A new fireplace

Saturday 26th December 2015Thursday 24th December 2015Baggie

One of the missing features when we bought our house was a fireplace. Not that it really matters in this day and age and, it goes without saying that it certainly did not put us off the purchase. Nevertheless when we had issues with our central heating last year we thought that a fireplace would have been a nice back up, as well as the æsthetic appeal of a flame – to satisfy the pyromaniac in me.

We, therefore, have kept an eye on the many house-related magazines that Lucinda buys for general decorating tips and fashions for fireplace-related ideas. It was in one of these magazines that we saw a woodburning (to be strictly accurate: multifuel) stove that we liked. It is amazing when you start looking into areas in which you are not familiar, how big and complex such a market is and so it was for stoves. Nevertheless we both like the company, the company name and more specifically the stove itself. Established in 2001 Chilli Penguin are small family run business located near the stunning coastline of the Llyn Peninsula in North Wales. We liked the fact that it was a UK based company; we liked the fact that they are highly efficient; we liked the design but above all that we liked the chilli penguin logo.

Chilli Penguin have developed a unique clean burn system. Air is drawn in from the underside of the stove through stainless steel channels within the firebox. These channels direct jets of oxygen directly into the fire and down the back of the glass. This pre-heated secondary combustion air ignites the unburnt combustable gases. This means that the wood burns far more efficiently it also means that the blackening of the stove glass is minimised, giving a clear view of the fire.

To prevent the stove from dominating the room we decided that we would like a shallow but wide stove and Chilli Penguin have just the design: Woody. The Woody is the ‘widescreen’ of woodturning stoves, slim but wide allowing longer logs to be burned. It is also their most efficient stove with 82% efficiency burning wood (increasing to 87% for coal!). To give you some idea of what that means, burning wood in an open fire is between 20-30% efficient, so we will get about 3 times as much energy out of the same volume of wood which effectively means that we will only need a third of the wood that an open fire would require. It has also passed its DEFRA testing which allows it to be used in smoke control areas.

Now we had chosen a stove we needed to chose an installation company. Windsor and Eton Stoves had a fantastic on-line reputation and when Chris came round we immediately liked him and put us at ease about the construction and gave us some design ideas. Then those magazines came in handy again and we came up with what we wanted and booked him in.

We were very happy with Chris and his team, although his e-mail communications was sometimes wanting (great on the phone, not so good on email) but would quite happily live with that for the work that they did in installing our new fireplace. It is amazing to see the amount of work that was required behind (and under) the scenes to make a safe and sturdy install. There is a real science behind not only burning wood but the safety required to ensure that we do not poison the family with carbon monoxide (carbon monoxide detector fitted as part of the install).

With this in mind I asked, and received, for Christmas a book on wood: chopping wood, storing wood, burning wood the Scandinavian way – and as a people that are the pre-eminent experts on wood there can be no better teacher. I have bought my 6.5 lb splitting maul and a 1.5lb hand axe; I have yet to build my log store (out of pallets that brought the material to build the fireplace) then I will be all prepared for a cold spell – even if, as fate, would have it, we have experienced the warmest December on record.

Let’s hope it turns cold so that I have a real excuse to start to burn things! For those of you that like that sort of thing here is the story of the build in photo form (redecoration to begin in the new year):

Peace and Love

Baggie

Before the install

All the work behind the scenes

The start of the fireplace itself

Nearly there

Just needs the stove

The first fire!

Merry Christmas 2015

Monday 21st December 2015Thursday 12th November 2015Baggie

To all our Friends and Family, and casual readers of this blog

We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your love and support in what has been an emotional year. You gave us strength when days were dark.

Do not walk behind me; I may not lead. Do not walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend for walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Love from

Baggie, Lucy, Éowyn, Amélie and Ezra.

Merry Christmas from Éowyn, Amélie and Ezra

It’s coming on Christmas, they’re cutting down trees

Friday 18th December 2015Saturday 19th December 2015Baggie

I’m on a roll, you wait for ages for an update and then a second appears without warning! The previous revolved around mommy and daddy – for once – this one is back on track and is about the people you really want to read about: The Baguettes!

As one would expect for a write up around Christmas there is an awful amount of Christmas related shenanigans in the lives of the Bagnalls.

As per last year, our local garden centre, Vermeulens, opened their Santa’s grotto. This year it took on a little more of a personal significance. Vermeulens run the grotto for free but ask for donations for local charity and the charity chosen this year was Sam Beare Hospice who were so supportive with our family through Granddad’s illness. Indeed, it is the charity that we have raised money for on Granddad’s memorial page, (which you can find here).

Unfortunately, I was working on that weekend, so I couldn’t visit Santa with the girls and Ezra, but Lucinda met up with a couple of friends and their children so there was a big group of them going to ask Santa for all the gifts that you had no idea that they wanted and haven’t bought!

This first visit to Santa was the day after the first pantomime of the season. The local amateur dramatics society, the Riverside Players, put on a pantomime every year at the Memorial Hall in Old Windsor. This year was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Again, I was, unfortunately, working and so Lucinda took Éowyn and Amélie with Éowyn’s best friend Aaliyah (Ezra stayed at Nanny’s – he is a little too young to sit through a pantomime just yet). Amélie spent most of the show hiding under the chair, frightened of the Evil Stepmother – yet said how much she enjoyed it on her return. As with all of their performances, the Riverside Players pantomime was of an extremely high standard and enjoyed by all.

Since I was at work for both of those events, we needed to book up secondary events so that I could accompany the Baguettes, on my weekends off. Therefore the following Sunday morning we headed to Bocketts farm in deepest, darkest Surrey (Fetcham, near Leatherhead to be precise), to visit the Santa grotto there. Bocketts do not allow you to pre-book your visit to Santa; you turn up then allocated the next available slot to visit Santa.

