Baggie and Lucy

Éowyn’s Seventh Birthday

Thursday 29th October 2015Thursday 29th October 2015Baggie

Somewhat belated, but considering the previous post I am sure that you can understand. Yes as the title suggests, our eldest, Éowyn turned seven on the 17th October. However, as you can imagine it wasn’t the birthday that we had hoped for her.

We knew for sometime that I was working that weekend, and with a heavy Premier League fixture list and Rugby World Cup Semi-Finals that weekend it wasn’t possible to take it off. Therefore Lucinda decided that she would take the baguettes to Nanny Fran’s and celebrate Éowyn’s actual birthday in the Black Country, and we would have a family celebration in the week. Éowyn had planned to go to the big softplay in West Bromwich with everyone and then she would ask Auntie Liz to take her to the cinema to watch Hotel Transylvania 2, in the afternoon and then back to Nanny’s for cake.

Unfortunately with Granddad’s deteriorating health we decided that Lucinda shouldn’t be 120 miles away (the right decision it turned out) and we asked Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz to, once again, make their way down the M40 and visit us. I had to leave for work before they made it down, but had hoped that if everything was going well, that I may be able to leave slightly early and see my daughter before she went to bed. However, this day wasn’t going to plan. I arrived at work to find that the supervisor that was rostered on had phoned in sick so I had to step back to the frontline and take his place. There was no getting out early for me today.

Éowyn’s other parent, Lucinda, left almost as soon as Nanny Fran worked through the door (just enough time to give Auntie Liz directions to the nearest cinema – Éowyn still wanted to go – and Nanny Fran general instructions) to help with the transport of Granddad to the Princess Alice Hospice.

So poor Éowyn, on her birthday was abandoned, along with her siblings by her parents. For noble reasons, admittedly, and not completely abandoned they were left in very good hands. The memory I have from my seventh birthday was my birthday party being cancelled because there was a heavy fall of snow (my birthday falls on the vernal equinox and thus the last day of the astronomical winter) and no one could make it. So I can sympathise with my eldest.

Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz kept the baguettes entertained for the day and Auntie Liz and Éowyn certainly didn’t get lost on the way to the cinema. It wasn’t just Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz, however, that came for a visit and kept the baguettes entertained for they brought with them the school guinea pigs that Auntie Liz looks after at weekends. Conkers and Truffles (the guinea pigs) were a big hit with all three, and all three loved to hold them. Living at Auntie Liz’s school the guinea pigs are used to being held by small hands and so were quite content to being handled inexpertly by the baguettes.

The day didn’t go all smoothly for Nanny Fran. The breakers tripped at home plunging the downstairs into darkness. I had to show Nanny Fran how to reset the RCD and flick the current breaker via the wonders of FaceTime while wrestling with problems at work. Then, as Nanny Fran was cooking dinner, Amélie felt unwell and managed to redecorate the bathroom, Poor Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz, while they were cleaning and comforting Amélie, she burned the dinner. It was one of those days! Fortunately it just seemed to be one of those things she didn’t have a temperature and was much better the next day.

I didn’t manage to leave work before Amélie and Ezra had gone to bed but Éowyn (with special birthday privileges) was cuddling Nanny Fran on the sofa watching Strictly Come Dancing. I gave Éowyn a big birthday cuddle before heading off to join Lucinda at the hospice.

Lucinda spent the night at the hospice and since Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz had to return to West Bromwich on Sunday afternoon I checked that my supervisor was feeling better and would be in work I decided that I was better off at home. I could sort a few work things out at home, and with the wonders of modern technology I could send the emails that I was hoping to do on the Saturday so Lucinda could spend as much time as she could with her dad, without the worry of having to come home.

Nevertheless, Sunday morning saw me getting up to take Nanny to the hospice and spending Sunday morning with Granddad and the family while Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz looked after the baguettes. Lucinda and I returned at lunchtime to have lunch and have a belated birthday cake with Éowyn before Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz had to return. Lucinda, also took this opportunity to have a bit of a rest before she headed back to the hospice for the nightshift. Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz begun their return journey and I was left alone with the kids. As it was a school day the next day, we had reading and spelling tests and baths before bed.

As those of you that have read the previous post will know Granddad passed away the next day, so although it seemed unfair that we abandoned Éowyn on her birthday, it was without doubt the correct decision and she had a great time with Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz anyhow.

