A trio of wins

Although you have had three updates this month it seems an awful long time since I have given you a detailed summary of life in chez Bagnall.  Let me see if I can put that right.

September has been dominated by the return to term-time routine for Éowyn and the start of full time education for Amélie.  For Éowyn this means a new teacher, in Miss Bernath and a change of campus.  It is also a slightly earlier start and 20 extra minutes at the end of the day.  She still seems to be enjoying school but now there will be more homework.  In addition to the mathletics and reading homework, she will, from next week, have a weekly spelling test.  This is probably her weakness at the moment.  She finds maths relatively easy (or at least the maths that she has at the moment) and her literacy is very good and is always praised for her imaginative writing, however her spelling is awful.  It will be interesting to see how this improves as she receives more spelling homework.

Amélie on the other hand is no longer enjoying school.  That is not exactly true.  She enjoys it when she gets there and speaks fondly of it when she comes home but is getting herself upset when she is thinking about have to go to school.  Indeed in a morning, and on occasion before she goes to bed, she has been crying saying that she doesn’t want to go to school, because she has no friends and it is too small.  It is true that the classroom is smaller than she was used to at pre-school, but I think it is the former that is more the issue.  Amélie is not backward in coming forward in introducing herself to people but most of the class have come through nursery together and so have already formed friendships that Amélie is not party to.  This will take time but we have no doubt that it will happen but it is not easy to see your daughter so upset.

The school have always employed a traffic light system for behaviour.  Everyone starts on green and depending on your behaviour then you can be put on blue, yellow or red depending on how badly you have behaved.  This is good for making the children think about their disruptive behaviour but doesn’t reward children for good behaviour.  There have always been stickers for good work (and both girls have received a number of stickers for good work so far this term) but nothing for good behaviour or sustained good work.  Hence the school has introduced bronze, silver and gold for good behaviour or good work.  I like this and am pleased to let you know that not only have our girls remained on green they have both been awarded bronze level so far this month.

The girls are not the only ones who have received a reward for good work.  As I mentioned earlier this year,  NBC (the Premier League rights holders in the United States won an Emmy in the 36th Sports Emmy Awards for Outstanding Technical Team Studio.  NBC were gracious, not only to recognise the fact that my department assist them in their technological endeavours but to include me and a number of other IMG staff members on the official list of winners.  I was very touched by this kind gesture and NBC had no obligation to include us in their win nevertheless it means that I am an Emmy winner and entitled to say so in perpetuity.  However, just saying it isn’t enough and as an Emmy winner I am entitled to buy a statue, so I did.  This has now arrived and sits with pride of place in the lounge.  It also means that I have become the second person in the world to be the proud owner of an Emmy and a Blockbusters dictionary – Stephen Merchant being the other – a very elite group.

The second weekend in September sees the annual Broadcast convention at the RAI in Amsterdam.  This is the chance for techie people of television to see the new gadgets that will hopefully become industry standard in the coming years.  I flew in on the Friday morning and caught the flight back home on the Saturday evening and the majority of the time in between was filled with meetings.  At many of the stands there were pots in which to put your business cards for draws for various company related prizes.  I usually toss one in and think nothing more about it, and so it was when I threw one into the SIS draw for a Rugby World Cup official ball, signed by the England squad.

Imagine my surprise when I received a call a week later to say that my business card had been drawn and I was the proud winner of the ball, complete with plastic display case.  A fine addition to the Emmy (and Blockbusters dictionary)!  This completes a trio of wins for this year with the trip to Austria that I won in the raffle at the Austrian Embassy at the Eurovision Song send-off party.  An impression triumvirate of prizes that I would swap in a heartbeat for things of more importance.

Since I was away from the familial bosom for an evening it seemed only right and fitting that I should return with pressies, especially since, because my flight was delayed, I had some time to kill at the airport.  A trip to the toy shop and 40 euros later the girls had a ‘Fright-Mare’ each and Ezra a cuddly minion.  Unfortunately my minion knowledge isn’t great so I was unable to definitively pick out his favourite (Bob) from the shop, so just randomly picked one.  I need not of worried for the reaction from Ezra was priceless.  I pulled the minion out the bag and his bright blue eyes lit up and he whispered in awe, ‘A minion for me?‘ took it off me and gave it a big powerful hug and took it to bed – this is highly unusual as Ezra doesn’t usually take toys to bed, unlike his sisters where there is often so many toys in their bed that they can’t stretch out.  Ezra’s reaction was worth the total and indeed it doesn’t matter how much things cost when you get a reaction like that.  The girls were also delighted with their Fright-Mares which took pride of place among their toys.