Therefore, we set out nice and early Sunday morning to ensure that we were there as soon as Bocketts opened so that we could find ourselves in one of the early slots. Indeed, we turned up at 0915 and the girls were on the tractor-trailer (this is a grotto on a working farm) at 0930! The adults walked alongside the trailer for the short journey to the converted barn where Santa has set up his grotto.

You walk through to his straw lined room and plonk yourself on the hay bales arranged as seats in front of Santa. It was very well done, and he called each child (or group of children) up and opened his big book of presents and wrote their names down (even if he had a slight issue with our children’s names) and what presents they would like, before handing out a little present to them.

One aside to our visit was an event, which was a little strange and highlights the smallness of the world. A work colleague was looking through his Facebook timeline, when his niece’s husband posted a picture of their child’s visit to Santa. He looked at the photo and thought why is Baggie in that photo? Therefore, he reposted it on my timeline to confirm that it was indeed me. There, sitting on a hay bale next to Santa was my good self. His niece and her husband had taken their child to see Santa at the same time, and same place, as us. Two sets of strangers linked by a mutual acquaintance, mobile phone camera footage and social media. What a strange world that we live in.

So, two trips to Santa, one with daddy and one without; so it was with pantomimes. A second trip to the theatre beckoned, this time a ‘professional’ pantomime, Sleeping Beauty at Woking theatre. Again, Ezra stopped in with Nanny while Mommy and Daddy took Éowyn and Amélie, around the M25 deeper into Surrey.

The seats were up in the gods and although afforded us a good view was a little vertiginous! This was my first professional pantomime at a theatre as an adult. Apparently we used to go to the pantomime as children with my cousins, but I have to rely on Nanny Fran’s memory as I have no recollection of these big nights out. Obviously, I have seen amateur ones, my dad’s employers used to put them on for the families of the workers when I was a child. My dad was very much involved in the productions, indeed one year he was one of the ugly sisters in their production of Cinderella. Therefore, I am no stranger to the Pantomime but since we have kids I have been working in the weekends leading up to Christmas and so have not been able to attend this family tradition. Now, my job has changed and I am actually off at weekends there will be more of these in the future!

The other great tradition of this time of the year is the ubiquitous school nativity play. With two children of school age then that means two nativity plays to enjoy. However, Éowyn attends drama classes after school and thus there was an additional end of term performance to attend. With a stroke of fortune, or just good planning on the part of the school we were able to attend performances of all three plays on the same day.

Neither of the girls had starring roles, Éowyn had been asked to be a narrator but had declined because there were too many lines to read, and she was the narrator last year.

Amélie’s play was based around a Christmas tree and the toys that come to life on Christmas Eve. Amélie was a dancing doll and had a song to sing and a dance to perform – along with the other dancing dolls. You could see the concentration in her face and she was obviously enjoying it. With nearly 100 children, all with roles to play it is quite a testament to the teachers and staff that the play was so entertaining considering the ages of the children (4 and 5). The main issue was the number of parents that stood up throughout the play blocking the view of everyone else. There is an inherent selfishness in too many people. By all means, stand up and encourage your child, and take a photo if you want but half a thought for the other 100 people who are also there to see their child and would also like to take a photo. Indeed, one of the mothers gave another mother a piece of her mind regarding her inconsideration.

Éowyn’s play was entitled ‘Behind the stable door’ and told the story of the nativity from the point of view of the animals that had been kicked out of the stable to allow Joseph and Mary to spend the night. Éowyn was in the choir. Now, I love my daughter dearly but she is not the greatest of singers so it was a brave move by the casting director. Nevertheless, she sang her heart out and it sounded more than passable. Perhaps because the parents watching Éowyn’s play have sat through a number of nativity plays by the time they reach year 2, there was very little standing and blocking of views; much more consideration.

The third play of the day was Éowyn’s Sense Theatre production of a highly abridged version of Annie. Now I don’t want to be disparaging but considering that for an hour a week for the last 12 weeks they have been practising this, and the children there all want to do drama after school I felt that the two nativity plays that we saw earlier on in the day were much more polished. Is that a testament to the teachers and staff of the school or a slight on the drama teachers I am not sure. Saying that, there were some very good individual performances and Éowyn was definitely putting the effort in and seemed to be thoroughly enjoying herself. Shame she didn’t have a bigger speaking part, but she was one of the youngest in that group. It will be interesting to see if she wants to continue with drama and whether she wants to take it any further. You will have to watch this space.

Therefore, after two quick updates, all before Christmas I had better leave you there so that you can look at the photos and put your feet up while you drink your mulled wine and eat your festive nuts.

Peace and Love

Baggie

P.S. As was the case last last year, the International Space Station will pass over the UK at approximately 1730 on Christmas Eve. Therefore, if there are clear skies you can look up and wave at the British astronaut Major Tim Peake as he hurtles through space. However, if there are any children reading, at 1730 Santa’s sleigh will be visible in the sky as he rushes to India to hand out presents to the good boys and girls in that part of the world.

P.P.S. One more little astronomical note: If you are younger than 38 this will be the first time that you will have seen a full moon on Christmas Day. The last time this happened was 1977 and the next one will not be until 2034. So, again, if the skies are clear take a peek at the moon after the Christmas festivities and marvel at its fullness. Is it any coincidence that the first Star Wars film was also released in 1977? Nah!

P.P.P.S. Any guesses for this year’s Christmas Lyric title? Award yourselves 25 points if you said River by Joni Mitchell.