2015

A week off at the end of January

Thursday 29th January 2015Thursday 29th January 2015Baggie

Time to squeeze an update in before the end of January? I think so, especially when I have the excuse that for the last 9 days I have been at home having taken the last of my 2014 leave entitlement. An F.A. Cup weekend meant that their was no Premier League action and thus it was a perfect time, from a work point of view, to take a break.

So what has 2015 brought to the Bagnall household so far? The biggest, most important, euphoria inducing event is the fact that our central heating works! As regular readers may recall one of the problems with our house is that the heating has never truly worked and thus the house has always felt cold. This was a complete shock to us coming from a mid-terrace house, with cavity walls and a very efficient heating system. We called in an expert last winter who said that our system was full of gunk and recommended a power flush. This he did, cleared out a ton of gunk and although not perfect our house was at least, if not warm not cold. We thought that was the best it was going to be and thought no more of it over the warm summer months.

The first cold snap of this winter proved that the power flush had not done the job, for although the upstairs of the house was warm, you could see you breath downstairs. We booked another heating engineer to come round and in the meantime we purloined as many electric heaters as we could to keep the chill out, ignoring the effect on our energy bills! Chris (the heating engineer was due to come round the week before Christmas but an emergency meant that he had to cancel and instead made us his priority for the first week of 2015.

Without boring you with the minutiae of our heating system, effectively our heating system suffered a coronary. The fifteen years of gunk had collected in three separate sections of pipework preventing the hot water for reaching our downstairs ring of radiators. Fortunately, no damage had been done to the boiler, or the pump and after some pipe replacement, cleaning of the system and a few minor adjustments to the design of the system, the house was warm. The pipes were so full of gunk that there was no clear path through the pipe for the water to flow, no wonder the radiators were cold. Thankfully, that can fade into the midst of memory and we can now walk around the house without fear of frostbite.

As I have mentioned, and the title alludes, I have had the best part of a week and a half away from work. Unfortunately, the same could not be said of Lucinda, who was doing her usual hours and the girls who were both at school. Therefore, we have not been away or done anything overly exciting. Nevertheless it has been nice being the house husband and spending some time with the family, especially Ezra, who has enjoyed the bulk of my time. It has also been nice to not only drop the girls off at school, which I do every morning, but to pick them up from school, which I rarely get a chance to do.

We also took the opportunity to have a catch up with Éowyn’s teacher. As you know Éowyn (and Amélie) moved schools in November and thus we managed to miss parent’s evening (not that the teacher would have been able to tell us much at that point!). Therefore we asked if we could have a quick catch up after school one evening and this week suited both us and her very well. She told us that Éowyn has settled in very well and has made some good friends. Although she is clever, she has a tendency to talk too much and in doing so loses concentration and makes silly mistakes, which is something they are trying to work on as she is also disrupting the children she is talking to. So we have had a chat with Éowyn to try to curb that side of her personality, but it is something that we can’t do very easily as we are not there, the onus must be with the teaching staff who may have to split her little group up. Something that happened at her previous school when Éowyn and her best friend were being too loud in class.

The week off, was also well-timed for Granddad. Lucinda’s dad had ruptured a tendon in his shoulder at the end of last year and has been in terrible pain with it for months. Fortunately, his operation was scheduled in the middle of my week off so I was able to take him to the hospital. The operation was bigger than expected and although only a week has passed, John is still in a lot of pain. However, he has a follow-up appointment on Saturday so should know whether the operation has been a success and whether the pain is to be expected.

The week off was also an opportunity to investigate whether it was possible, and whether I wanted, to have laser surgery to correct my vision. I am slightly short-sighted but suffer from astigmatism in my left eye. So took the opportunity to make an appointment and see what the experts say, and probably more importantly how much it would cost. I never got as far as the second part for during my appointment they discovered that the cornea on the lower part of my left eye is too thin to safely perform laser surgery. Therefore, it is back to the opticians for me!

