Dorset

Amélie’s first visit from the Tooth Fairy

Sunday 30th October 2016Sunday 30th October 2016Baggie

With a recent general write up; a write up for Éowyn’s birthday and one due for the return of the Badger Moot you may not be expecting me to spoil you with another at this time and you would be right. However, as I am sure you can tell from the title, Amélie has recently had one of those special moments that deserves to be relayed without delay to you and it doesn’t seem right and fitting to squeeze it on the end of the Badger Moot – it is much more important than that.

So as the title suggests, (well, more tell you outright rather than suggests) Amélie has lost the first of her deciduous teeth. If you recall, Éowyn lost her first tooth at the beginning of June 2014, 5 months younger than Amélie was on the 28th October 2016 when she lost hers, under more dramatic circumstances (this is Éowyn we are talking about). Éowyn wasn’t mentally prepared for the loss of her tooth that came out while she was eating a corn on the cob for she had not noticed it was loose and so when it came out it freaked her out completely. It took a phone call from Daddy (who was still at work) to calm her down.

Amélie, on the other hand was more than prepared for the loss of her tooth. She had noticed it was wobbly on the last day at school a week before it actually came out. However, this caused Amélie some major concerns mainly because her tooth had become wobbly the day we were due to go to the Badger Moot in deepest darkest Dorset, so if it came out while we were in Puncknowle how would the Tooth Fairy know where she was? (Indeed, who else would know where Puncknowle was?) I am sure, therefore, it was sheer willpower that meant that we had to wait an entire week and our return to Bagnall Manor before her tooth came out. We didn’t have to wait long, it was less than hour after we returned that the tooth fell out. She had obviously dropped the effort of keeping the tooth in and although she had eaten 23 meals since she had noticed it was wobbly the first meal back home finally caused it to fall out. The offending article was a piece of chicken in yellow bean sauce from the local Chinese takeaway that was our welcome home meal.

I was half expecting the spare ribs to be the culprit but as she bit into the chicken it must have loosened because she suddenly spat it out complaining that there was something hard in her chicken and there in the half-chewed meat was her tooth. There was then a moment of panic where she thought that she was going to bleed to death (Amélie can be a little dramatic – but not as dramatic as Éowyn!) but when she realised that she wasn’t bleeding and that it didn’t hurt, she became excited that she was going to receive a visit from the Tooth Fairy.

During the week leading up to the loss of the tooth, Amélie had asked me why do Tooth Fairies collect teeth. This caught me on the hop and I wasn’t quite prepared for the question, so I turned it back round and asked the girls what they thought they did with the teeth. Now I was probably expecting answers such as:

They turn them into money
They turn them into stars
They build their houses out of them
They make them into jewelry
They plant them and grow fairy flowers
They grind them into fairy dust, which they use to fly
They give them to new babies who don’t have any
Or they just collect them

I wasn’t expecting the answer that Éowyn gave: ‘They grind them into powder which they give to the Sleep Fairies who sprinkle it in your eyes to make you sleep at night.‘ I quite like that answer and is far better, or at least more kid-friendly, than some of the ideas that were going through my mind. I have encouraged Éowyn to turn that idea into a story.

So, with her tooth wrapped in a square of toilet paper Amélie was quite happy to take herself off to bed in anticipation of the booty that the Tooth Fairy would bring. She was not disappointed for this was her first tooth so the reward was greater than it will be for subsequent teeth (as it was for Éowyn – you’ll be glad to know that Brexit has yet to affect the tooth exchange rate). Indeed, the next morning Amélie awoke to two shiny pound coins (so shiny they looked like they had been dipped in Cillit Bang) that lay under her pillow in place of her tooth (the Tooth Fairy must have run out of two pound coins). She was delighted with the cash and squirrelled it away.

Amélie’s permanent tooth has already erupted from her gum so it won’t be long until her gap is no more and indeed as it grows out it might push some of the neighbouring teeth out. Will she catch up with Éowyn, who has only lost 4 teeth to date? You will have to keep popping by to find out, for if that happens you can rest assured that I will let you know.

Peace and Love

Baggie

Uncle Bill’s birthday

Sunday 21st February 2016Monday 22nd February 2016Baggie

I was hoping to have posted this at least a week ago but with a busy period at work and an intermittent internet connectivity at home (it has been reported to my ISP – don’t you worry) somehow the time has eluded me.

January saw Daddy enjoying weekends at home, and with weekends off it meant that I was able to do the kind of things that daddies should be doing with their kids. One of these important events was to take Éowyn to the park and teach her to ride her bike. Éowyn has had her bike for a while but has refused to learn and with the fact that I have been working at weekends Lucinda and I have not had the opportunity to force her hand. So when the school arranged a road safety awareness week and the children could take either a bike or a scooter in, it seemed like the ideal time to address this skill gap.