With a week of sorting things out and it being the last week at school before the half term break we planned to extend Éowyn’s birthday into the next weekend. As you may recall we are, as a family en masse, proud owners of annual Legoland passes. At this time of the year Legoland hold firework displays at weekend evenings so it seemed a good excuse to head over to Windsor and have an afternoon at Legoland and stay until the evening’s firework display. As an added bonus the UK returned to GMT in the wee hours of Sunday, meaning an extra hour in bed (yes, that doesn’t exist when you have small children!) and potentially more importantly it would be darker one hour earlier, all good for fireworks.

For a Sunday in late October the weather was unseasonably mild, in addition it was the first weekend of the half term break and so as a consequence Legoland was packed. Every ride had an above average wait and the concession stands were rammed. Nevertheless we managed to go on a number of rides and find a relatively good place to watch the Ninjago Firework display from the harbour area (for those of you that know the layout of Legoland).

The fireworks were very good, with the occasional fireball that you feel the heat from across the lake although I’m afraid that I did not fully feel the power of the masters of Spinjitzu, Neither did Ezra, We thought that he may be scared by the loud noises and so took headphones to help cover his ears, they did not work the poor little mite was still scared. However, his big sister came to the rescue and covered his ears with her hands for the entire display while I held his hand. It was very touching to see Éowyn act the carer and look after her little brother, especially since it meant that she could not fully enjoy the fireworks herself.

To complete Éowyn’s alternative birthday celebrations, and as an extremely belated birthday party for Amélie too, we headed to Build-A-Bear workshop in Uxbridge for a birthday party for a select group of friends. Éowyn asked to take Aaliyah and Kavya (her best friends) and Amélie asked to take Georgia (her best friend) and thus Lucinda and I shepherded (imagine shepherding cats) 6 youngsters to Build-A-Bear via a McDonald’s lunch treat. The birthday party meant that each of them could build a bear of their own and buy an outfit for it. Somewhat ironically none of them built a bear. Georgia built a cat, the remaining girls built ponies and Ezra built Kevin the Minion to add to the (non-Build-A-Bear) minions of Bob and Steve that he already owns.

And so Éowyn’s final birthday celebration drew an emotional week to a close with her closest friends, her siblings and Mommy and Daddy.

Before I leave you I would like to tell you about the Muchloved site that we have set up in Granddad’s memory. It is in its early development stages but please feel free to pop by and light a candle or leave a memory (click here). I will leave a permanent link in the column on the right hand side of the site, in case you want to go there in the future.

Peace and Love

Baggie

The Build-a-Bear party

Sewing the ‘bears’

The completed ‘bears’

Welcome to Legoland

Swap around

What do you look like?

Behind you!

They are going to be eaten

The dragon ride

Conserving energy

Mommy having fun

All too much

Some bangin’ tunes

Settling in to watch the show

Ready for the show

Illuminated lighthouse

Boom!

Whizz-bang

Goodnight Granddad

Saturday 24th October 2015Wednesday 28th October 2015Baggie

It goes without saying that this is a very hard post to write. Indeed, if this was committed to paper there would be tear stairs making passages illegible. On Monday 19th October just before 2 o’clock in the afternoon John Cathrall, husband, father, grandfather, friend, passed away at the Princess Alice Hospice in Esher. John had been diagnosed with pleomorphic cell sarcoma in April and was told it was terminal in September. Therefore, it was not unexpected however death always comes as a shock, and although it is the one thing that unites us, it seems that our culture tries to avoid the subject.

Somewhat ironically, considering that John was suffering from a terminal diagnosis, he had been in ‘good health’ recently and had been very active. So the swiftness of his passing, although a blessing, has been hard to accept. He was taken to Princess Alice Hospice in Esher on Saturday morning and never really regained consciousness. For the 48 hours he was in the Hospice he was never alone, the family took it in turns to stay with him, even staying overnight on the Saturday and Sunday. I would like to think that this was a great comfort to John in his finally hours, as although the staff at Princess Alice were fantastic and I can not praise them highly enough, family was very important to John and to be surrounded by his family must have filled him with pride and given him great warmth.

