Air Canada

Spring is nearly upon us and the weather has certainly got a vernal disposition at the moment, temperatures up to 18°C not bad for what is still, technically, winter (despite what the Met Office tell you). It has been nearly three weeks since you last had your fix of the Bagnall family, so what has been happening in sunny Staines Upon Thames?

It has actually been quite a momentous time for three of us in chez Bagnall. Firstly, and most importantly Ezra has celebrated one circuit around the Sun. Yes, our little baby is one year old, how quickly time flies. His actual first birthday fell on a Thursday (a very difficult day – especially at the moment – to get the day off) but by a stroke of fate the Sunday before his birthday was a ‘Dark‘ Sunday (a Sunday without any Premier League games, due this week to various Premier League teams still on active duty in the F.A. Cup). This meant that I didn’t need to go into work and we could have a party!

Taking advantage of our four bedrooms we invited Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz down from West Bromwich for the weekend, so that they could be part of Ezra’s big day. It was also an opportunity to invite the greater Badger Clan to our home for the first time. So a quick tidy and delivery from Sainsbury’s later we had enough food to feed the masses and a chair delivery from Nanny and Granddad and we had enough chairs for everyone to sit. If we had known that the weather was going to be so glorious (18°c!) we would have dug the barbeque out of the shed and fired it up for burgers and sausages from the local butchers. Unfortunately we were not so trusting of the weather reports and decided that a buffet was a safer option.

Not sure that Ezra quite understood why so many people were in his house and why he wasn’t allowed to launch himself out of the patio doors into the garden. Éowyn and Amélie, however were beside themselves with a visit from their cousins and spent most of the day playing nicely with the girls or chasing Finley around the garden.

Overall it was a successful first party (although we did host a smaller gathering for the Cathrall clan on Christmas Eve) and a worthy celebration of our son’s first birthday and it was especially nice that all of his grandparents were down for his party.

We did not let Ezra’s actual birthday pass without a celebration though. I managed to leave work early (although the West London traffic was still a nightmare) to get home in time for dinner with the family and Nanny and Granddad. Ezra had a second birthday cake of the week and was centre of attention (more even than usual) for the second time that week.

It hasn’t all been about Ezra though. Amélie has taken a big step forward too. Amélie has been dry (i.e. hasn’t worn a nappy) in the day for a long time, but at night she has worn either a nappy or a pull-up nappy. Recently she has been waking up in the night to relieve herself and becoming a little distressed in her confused state to try and take, especially, a nappy off. Then the finger of fate intervened, we ran low of Amélie’s nappies (usually we have a packet in reserve) and instead of buying a new packet we asked Amélie if she wanted to try and go to sleep without a nappy. She was very keen to try and be a big girl, like Éowyn and so we jumped at the chance to encourage her into this brave new world.

Not that she needed it but as a reward for her to aim for, we said that when she managed 7 dry nights (we are not naïve to think that there would not be ‘accidents’) that she would earn a reward from the Disney store. We (or more accurately, I) still owe Éowyn an Elsa dressing up dress from the film Frozen as a reward for receiving 5 superstar certificates from school and Amélie has decided that she wanted the Anna dressing up dress from the same film. Fortunately, for me, unfortunately for the girls both dresses are currently out of stock at the Disney store, but I am true to my word so they will get them.

The third person going through a momentous time is Lucinda. As regular readers will know Air Canada is outsourcing ground operations at Heathrow Airport to ASIG. By the end of next week we will see a conclusion to the decisions that Lucinda has been wrestling with over the last month or so. Without overplaying the situation it is an emotional decision. As someone that has worked for 16 years for the same company it is hard to believe that your job (as you have known it) no longer exists. Obviously the work still exists but it will not be the same. The realisation, which is difficult for us creatures of habit to accept, that things change, and let us face it businesses have to in order to remain profitable, and that you are powerless to prevent that change takes a while to sink in. Although the decision is relatively easy from a logical point of view, emotions and a hankering for the ‘way it was’ cloud that decision and you really have to explore all options before you accept the inevitable. Choice is an illusion.

We will keep you all in touch with twists and turns in Lucinda’s career that are probably still to come between now and the end of April. This will only be three weeks after she returns to work after maternity leave. Life is never boring in the Bagnall household.