All their toys, however, pale into insignificance compared to the iPad.  The favoured toys of the early 21 century is a constant feature in the baguettes lives.  They come down downstairs in a morning to play games or watch cartoons via Youtube.  We have drilled into them the importance of looking after such expensive items and they are very good with them.  This is usually because of the fear of dropping them and the screen smashing, we did not realise how they can be used a weapon.

Éowyn was carrying the iPad horizontally and walking downstairs to show the others something that she had found.  Ezra heard Éowyn’s excitement and came running out of the lounge.  Unfortunately the height that Éowyn was carrying a horizontal iPad and the height of Ezra’s eye was equal and the corner of the iPad took a chunk out of Ezra’s cheek just under his eye.  In Éowyn’s defence she was extremely upset and in Ezra’s defence his didn’t really cry despite blood pouring from the wound.  You can see from the photos below that he had a significant injury and it developed into an impressive shiner.  It had healed well but he still has a bit of a scar, hopefully it will fade in time, but nevertheless it will remain an impressive war-wound for future stories.

Ezra is going through a rapid growing phase.  His speech is coming along extremely well and is progressing well with his potty training.  He is always proud of himself when he does something on the potty and wants to show you.  He was particularly proud of his first potty poo.  Unfortunately he was less than impressed with Lucinda when she flushed it down the toilet.  He threw a tantrum (a rare event) bemoaning the loss of his poo.  How could his mother do such a thing?

He is also now refusing to have an afternoon nap on some days.  When he refuse a nap it does have an effect on his behaviour as he is tired and grumpy by the end of the day.  He also used to sleep in each morning.  That is no longer the case and, in addition, to the occasional night visits he will wake at 0600 and want to go downstairs.

He is normally pretty good at going to bed although recently he has been taking advantage of his good relationship with his oldest sister.  We will put him to bed and go downstairs.  You then hear little feet across the landing and then bigger feet in the opposite direction.  Ezra will have gone into Éowyn and Amélie’s room and asked Éowyn to read him a story.  It is not something that we are going to stop.  Éowyn enjoys reading to him and it is good practice for her, Ezra enjoys the stories when she reads them to him and we don’t have to walk up the stairs and tuck him back into bed.  Everyone’s a winner!

Everyone may be a winner in that scenario but if the latest doom and gloom eschatologists are correct then there is not long left for the world!  The latest line in nonsense warnings from people who really need to get out more is that tonight’s lunar eclipse, which will occur as the moon approaches perigee, will herald earthquakes and a rain of fire ushering in the apocalypse.  This is, they say, because it is the last of 4 ‘blood moons’ (because during a lunar eclipse the moon appears reddish) over the last 18 months and we have had a blue moon (see below for a definition) this year.  Amazing scientific reasoning!

They really should do a little research before spouting such balderdash, it is possible to have as many as 7 eclipses (a mixture of solar and lunar) in one year!  Indeed this last happened in 1982 and will happen again in 2038, when 4 of them will be lunar eclipses.  If you are lucky enough to still be around in 2132 there will again be 7 eclipses, 5 of which will be lunar eclipses.  So 4 lunar eclipses in 18 months is nothing to concerned about.  Neither is the fact that we have had a ‘blue moon’.

The definition of a ‘blue moon’ has changed over the latter part of the 20th century.  The original definition of the term ‘blue moon’ came from the fact that the lunar and calendar months are different. Folklore named each of the 12 full moons in a year according to its time of year, therefore the occasional 13th full moon that came too early for its season was called a ‘blue moon’, so the rest of the moons that year retained their customary seasonal names.  Thus the third moon in a four moon season was the ‘blue moon’.  However, with an increasing amount of the population divorced from the farming traditions and reliance on the changing seasons it now has come to mean the second full moon in a calendar month.  This is not as uncommon as one would be lead to believe, a ‘blue moon’ occurs once every 2 years 261 days (or thereabouts) yielding a frequency of 1.16699016 x 10-8 hertz.

I’ve lost you haven’t I?

Let me just say if you are awake at 01:10am tonight and you happen to have clear skies look towards the moon and it should begin to turn red as it finds itself in the Earth’s shadow.  That is it, there will be no earthquakes, fire rain or horsemen of the apocalypse.  However, a blue moon followed by a blood red moon mixed together would make a purple moon, so maybe, just maybe, Prince, the time travelling Maya, with his purply music has saved the Earth once again from the planet Nibiru.  It makes about as much sense.

I will leave you now to have a nose at the photos below and maybe get a nap in so that you can still be awake in the early hours to witness such a beautiful astronomical event.