It goes without saying that John has left an enormous hole in our lives. He was an extremely practical man and although it is right and proper that we are grieving he would not want us moping around, there are things to be done! He worked hard all his life whether that was in his trade as a builder, or upkeep around his own home and garden or the numerous jobs that his children and grandchildren gave him.

Not only did he work hard he played hard too. Not in the sense of cigarettes and alcohol (unless you include ginger beer or the odd pint of shandy) but in entertaining and being the life and soul of the party. Whether that was being a monster scaring the grandchildren witless or sitting quietly reading a story with grandchildren on his knee, introducing a new generation to Tom and Jerry cartoons or offering tractor trailer rides around his garden.

He had a love of engineering and mechanics that transcended his hobbies, be that gliding, repairing tractors or his love of steam engines. He was always there for advice, whether you wanted it or not, but you would have been a fool to dismiss any DIY advice and I personally learned some new techniques from the man. As Amélie said, ‘Who am I going to get to repair my toys now?’

I only knew John for 11 years but I looked upon him as the father that I missed growing into adulthood. This short essay does not do justice to the man but there is one thing left for me to say:

Thank you, John for welcoming me into your family and allowing me to marry your daughter.

Goodnight Granddad, sleep well you have deserved it.

Nan and Granddad

What do you look like?

Nanny and Granddad

With Harvey at the Seaside

Lucinda and John

John and Harvey

Granddad’s glasses

Red Nose Day

Father and Daughter

Please feel free to pop over to John’s Muchloved site where you can share your own thoughts and tributes, or simply light a candle in memory of Granddad.

Indian Summer

Wednesday 14th October 2015Friday 16th October 2015Baggie

Thought I would try to sneak in a quick update between Amélie’s fifth birthday and Éowyn’s seventh. There is not a great excuse as in past years, but considering the Indian Summer that we are enjoying then it seems only right and fitting that I celebrate it on the website.

The girls have been at school for over a month now and are settling in nicely. For Éowyn it is a matter of getting used to being one of the youngest children on campus (even though she is one of the oldest in her year) and for Amélie it is simply being in full-time education.

As you may recall Amélie was getting upset each morning, complaining (mainly to Lucinda) that she didn’t want to go to school. We spoke to her teacher about this and she said that Amélie was never upset at school. She walks through the door each morning with a smile on her face and takes an active part in all the day’s activities. Therefore, our suspicions that Amélie was getting upset not about going to school but about what she was going to miss out with Lucinda seemed to be true. The fact that Amélie only got upset with Lucinda and not with me, strengthened this suspicion since she wasn’t going to miss out on anything with me, as I was going to work. She was hoping that the waterworks would work with mommy. They certainly had an effect on Lucinda, I had to be the bad guy.

That phase is now past. Amélie doesn’t get upset in a morning, well not that often, there are the occasional wobbles but on the whole she quite happily gets ready and heads off to school with a smile on her face.

As I mentioned in an earlier update, the school have employed not only a traffic light system for disruptive behaviour but a similar system for good behaviour. There is also a reward system for the class as a whole. Individually, they can can receive a bronze, silver or gold reward for positive behaviour and as a group the class can earn tokens and when they have reached a pre-agreed amount (1000) they will get a class reward. Both girls have earned their respective classes token and both girls have been put on bronze multiple times.

In addition I came home from work last Friday to be greeted as I walked through the front door to be told by Éowyn that she had earned the accolade of ‘Star of the Day’. This was obviously excellent news and Lucinda and I were extremely pleased and told her so. However, not wanting to be outdone by her big sister Amélie came home on the same day with the news that she was the ‘Star of the Week’, well what could one say? So as I am praising my two daughters Ezra comes up to tell me that he has earned a butterfly sticker for good behaviour at playgroup. What a way to end a week!

As the title alludes and the opening paragraph states, we have experienced somewhat of an Indian summer. This coupled with the fact that I now, for the first time in many years, have two out of every three weekends off we have been able to take advantage of the unseasonal warm temperatures. We decided that we would also take advantage of our National Trust membership and visit nearby Runnymede.

As anyone with a soupçon of English history will recognise the name Runnymede. On the 15th June 1215 (800 years ago) King John was forced to cede to certain political reforms by rebel barons incensed by the taxes that King John had levied on them to fund unsuccessful wars against France to regain the ancestral lands that he had lost to King Phillip II. This agreement was known as the ‘Great Charter’ (Magna Carta in the language of law: Latin).