As part of my time off I had one of those rare events: a weekend off. Despite the cold January weather we decided to take full advantage and go on an adventure and visit somewhere new. We decided on Bocketts Farm and headed down to Leatherhead. Bocketts Farm is a working farm with play areas to entertain the children. All three found things to entertain them. There were trampolines, a soft play area little pedal tractors, all before we managed to see any animals.

Highlights of the day included watching the pig race, getting up close with the small animals in the petting zoo area. The girls were happy to stroke the rabbit and guinea pigs but weren’t as keen on the thought of stroking the chicken. However, the apprehension soon faded when the chicken was brought round and they happily stroked her too. Even Ezra stroked all the animals.

Those highlights were put into the shade by the biggest highlight of the day, for the girls at least, a pony ride. When they realised that there was the opportunity to ride a pony they both asked if they could queue up. Well considering the meaning of Éowyn’s name, how could I refuse? Both of them thoroughly enjoyed it, but thankfully neither have asked for a pony. Hopefully, that is the way it will stay. Take the opportunity when presented but not bankrupt daddy by wanting one of your own!

I would thoroughly recommend a trip to Bocketts Farms, especially when it gets a bit warmer as there are plenty of things to do to keep the kids entertained. We will be going back.

So after some time with the family it is back to work and back to the usual regime. The first photos of 2015 are on my Flickr pages and see you all in February.

Peace and Love

Baggie

Northern grin

Intense

Cheeky Chappie

Ready to ride

How do you drive this thing?

Looking relaxed

Safety first

Where are we going?

Well, what does my name mean?

Éowyn being lead

Pony Trekking

Lunchtime

I’m going on the slide

Are you ready to catch me?

I’m ready, put the film on

Welcome to 2015

Thursday 1st January 2015Thursday 1st January 2015Baggie

It is traditional for my first post of the year to look Janus-like at the year that has just been and one the one yet to come. Who am I to stand in the way of tradition?

2013 was an extremely hectic year with much of what life can throw at you and so we were hoping for a more sedate 2014. With 3 children life is never going to be sedate, neither however, was it hectic. In 2013 life through many things at us including: births, deaths, marriages, holidays, big birthdays, and house moves and although my company relocated (and came under new management) there were no new jobs in the Bagnall household. It seemed that life was not finished with the Bagnall household and does not conform to the convention of numerical years and almost before the Christmas decorations had found their way back into the loft and certainly before Lucinda had returned to work from maternity leave the news broke that she would have to find a new job.

2014 saw the opening of the new Terminal 2 at Heathrow Airport and Air Canada, the company where Lucinda had worked for the past 16 years, was one of the Airlines that was due to make it their new home. Air Canada though, took this opportunity to look at their accounts and decided to outsource ground control to the handling agency ASIG. Lucinda therefore had two choices: transfer to ASIG or redundancy. Since Lucinda had such long service it made sense to take redundancy and then apply to ASIG, hopefully be offered a similar position and try to negotiate favourable terms as an individual.

Thus the stress of returning to work after maternity leave was coupled with the uncertainty of redundancy and job applications. Nevertheless, Lucinda took it in her stride, took the favourable redundancy package, applied for a position at ASIG and managed to retain her job share hours which ties in, as nicely as it can, with my hours.

My hours have just been ridiculous this year with the conclusion of the move from Chiswick to Uxbridge (doesn’t sound too exotic, does it?) and especially moving Premier League Productions and at the same time taking on another major client in the guise of European Qualifiers. It is nice to know that we are busy (better than being the opposite) but it would be nice to spend some time with the family. However 2015 is bring a new structure and hopefully this will free me from the coal face and move me to the management side of my role and thus free me from the shackles of weekend fixtures.

These upheavals in work life have obviously been coupled with the usual stresses of being the parents of three young children and the small matter of moving into a new home. We had only owned our new home for two months before 2014 was upon us and with Christmas 2013 around the corner all we had time to do was unpack. Therefore this year was the first chance we had to do anything major with the house.