May I also send congratulations to Matt and Sharon who got married on Saturday, trust that you had a fantastic day and are looking forward to beginning your married life together.

Peace and love

Baggie

 

 

Back to work

So as most of you are looking forward to speaking some time with your families and taking a break from work I, somewhat contradictorily, am heading back to work after spending a fortnight with mine.  Yes my paternity leave has come to an end and it is time to leave Lucinda to look after the kids alone (at least during the day) and enter the adult world again.  In one of those coincidences that seem to belie an innate consciousness or at lease fortuitous planning the end of my paternal leave coincides with Easter Weekend.

Easter is quite often associated with April, although of course it can occur at any time between 22nd March and 25th April.  (Easter is the only major holiday in the Western world that is moveable since it is defined as the first Sunday after the first full moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox.)  So although this Easter is on the early side, although it is only 5 years ago that we saw one of the earliest Easter Sundays on the 23rd March 2008 (and we will have to wait until 2285 until there is one even earlier than that – 22nd March) the weather is far from paschal.  Not only is it cold but the wind is bitter and cuts right through you.  Our corner has missed the major snow event that has hit other parts of the country, with only disappointing snow flurries that barely make it to the ground but last Easter we were on the tail end of an impressively hot March and had organised the first (and so far only) Great Bagnall Easter Egg hunt.    There will be no repeat of it this year, with me at work and Lucinda coming to terms with looking after three children all on her tod in addition to the threat of a White Easter.

So what have we done with these final days of family time?  Not a lot is the honest answer.  I have been fighting some unspecified virus that has knocked me off feet a little.  It is one of those viruses that gradually works its way around you body so you feel awful all over.  Fortunately I seem to be coming out of the other side of it with only a hacking cough as the battle scar.  Unfortunately Lucinda’s mum now has succumb to the same virus, so we wish her a speedy recovery.  Obvious she is blaming me but I am blaming Amélie who has something similar last week.  We are hoping that neither Lucinda, Éowyn or Ezra fall victim.  However, Ezra has been fractious for the last day or so and although he is barely two weeks old this is out of character, so we hoping he is just having a bad day rather than he has the virus or worse still that it is a change in behaviour.  We will keep you up to date.

So with the combination of illness and bitterly cold weather we have stayed in and let people come and visit us.  So although we have been cooped up inside we have not been lonely.  We have had a number of friends pay us a visit over the last week and it has been nice to see so many of our friends that we haven’t seen in a while.  It is one of the fantastic things about a new child, they bring friends and relatives together.  It must be some kind of deep ingrained instinct that predates human civilisations that still has the power to bring communities/ tribes/ collective noun of your choice/ together.  A very powerful force indeed.

The only non-friend visitor of the week has been our first visit from the Health Visitor.  She was a very friendly lady and in addition to being very pleased with Ezra’s progress she was amazed at Amélie’s elocution and could not believe that she was only two and a half.  In fact because the Health Visitor wanted to check Ezra’s hearing and needed silence to do so, I had to invent a task to encourage Amélie to leave Ezra with Mommy and this strange lady and help me collect something from the car.  We timed it just right and the hearing test was successfully conducted (and Ezra successfully passed).  The next major test was another weigh in for Ezra and he topped the scales at 4.14kgs (9lbs 2 oz).  So he has zoomed passed his birth weight in his first fortnight, the boy (and let us not forget Lucinda’s part in this) is doing well!

When I said that we have been effectively bunkered down for the last week, that is not quite strictly true.  Éowyn has still had her last pre-paschal week at school.  It has been nice for the last fortnight taking and picking Éowyn up from school.  I quite often drop Éowyn off at school but it is rare that I pick her up.  I think that she has enjoyed this little bit of extra father and daughter time too.  It is nice to have a bit of time to chat in the car both before and after school looking forward to the day and then reflecting on what has happened.  It is also a time for her to ask questions and on a bright morning it will quite often be, what kind of bird is that daddy?  We are blessed with a number of the more unusual bird species in the village: Ring Neck Parakeets, Kingfishers, Red Kites and Herons rub wings with the more usual Collared Doves, Magpies, Chaffinches, Blue Tits and Mallards but the bird that caught her eye this week was a new visitor: a Little Egret.  I mentioned that we saw one on the day that Ezra was born.  It was looking a little tired and I feared that a fox might get it if it wasn’t too careful.  Now it is flying quite strongly, it is obviously feeding and more than that it is one of a pair.  Yes we have a pair of little egrets.  I wonder if they are raising little little egretlets (I don’t think that is the technical name – but it should be!).