The Magna Carta carries little weight in modern law but one of its remaining legacies is right to a fair trial by jury. Therefore, when Surrey County Council and the National Trust commissioned Hew Locke to install a permanent artwork on the ancient meadow to commemorate the 800th anniversary of that historic document the result was ‘The Jurors‘. A dozen bronze chairs each decorated with panels representing significant struggles for freedom and equal rights face each other as if waiting for occupants to sit and debate some topic of importance. The public are encouraged to sit in the chairs and engage with thoughts that they invoke.

Admittedly it was probably a little too highbrow for the baguettes (teach ’em young) however they did enjoy sitting in the chairs and for some reason Ezra somehow gravitated toward the chair with the panel representing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (see the photo below). Was it just random? He wasn’t too interested in the panels on the other chairs. Or did he just know? I haven’t quite made up my mind on that one! Perhaps we’ll just go to Legoland next time!

This isn’t the only historic subject that Éowyn has been learning about of late. At school she had to take in the ubiquitous building block of any school project the empty cereal box. Each member of the class brought in said box and had to make and decorate a Tudor house. Éowyn really enjoyed this display of art and duly earned a trip to Bronze for her efforts. We thought that this was just one of those things that the children do and then they bring it home and you have keep it in a prominent place until they have forgotten about it and dispose of it at some ripe opportunity. Not so, for Éowyn’s Tudor house.

Not really the Tudor era (although undoubtedly there would still be Tudor house around), Éowyn’s class is also learning about the Great Fire of London of 1666 (another of those historical dates that the majority of people born in these isles would know). To demonstrate the devastation that the fire wrought and why it spread so quickly the year 2 classes placed their ‘houses’ in streets in the school playground and the teachers set a fire in one house and watched it spread around the cardboard London. What a great demonstration and something that they will all remember. When I found out what they were doing I was disappointed that I had to go to work and couldn’t stay and watch the fireworks. I quite enjoy a good fire!

Building Tudor houses hasn’t been Éowyn only display of artistic tendencies of late. She also decided to write a song for ‘Show and Tell’. A photograph of the first draft can be seen on our Flickr pages replete with musical notation for the percussion solo (a homemade shaker – a plastic bottle filled with toy beads), ignore the atrocious spelling. The transcript (with correct spelling) is in the postscript to this update. Not a Lennon and McCartney but not a bad first attempt I am sure you will agree.

Éowyn’s spelling is getting better as she has a weekly spelling test in addition to her daily reading and weekly athletics homework. She has been recently moved up a level in reading and thus the books are a little more difficult. Nevertheless she reads them quite well and blends the words that she doesn’t know. However occasionally there are slips of the tongue which are quite amusing to the 9-year-old inside of me. The mis-reading of the word busy as busty and the phrase solid bed as soiled bed, made me smile and made Éowyn guffaw when I explained the joke. Bad father, I know!

Amélie has also begun reading and it is now nice that we have to sit down with them both and help them to read. It is something that we both enjoy doing at the end of the day as it gives you a little bit of quiet time with just one of the children without feeling bad that you are not attending to the others at the same time. Lucinda and I take it in turns so that the other can focus on the other two allowing that special time for some one on one learning.

Before I leave you today it has to be noted that the earliest recorded Bewick’s swan has been sighted on our shores. This Siberian visitor overwinters in the UK to escape the bitter cold of its homeland. An early sighting normally heralds a cold winter. Indeed there is a Russian saying: The Swan brings snow on his bill and this is because they tend to be just ahead of the cold weather. This is not that far off the truth in the fact that although we are still enjoying sunny days it has turned much colder lately and heavy snow has fallen across Poland and Germany and France, Belgium and the Netherlands have had snow fall. So put aware the summer clothes, turn the heating on and get the winter coats out of the wardrobe, as the Starks would say: Winter is Coming.

Peace and Love

Baggie

PS. Éowyn’s song in full:

When I woke up I saw a butterfly and a bee flying sweetly, aren’t they precious?

They made me smile, smile, smile.

Come on and celebrate and sing to nature ???

Celebrate and smile, smile, smile ?

Sing, sing, sing ?

Come on and we can celebrate,

Celebrate and sing to nature

And everyone will see that nature is beautiful.