external database to keep all her observations on her wards’ development in an attempt to ease the amount of paperwork that she needed to produce. Unfortunately at the end of the Summer during an update the company suffering a catastrophic corruption of its database and all work from the last 18 months (including the whole of Lucinda’s work on all her wards) was lost! Needless to say this has put more pressure on her for although Ofsted would no doubt understand, she is frantically trying to at least have some semblance of progress on good ol’ fashioned paper.

Although I am currently in the midst of six days off work – hence the avalanche of updates on this site – I have had one other day off during September. The girls had an inset day on the first Monday of September and so I took the day off work to spend some time with them, as I hadn’t all Summer. I dropped Ezra off at school (poor lad still had to go) and after a detour to the Genius Bar in the local Apple Store where Lucinda got a replacement phone we headed to the swimming pool in Windsor. We had asked the girls what they would like to do on a day off with Daddy and swimming was the unanimous reply. Both girls have swimming lessons but Amélie’s progress was being halted by her lack of confidence in ducking her head under the water. This was the first time that Lucinda and I had been swimming with them since their lessons had begun and so it was the first opportunity to attempt to give her this confidence.

Éowyn is happy to go beneath the surface and was trying her best to encourage Amélie to do the same. Lucinda and I both showed her that there was nothing to be worried about, but to no avail. So then I brought out evil Dad. I was encouraging her to jump up and down in the water with assistance from me as we jumped up I pulled her into the water with me and her head went under. I immediately jumped back up so that there was no time for panic or to be frightened and I braced myself for the reaction. It could not have been any better. ‘That’s fun!‘ she enthused, ‘Let’s do it again!‘ She then proceeded to spend more time under the water’s surface than above it and she is well and truly over that stage of swimming. Back over to the professionals.

Swimming lessons are Saturday morning and the Leisure centre is behind their school, so six days a week you will find us on our short walk through the park. It is still a delight not to have to join the mêlée that is the school run, fighting for a car park space; simply leave the house 5-10 minutes (15 minutes for poor Ezra – his school is a little further away) before you want to arrive and you are there.

All three are still enjoying school. Éowyn has had two Bronze Awards while Amélie has done slightly better with a Bronze and a Silver. Although in Éowyn’s defence, Amélie has also only effectively had two Bronze awards but because the rules are slightly different in Amélie’s class she was given a silver for the second Bronze award. In Éowyn’s class you have to move from Bronze to Silver (and then from Silver to Gold) in the same day, for Amélie you stay on Bronze for a fortnight and any subsequent Bronze awards will take you to the next level, in Amélie’s case Silver.

The other early term achievement that they both have attained is to move up a reading level each. No difference in rules here, just hard work and practise by both our girls. In addition, to the Bronze awards and upward movement in reading levels Éowyn has also received 10/10 for both of her spelling tests so far this term. The Baguettes are doing well. This is in no small part to the fact that both girls like their new teachers. It is always hard moving up a year and leaving behind a teacher that you really loved and we feared, especially for Amélie, that this would be difficult. This doesn’t seem to have happened as both seem very happy with their new tutors. The only difficulty that Amélie is currently struggling with is the lack of free time to play. In reception they have more freedom to explore learning through play and more time to simply play. In year 1 that is no longer the case. Lessons are a bit more structured and they can’t just sit in a corner and play with Sticklebricks. It is a sad indictment of what is wrong in the world.

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to play when we are six,

With dolls, Lego and Sticklebricks.

Apologies to William Henry Davies.

We are obviously very proud of the girls academic achievements so far this academic year and poor Ezra hasn’t really begun his educational journey however that doesn’t stop him demonstrating his intellectual prowess, sometimes to the detriment of others, in the following example: me. Myself and Ezra were in the kitchen and I was getting breakfast. ‘What would you like for Breakfast, Ezra?‘ I asked. ‘I can make you toast, a crumpet, cereal,‘ and then I spied the bag of pastries by the bread bin; making an assumption regarding the contents I continued the menu: ‘or you can have a brioche.‘ (Very continental the Bagnall household!) Ezra replied that we would like a brioche and without a second thought I took one of the pastries from the bag, placed in on a plate and put in on the table before him.

In the tones of one who, not only can not believe the lack of knowledge of the other party but is thoroughly disappointed with the offering before him, Ezra dismissively said: ‘Daddy, this is not a brioche, this is a pain au chocolat!’ I have not felt so rebuked in such a long time.

Ezra has however taken a step towards full-time education not in any academical way but in terms of his pre-school booster vaccinations. He now has had his full course of recommended inoculations until he becomes a teenager – unless we decide to go anywhere exotic on holiday! We had told him that he was going and the nurse would put some special medicine into his blood to make him big and strong. We also promised him that if he was a big brave boy we would take him to the toy shop where he could choose a toy. He seemed to know exactly what he wanted, so that was a good focus for the visit to the health centre. We arrived on time but the clinic was running about 30 minutes late so the most difficult part was keeping him entertained in the waiting room. The nurse was very good and Ezra was extremely brave – I think he said ouch once (he had two injections) and only complained that his arms hurt after I had put his shirt back on. I think it might have been a ploy to extract another sticker from the nurse (he left with three across his chest and certificate of bravery). He then told the nurse he was going to go into Staines and get a dinosaur. Thoroughly deserved.

As we stepped into the toy shop he made a bee line for the toy that he wanted: a roaring Tyrannosaurus Rex. It was on special offer and a bargain, so there were no negotiations and Daddy duly handed over the money and rewarded Ezra for being the brave boy he said he was going to be.

With Amélie’s birthday just around the corner you can probably expect another update in the not-too-distant future – I am really spoiling you this month!

Peace and Love

Baggie