Obviously now that I am back at work the frequency of the updates that I have been spoiling you with will drop back to a more usual once a fortnight (if you are lucky) and for that I make no apology however I promise to post lots of photos.  Also if you are at all interested and I didn’t bore you too much earlier in the update the latest Easter can be is the 25th April.  This will next occur in 2038 so although my children may have missed the extremely early Easter in 2008 (although it was about the time that we announced that we were pregnant with Éowyn) with good fortune we may all see the latest possible Easter occurrence (assuming we all survive the year 2038 problem).  Don’t forget to put your clocks forward at the weekend and I will see you in April.

Peace and Love

Baggie

 

The Apocalypse has been cancelled

So the doomongers have been proved wrong once again.  I don’t think a month, most definitely a year, goes by where some pseudo-soothsayer predicts the end of the world.  Most can be dismissed as complete nutters but the danger is that many of them tend to be extremely charismatic and dupe the easily lead into their realm of fantasy.  The 2012 Maya Prophecy somehow transcended the usual religous apocalyptics.  Indeed the volume of books dedicated to this date has been unprecedented in modern history with even NASA releasing a statement and a video debunking the many theories of how the world would end.  Not since the year 2000 and the y2k bug has the general populace taken an end of the world theory to its heart.

You are reading this post therefore one can safely say that the world didn’t end and there was no change in world consciousness.  No messiah nor no supreme being waved a magic wand and destroyed the non-believers and made the lives of the believers spiritually enhanced.  The Sun did not bathe the Earth in lethal radiation; the poles did not flip; ice caps did not melt; a black hole wasn’t formed at Cern; Planet X didn’t fly by and fire did not consume us all.  Indeed we all still had to buy Christmas presents.

What was all this based on?  Well apparently the winter solstice 2012 marked the conclusion of a b’ak’tun (the 13th – which is probably why many Westerners have such an easy time believing something bad will happen), a time period in the Mesoamerican long count calendar equivalent to 5,125 years, (in truth the precise end of this b’ak’tun is in dispute as it is not a precise art to deduce when the b’ak’tun began).

So the Maya believed that this would mark the end of the world?  No.  There is no suggestion that they even viewed this more momentously than the turn of a year.  So whence did the ‘Mayan 2012’ prophecy industry germinate?  Probably it says more about our own Western Apocalyptic view of the world, driven by the major monotheistic religions added to our Newtonian view of time as an arrow without any comprehension of the meaning of time to the Maya or any understanding of their culture.

Was this a wide known belief of the Maya?  Actually no.  There is but one stele in the relatively obscure provincial town of Tortuguero that mentions (it is the only mention) of the end of the 13th pik (b’ak’tun) unfortunately there is a large chunk of it missing and so anything that anyone infers from the remaining words is open to a large dollop of conjecture.  If you actually read peer-reviewed translations of the stele (which I must rely on as my knowledge of the language of the Maya is non-existant), you get a completely different picture to most airport paperbacks. ‘[On 13.0.0.0.0] will happen, the witnessing/attending of the display of Bolon Yokté in the great impersonation (envelopment in costume and regalia).‘  For me this is reminiscent of a more contemporary source: ‘Say, say, two thousand, zero, zero party over oops, out of time.  So tonight I’m gonna party like it’s nineteen ninety nine.‘  However it seems that to date it may only be me that has realised the connection between Prince and the Tortuguero stele.  My theory (which is as valid as any of the other eschatologists) is that Prince is a time travelling Maya from the planet Nibiru come to save the world with his purply music – or indeed has saved the world with his purply music (that’s the trouble with time travel).  Think I may have missed the market with that one though.

If you needed any more convincing before today that it was all a load of tosh, then there are many inscriptions mentioning future events and commemorations that occur on dates beyond the completion of the 13th b’k’tun.  There is an inscription on the west panel at the Temple of Inscriptions in Palenque that refers to the 21st October 4772 A.D.  Another at Coba gives an impossible date that is 41 octillion years in the future (this date is 2 quintillion times the current estimate for the age of the universe).  So let us not get dewy-eyed over the infallibility of Maya (or any other) prophecies (or indeed the interpretation of ancient manuscripts) and hope that the 1000 or so (I wonder if there are as many as 2012) eschatologists that have filled our bookstores with tomes about the 2012 apocalypse have put enough of their savings away to see them into their old age.

Unless Harold Camping (or indeed another prophet who has not yet appeared on my doomsday radar) issues another apocalypse countdown, the next date for your doomsayer diary is Tuesday 19th January 2038 (the so called Y2038 problem) but we have nearly 25 years to sort that one out and friendly linux programmers already are on the case.  So, tonight rest easy in your beds and look forward to Christmas and the year 2013.

Peace and Love

Baggie