The first hurdle was to attempt to stop her giving up before she even got on the bike. With that stage passed it was the back-breaking role of holding onto the back of the seat while she peddled and I ran alongside her. It didn’t take long for her to gain the confidence albeit with stabilisers. After a few trips around the park she was riding barely using the stabilisers. Therefore the next stage will be taking the stabilisers off and getting her to ride on two wheels!

That hasn’t been the only big step forward for our first-born. After a hiatus of over a year she has lost her third tooth. As you may recall she lost two in relatively quick succession and we thought that was going to be the start of the avalanche. However, there was no further exfoliation, edentulism if you prefer, until this week.

The tooth was wobbly for nearly a week before it fell out and we got regular updates from Éowyn. We tried to encourage her to eat food that would encourage it to exfoliate but it did not happen until she was at school and out it came. Obviously, the school is prepared for such occurrences and she was given a small paper envelope in which to place the tooth to keep it safe for home time. This was then placed under her pillow for the tooth fairy. As per tradition, the tooth was replaced by a shiny pound coin (so shiny it looked like it had been cleaned with Cillit Bang).

This loss of a milk tooth occurred at an appropriate time, the bi-yearly dental check-up. This was Ezra’s first trip to the dentist and Lucinda had spent the previous week pretending to be the dentist and asking him to open his mouth so that she could look in his mouth. The training paid off, for at the dentist Ezra was the most comfortable and most compliant with the dentist. Éowyn, on the other hand, freaked out when the dentist looked in her mouth. He did manage to confirm that although she may have only lost 3 of her milk teeth, that her adult molars had come through at the back of her jaw. It was these teeth that he was trying to paint with a protective coating but had to leave because she was so distressed. I think it is time for Daddy to be the bad guy and take her next time.

The majority of the photos below though come from a weekend away in Dorset. Lucinda’s Uncle Bill decided to celebrate his 70th birthday at Berwick Manor in Puncknowle, the scene of the majority of the Badger Moots. Uncle Bill had hired it for the week, but being term time we joined him for the celebrations just for the weekend.

We always enjoy the Badger Moots (we are usually held in the October half-term) and this was no exception. It was a long way to go for a weekend but definitely worth it. Berwick Manor feels like a home from home as we have been there so many times before, so it feels very familiar as soon as you drive through the gate.

We left home late on Friday night (after I had returned home from work) and so didn’t arrive until long after the Baguettes’ bedtimes, however the sight of their cousins gave them all a second wind and so didn’t get to bed until late.

Since we were planning on leaving after lunch on Sunday this meat that Saturday was our only full day in Dorset. We know the west of Dorset extremely well due to the annual Badger Moot and one of our favourite places is Lyme Regis. Therefore we were looking forward to a trip to the edge of Dorset. However, when we looked at the weather report we decided that Lyme Regis was perhaps a little too far to shelter from driving rain and a howling gale.

Nevertheless we did not want to come all that distance and just sit in the house, regardless of how homely it is. So we decided to head just down the road to Bridport to check out the Saturday market. However, the market stall holders must have heard the weather report too and there were only a handful of market stalls brave enough to open in the rain. Therefore after running from shop to shop to avoid the rain we decided that enough was enough and after picking up supplies from the local supermarket headed back to the manor house.

The girls did not mind going back to the house. One of the shops that we had stopped in was Toymaster, a large toy emporium in Bridport where they had spent the shiny Christmas money that Santa had left them, plus the shiny pound coin that the tooth fairy had left. Thus, going back to house gave them the opportunity not only to play with their cousins but to play with their new toys, while Daddy could watch the start of the six nations rugby.

Saturday evening was Uncle Bill’s birthday buffet and it was family time. The large kitchen table seated us all comfortably and it was a good night spent eating, drinking, catching up on family news and putting the World to rights.

Sunday morning started bright although still extremely windy and with Sunday lunch booked for 14:30 we had some free time in the morning so we decided to pop out and visit the nearby town of West Bay. West Bay beach was used in the introduction to the television series ‘The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin‘ and more recently the series ‘Broadchurch‘. Although it wasn’t the weather for filming when we were there. Nevertheless, despite the weather when the girls asked if they could have an ice cream, we decide we would let them, they were by the seaside after all.

So after a Sunday lunch we bid farewell to the birthday boy, Nanny, the rest of the family and Dorset and headed back home ready for school (and work) on Monday morning. It was a long way to go but a thoroughly enjoyable weekend spent with the family in what could be described as a Badger Moot-ette! Roll on October and the next.

Peace and Love

Baggie

Ezra photobomb!