The house felt homely when we moved in and rooms were allocated almost on our first viewing and a year on they haven’t changed. Our furniture, however felt dwarfed in the bigger living space and although we didn’t want to clutter the space with furniture for the sake of it we have acquired a few new pieces including the extending table that was used to full effect for Christmas dinner.

We haven’t made too many changes to the house so far, indeed we have only really made three major changes:

The installation of photovoltaic panels
Painting of the exterior
New French doors

The installation of the photovoltaic panels was never a definite plan but something I have always been interested in, especially when I realised how much bigger the fuel bills were for a larger, older house. When we investigated the various methods to acquire them and how much it would cost to buy an array and we decided that there was no better time than the present. We are earning about £800 a year from them, if this year is at all typical, and our dual fuel bill had dropped by £60/month. At that rate they will have paid for themselves in less than 6 years (not including any energy price increases) and they are guaranteed for 20 years. Could be a good little earner; I’ll keep you informed.

The first thing that we noticed about the house when we came for our initial viewing was the colour. The house is pebbledashed (something I am not too keen on) and was of the original mortar colour. Not very exciting, it was a good job that the rest of the house was so good. We decided as we stood in the driveway in those first minutes that if we purchase the house that we would like to paint it.

After moving in, it seemed that painting the house was an unnecessary extravagance and we should just live with the colour. Then the wettest winter in many a year hit (and parts of Staines Upon Thames became Staines up-in-Thames) and the one thing that we noticed (apart from the fact that we were not flooded apparently, we discover we sit on a 1,000 year flood plain) was that there were an awful amount of pebbles on the driveway. The mortar was absorbing the rain and crumbling. This then pushed us back to the idea of painting the house. It would serve two purposes, the first brighten the exterior of the house but secondly and more importantly it would bond the mortar and pebbles and add an extra layer of protection against the elements.

It was about this time that Lucinda was made redundant as Air Canada outsourced ground operations at Heathrow Airport to the handling agency ASIG. With a nice little bonus in the bank it seemed to be the right thing to do to invest some of it into looking after the house. So the house is now a Country Cream colour and certainly looks a lot brighter as you drive down the road.

The third improvement has been the replacement of the old sliding patio doors to some modern French doors. Again it was one of the features of the house that we disliked when we first looked round. We initially wanted bi-fold doors but apparently our opening wasn’t big enough so we comprised on French doors. They give us the bigger opening that we wanted, bringing the outdoors in, as the architects are fond of saying, (although not what we particularly want at the moment) but also additional security compared to the sliding style patio doors and additional insulation from the modern double glazing.

Not a bad haul for the first year in our new home. There are still plenty of things to be done, the most pressing in the heating system. Last year we had a power flush to try to make the system more efficient and allow the radiators to actually output the heat that they are rated for. The fact that last Winter was so mild (damp and windy but mild) it had sort of fallen to the back of our minds. However this winter has already had cold days, and even colder nights and with a lack of heating downstairs, this has become a level one priority.

From a non-expert point of view it seems that there is so much gunk in the system that the hot water can not circulate around the lower half of the system. Therefore we have hot water and a relatively warm upstairs but no heat downstairs. This is coupled with single skin walls and a lack of underfloor insulation meaning that it can be unbearably cold downstairs. Therefore, we have employed oil-filled radiators and fan heaters to attempt to make sitting downstairs bearable, which is denting the savings we would be accruing from the photovoltaic cells installation.

We have a heating engineer coming round in the week to see what he can do. It might involve new radiators and pipework. Hopefully not a new boiler but if it is needed, then it is needed. To help retain the heat in the house we will also be looking at underfloor insulation in the coming year but that is going to be a big job and probably involve new carpets (or floor covering of some sort). That however, can wait until the spring and be in place for next winter.

This past year has also seen our first attempt at cultivation. Not in a self-sufficiency kind of way but just to see if we enjoy it and to help teach the children where our food comes from. We were relatively successful with runner beans (there are still some in the freezer), potatoes, tomatoes and raspberries. Not so successful with strawberries (squirrels dug the plants up before they had a chance to grow) and pumpkins (only one survived until Halloween). The main thing was that we enjoyed doing it and managed to eat our produce so let’s see if we can do better next year.