Mowing the garden is not going to be boring again either. Not now that I am the proud owner of a self-propelled petrol lawnmower that makes light work of the increased lawn size that the new house has. It takes a bit of getting used to and I would be afraid to use it with the kids in the garden as I need a little bit of practise with it to become comfortable. And that is not the only gardening I have been doing! Our little veg patch now has potatoes planted and the ground has been prepared for runner beans and pumpkins. The strawberry plant and herbs are next and we are going to have a sunflower growing competition too. This must be a sign of growing old, excitement over a lawnmower and gardening, I’ll be discussing boilers and zonal central heating systems next. Too late!

So with the sun shining (and let us hope that this is a template for the rest of the spring and summer, especially with our newest acquisition but more of that next time) and the garden beckoning I will be you adieu and leave you with the latest crop of photos.

Peace and Love

Baggie

Cheeky chappie

Ezra!

On a swing!

What is this bright thing in the sky?

A day in the garden

I’m trying to relax!

Giving dad a cuddle

Roar!

Where is my hand?

Perfect camouflage

Where is the hookah smoking caterpillar?

You can’t see me, right!

Ponder the chocolate

Eat the chocolate

Be at one with the chocolate

I dropping a subtle hint

To you!

You will get me a rusk!

Updates are somewhat like buses you wait for three weeks for one to come along and then two appear in a week. What has spurred this productivity? A week off that’s what: using the remainder of last year’s annual leave entitlement. Although we haven’t done half of what we have planned to do, but nevertheless it has been an eventful week.

Regular readers of this website will recall how 2013 was one of the most eventful years for this enclave of the Bagnall family. Most years have big events: births, deaths, marriages, holidays, big birthdays, and house moves but 2013 had them all. However there was one obvious large event that was missing: a new job. My company did relocate, and then the week before Christmas was sold to William Morris Endeavor, but my job did not change per se. 2014, however has decided to complete the full house. Before my colleagues cry out in uproar that I have not told them that after 18 years I am leaving IMG, it is not I.

Lucinda has worked for Air Canada for nearly as long as I have worked for IMG, 16 years in total (although with three years of maternity leave only actually worked there for 13 years – I will duck to avoid the right hook now) and she was looking forward to going back after this maternity leave had ended. Her return date was/is the 2nd April and she received her line (and therefore the days she was due to work – although not the shifts) for the year last week so this week were going to sit down and try to plan our joint leave for the remainder of the year (something one has to do when one has small children). Somehow we hadn’t gotten around to finding time to do it but now those plans are a little up in the air.

A text message from one of Lucinda’s friends and colleagues from Air Canada alerted Lucinda to the news. The new Terminal 2 of Heathrow airport is due to open in 2014 and Air Canada is one of the airlines that will be moving to this state of the art terminal. Lucinda was fully aware of this and her return from maternity leave would have given her a couple of months to get back into the swing of work before the move. Now that is up in the air (no pun intended). Air Canada will not be moving. Actually that is not true. Air Canada will be moving but Air Canada will/may not have any Heathrow representatives. Air Canada has decided that London staffing is an unnecessary expense and are handing over ground control to the handling agency ASIG.

What this actually means for Heathrow’s Air Canada staff is still a little confused, for apparently it is not a done deal but a meeting with staff did nothing to allay their fears. Lucinda is obviously concerned, job share works so much better for us than part time work and the perks (staff travel for instance) will be greatly missed. We will have to see what happens and fear not we will keep you all in the loop.

The children are completely oblivious to this, as one would expect and life for them continues to be a big adventure. However with all adventures there are scary moments and Amélie is of that age where her brain is beginning to appreciate the big wide world but still not developed enough to comprehend it (I still feel like that at the age of 40!). This has manifested itself in a couple of ways over the last few weeks. Just after Christmas Lucinda took Éowyn to see Disney’s new film ‘Frozen’. Amélie is probably approaching the age to go to the cinema for the first time but we didn’t think we would start with this film. Éowyn thoroughly enjoyed the film (she loves going to the cinema) and related the storyline to myself and Amélie.

Now if you are going to watch the film and don’t want to know anything about it I would skip the remainder of this paragraph now as there is a spoiler alert on the way: Part of the story involves the protagonist’s parents going to sea in a boat. The boat hits a storm and is sunk with the loss of all onboard. As the parents are also the King and Queen of the country it means that the protagonist becomes the queen of the country. This must have been playing on Amélie’s mind for one afternoon she came up to us quite earnestly and said, ‘Mommy, Daddy please don’t go to sea in a boat. I don’t want you to die.‘ Touched we assured her that we wouldn’t and gave her a great big hug. This touching moment was spoilt by Éowyn replying, ‘No, I want you to go to sea in a boat, then I will be Queen!‘ We did have to point out the flaw in her plan: Lucinda and I are not a King and Queen and so she wouldn’t become Queen. I think we are safe – for the moment.