The first event of last year that I would like to mention was the fact that in moving home we were further from Éowyn’s school but only a short walk to another. Therefore, we made the decision to move sc

hools. This was confirmed by the local education authority at michaelmas half term. There have been tears and she is not enjoying it as much as she was at her old school, but we are confident that it will not take her much longer to settle it, especially with everyone returning after the Christmas break.

Amélie, on the other hand, is positively enjoying her new pre-school and looks forward to going to her ‘new school’. The fact that both schools are a short walk from home and they can ride their scooters their, we think is a huge positive too. There are also around 4 or 5 other families in the street with children of the same age so we feel more part of a community than we ever did at the previous school. If only Éowyn’s best friend and favourite teacher were at this school then there would not be a problem, but life is not like that.

2014 has been another interesting year in the Bagnall household and I am sure that 2015 will just as interesting. Plans that we have will come to fruition and I am sure that this will be coupled with unforeseen obstacles that life will throw at us that will need to be overcome. No doubt some things will go smoothly and others will be more bumpy; some things will fall into place without too much planning while others will fail despite being planned to the nth degree, and on that note I would like to leave you with this thought from Neil Gaiman:

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.

So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.”

Peace and Love

Baggie

PS. 2013 saw disappointment surrounding Comet ISON which strayed too close to the sun, denying us a promised ‘Comet of the Century’ experience. January brings us, not a ‘Comet of a Century’ but with luck and the benefit of a dark sky you maybe lucky enough to see Comet Lovejoy that should become visible to those of us in the Northern Hemisphere from the 9th January reaching perihelion on Friday 30th January 2015. Keep those eyes peeled.

PPS. Geeky web stats for 2014 can be found here.

Settling into School

Wednesday 18th September 2013Thursday 19th September 2013Baggie

Another week, another write up. I’m back in my stride. I have a little more free time and there is plenty to write about. You have had the two recent specials with Amélie going to Nursery and a week later with Éowyn going to school. Momentous times in anyone’s life and although the first day can be frightening, exciting or a mixture of both it is when the realisation dawns that you have to keep going (and going) that the real stories begin.

Éowyn as you may recall was extremely excited about going to school; she couldn’t wait to put her school uniform on, pack her schoolbag and head off to the car. This didn’t change the following day and neither did it the day after. The only problem was the day after was a Saturday. Éowyn was really upset that she didn’t have to go to school. We tried to explain that Saturdays and Sunday were the weekend and you didn’t have to go to school at weekends. She wasn’t convinced. It probably doesn’t help that Daddy works weekends and so there is no point of reference. I am sure she will get used to it.

Indeed the following week was her first five day week and by the Thursday she was bushed, ‘Do I have to go to school tomorrow?‘ Éowyn asked. When we said that she did, she nonchalently shrugged her shoulders and conceded. I think it was just a lack of an appreciation of how long a week actually was rather than wishing the weekend would hurry up and arrive.

Éowyn has come home almost everyday with a sticker for good work. Whether that is helping to tidy up, or for demonstrating her knowledge she is proud of each one. Sometimes she doesn’t understand why she got a sticker: counting to 20 for instance. Éowyn has been able to count to 20 for quite a while, indeed she can count to 100 and Amélie who will be three at the end of the month is capable of counting as high, so Éowyn was surprised that not everyone in her class had the skill. However her favourite sticker was one the states ‘I’m a genius‘. She was given it on Monday for knowing that the date was the 16th September. Lucinda and I were both surprised, a) because neither of us knew what the date was and b) we didn’t know that Éowyn was so knowledgable about the days of the month.

Amélie, on the other hand, is not nearly as excited about nursery. Indeed, we have had tears most days. We have also discovered how sly she can be too! She is obviously upset with the change in her life. She has always been either with Lucinda or at one of her grandparents’ homes and if she is anywhere else then she is usually with Éowyn. Therefore, being on her own in a strange place is bound to be disconcerting if not downright frightening. She is also picking up vibes from Lucinda who is probably as attached to Amélie as Amélie is to being at home with mommy. Indeed there are few tears with daddy, more a questioning of whether she is going to school. With Lucinda, however, there are tears and sobs and refusal to go.

It is up to daddy to be the bad guy. I am quite happy with that. It is something that needs to happen and if I am the one that needs to harden his heart to ensure that this transition happens then so be it. Lucinda can be the good guy and pick her up and give her plenty of attention on the days she isn’t at nursery. She is getting better and on Tuesday when I took her to nursery there were no tears. Admittedly, neither were there cartwheels of joy but she held my hand and walked into the classroom then, after kissing me goodbye, ran over to one of the teachers to give her a cuddle.

In fairness, it can only get better. The day after the first traumatic day she followed Lucinda around the house never leaving her side. She was obviously afraid that Lucinda was going to leave her, in fact she did say to Lucinda on a number of occasions, ‘Mommy, you aren’t going to leave me, are you?‘ The day before she was next due to go to school she once again tried it on with Lucinda. I was a work and Lucinda was bathing the girls when Amélie began to force a cough. It was a very pathetic, obviously faked cough. ‘Mommy,‘ she began, ‘I have a cough, I won’t be able to go to school tomorrow.‘ Nice try.

Amélie also confessed to a crime that we knew was her but neither had caught her in the act, nor got her to admit to it. We have a wicker laundry basket and bits of it had be picked off and left on the floor. We had asked both girls if it was either of them and neither of them had admitted to it. Amélie, however decided that perhaps honesty was the best policy, either that or perhaps she was hoping it would be a bargaining tool to stop us sending her to school. Whatever was the motivation she turned to Lucinda, completely out of the blue, ‘Mommy, I’m real sorry, you know the washing basket I pick it and when you ask me I say no but I do it all the time because I like doing it.‘ What can you say?

With two emotional girls, a pile of paperwork to catch up with for mortgaging both the house we are trying to buy and our current house that we will be renting out and the fact that I haven’t seen my family in about six weeks we made a decision not to go to one of the four weddings we have recently been invited to. With Amélie in such an emotional state and Éowyn having only just started school it just didn’t feel right to leave them for a night. It was a decision not made lightly as both Lucinda and I were looking forward to a night away and obviously sharing in the celebration of our friends but as parents there are many sacrifices you have to make and this we felt was something that needed to be done.

So where are we at with our house purchase. The good news is that our mortgage for our new house has been approved. We are, however, still waiting for approval for our buy to let (or should that be ‘let to buy’) mortgage. For those of you that have been in this position it can be a waiting game. You answer the questions posed by the solicitors, the banks, and the estate agents then everything goes quiet before all of a sudden you have the keys to your new home. That’s the plan. Time will tell if that’s how the next few weeks develop.

It is not often though that the house that you are leaving is under threat of being demolished along with the entire village in which you have been raised. That is what is facing Lucinda and her family not to mention Éowyn, Amélie and Ezra. Of the fifty or so proposals for expansion of London’s airports the South West Heathrow proposal will see the complete destruction of Stanwell Moor. We have had two village meetings with representatives from BAA, HACAN, Gatwick, The London Mayor as well as political figures including our MP. However, they have only outlined their proposals, a hard sell of their ideas if you will; nothing to address the blight that has affected the village (and this is not just a virtual blight but, for us, it is a reality). In some ways it just makes you more frustrated with the situation as there is nothing that we can do at the moment. Until the 50 or so proposals are whittled down to the 3-10 proposals that will receive greater investigation (mid-December for that decision apparently) and then, if we are still on the shortlist, until the actual proposal that gets the green light (mid 2015 at the earliest) we will be in limbo. Obviously this is the same for residents of all the areas that are affected at each of the airports. Not the nicest of positions to be in and we sympathise with all that are affected by this process. I wonder if it does go ahead how much Éowyn will remember about her first home?

I will leave you there with the usual photos be warned though one of the below may move you to tears.

Love and peace

Baggie