The second manifestation of Amélie’s growing awareness is happening at night. Amélie has had a couple of episodes of Night Terrors. Night Terrors are very different to nightmares and in some ways a little more frightening for the parents. Nightmares are bad dreams and occur during REM sleep, Night Terrors usually occur in the first couple of hours of sleep during the transition between one sleep phase and another, and so it was for Amélie. Three times in five nights about 2.5 hours after falling asleep, she sat bolt upright in bed screaming. The first (and subsequent times) time we ran upstairs to find her completely disoriented and dripping with sweat. Not sure what to do I picked up to cuddle her, but to no avail she didn’t seem to be awake and wasn’t being comforted by a cuddle. After about five or ten minutes (although it seemed far longer) she calmed if a little confused as to why she was not in bed. Her nightclothes were sodden so we changed her and it was as if nothing had happened, no memory of what had just happened. She just got back into bed and went to sleep without too much effort.

So what makes this a night terror and not a nightmare? The last part of that paragraph, Amélie had no recollection of the night terror. Night terrors do not occur in REM or ‘dream’ sleep and so there are no visions to recall. She simply stopped having the night terror and, once dressed in fresh pyjamas, got back into bed as if nothing had happened. With a nightmare the visions seem real and it takes a while to calm your child down and allay those fears. After the rush of night terrors we have not had one for a few days so we will see if it was a short-lived episode or whether we need to consider changing her bedtime routine to try to prevent them. They do not seem to have bothered Amélie, especially as she doesn’t recall them, but they are certainly disturbing for Lucinda and I.

No such problems with Éowyn at the moment. Indeed, apart from, what is becoming an unhealthy, obsession with graveyards and little boisterousness she is being well-behaved at the moment. Her reading and writing is coming along in leaps and bounds and seems to enjoy both. She is growing into the big sister role although she doesn’t realise her strength and how much bigger she is that either Amélie or Ezra. She is, however, learning that she doesn’t always have to win. Usually when she has a race with Amélie she will win quite easily (she is two years older that her sibling), recently she has been letting Amélie win, which is a big step in her growing maturity.

Ezra, too, is maturing at a steady pace. He now spends a lot on his time on his legs, leaning against whatever will support his weight. Mainly to see how far his little hands can reach and what delights they can find. If he is leaning against you and you are ignoring him (for instance you are on the ‘phone) he will bite you to get your attention. He knows it is wrong because he looks at you as if you say, ‘Well, you were ignoring me!‘

Sometimes those hands come back with a great treasure. Lucinda hosted her first little coffee morning in our new home last week and had the obligatory cakes and biscuits on the coffee table (as one does). While her attention was distracted with conversation Ezra pulled himself to his feet and reached out those little hands of his. Imagine his delight when they came back with a most delightful treasure: A shortbread biscuit. He quickly realised he had a mighty treasure and headed off to eat it in secret. By the time Lucinda had realised what was going on, he had already eaten most of it and sat there with a big satisfied smile on his face.

To end the week, and take advantage of one of the few weekends I have been able to spend with Éowyn since she started school in September we headed out on an Adventure. Painshill Park in Surrey was the destination. Just inside the M25 and off the A3 it is only a short car journey from Staines-Upon-Thames, however neither Lucinda or I had even been there. Our interest in Painshill Park had been piqued by the re-opening of the now fully restored Crystal Grotto. We had sold the trip to the girls as a fairy cave and we were going to look for fairies, with the proviso that fairies are very shy and will only show themselves on rare occasions. For whatever reason however they were not interested and the beauty of the folly (indeed the gardens as a whole) was lost on them. Lucinda and I, however, were impressed with Painshill Park (and definitely the Crystal Grotto), even if it was a little pricey to enter. We may have to have a return visit when the weather is a little brighter and the water level has dropped enough so that the grotto isn’t lit with temporary lighting and the mirror water pool is actually clear rather than the cloudy puddle it was last weekend. I even think that the girls will enjoy it next time.

We left Painshill Park just as the storm clouds were gathering and arrived home just as an intense thunderstorm hit. We watched from the comfort of our own home as the sky turned black and rain so heavy that it was hard to see across the street fell on our little corner of England. The storm was heavy in Staines but at least we didn’t get hit by lightning or a tornado! That would have been an adventure.

My week off work is now at and end and so I will leave you with some of the latest photos and don’t expect an update anytime soon.

Peace and Love

Baggie