Never too cold for an ice-cream

Cheeky!

It’s a bit rough!

In shadow!

Sheltering at West Bay

Berwick Manor

Family time

Happy Birthday Uncle Bill

Mommy and Ezra

In disguise

Party dress

Amélie and Toffee

Lucinda and Nanny

The girls and the guinea pigs

The Badger Moot 2014 – Part Two: The Hollywood Party

Wednesday 12th November 2014Wednesday 12th November 2014Baggie

For those of you that have landed here without reading the first half of the 2014 moot please click here.

We returned back to Berwick Manor late afternoon as the sun went down. The kitchen was out of bounds as Adam and Lucy and Steve and Zoe prepared not only the evening meal but the decorations necessary for the Hollywood Party so we herded the kids in the TV room to keep them out of the way.

Ezra was so tired after his earlier excursions that we put him to bed before dinner and therefore he didn’t join in with the fancy dress but everyone else took the evening to heart including little Letty (a papoose from Dances with Wolves). You would think that with a subject as wide as Hollywood that there would be a variety of different costumes and indeed there was but great minds seldom differ and we did have a couple of duplicates: John and Steve both came as chimney sweeps à la Bert from Mary Poppins, and Lucinda and Lucy both came as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.

As usual Adam and Lucy and Steve and Zoe worked hard to decorate the kitchen to help everyone get in the spirit of the party. There was a red carpet down the hall to the kitchen, a Hollywood style Walk of Fame and a gold curtain to stand against for the paparazzi photos. There were even three mini Oscars that were awarded to the best male costume, best female costume and best child costume as voted via secret ballot. Lauren won the Oscar for the best child costume as Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series, replete with a hand-crafted spell book with every spell from the series; Zoe won the best female costume with her Mary Poppins outfit and I won the best male costume as Animal (from The Muppets). I felt a little bit of a cheat as mine was completely bought with no extra effort required, however I was very pleased with the outfit and was delighted with the win. You can see everyone’s photos below so feel free to make your own decision and whether you would agree with the Badger clan voting.

Tuesday was the Bagnall turn to cook, therefore we did not venture too far from Berwick Manor. We drove to the nearby town of Abbotsbury to have a mooch but primarily to buy a Christmas decoration that we had seen the previous day when we drove through on the way to Portland. A very simple idea, but it caught our eye, an enterprising local had made snowmen from three different sized cross-sections of logs. It will sit nicely in our porch for the yuletide, greeting our Christmas visitors. I promise to take a photo when it is in situ and post it on here but in the meantime here is a photo of Amélie choosing it.

We also took the opportunity to go for a cream tea. We had passed the Eggcup tearoom on the Jurassic Coast road many times over the last decade but had never gone it for a scone but this year we rectified that omission. Situated in Swyre directly off the Jurassic Coast road about halfway between Abbostbury and Berwick Manor it seemed rude to past it by. The scones were big and delicious the only disappointment being that there was no view of the sea (they are situated on the wrong side of the road for that). We bought the girls a slice of Victoria sponge to go with their drinks but for some reason neither of them like it, therefore Daddy had a Victoria sponge chaser to go with his fruit scone and jam! I would quite happily recommend a pit stop there if you are on the B3157.

A year does not go past without a trip to Lyme Regis and so it was this year. Lyme Regis is probably one of our favourite places in the world and if we are in the area we will visit. So although Wednesday morning saw the first downpour of the week the inclement weather did not stop the Bagnalls from going to the seaside. Our faith was repaid for although it rained heavily during the journey as we arrived the rain stopped and even if the clouds sat on the surrounding hills and it wasn’t until the afternoon that the sun came out we still headed straight to the beach to build sandcastles and collect seaweed for decoration.

The good thing about the weather being a overcast is that you pretty much get the beach to yourself. The day before, a number of the family went to Lyme Regis but because the weather was so good everyone in the area had the same idea and so the car parks were full. Indeed some of the family had to find an alternative, as there was simply no where for them to park.

We did not have any such problem and managed to park exactly where we went wanted. After a couple of hours building sandcastles and paddling (in wellies) in the sea we headed for lunch. A little café near the beach is a particular favourite and being creatures of habit we found ourselves there. Their lunchtime special caught both Lucinda’s and my eye: fish finger sandwiches. As we sat waiting for our lunch, Éowyn mooched around the shell and fossil shop next door. The girls profited well from their visit to Portland, not only did Auntie Margaret buy both girls colouring books and pens and made them cupcakes she also gave them some money to spend on ice-creams. Éowyn is a little savvy when it comes to money and knows that Daddy will buy her ice-cream so she asked if she could buy some shells. I tried to dissuade her by saying that there were lots of other shops if she would like to compare prices. She thought about this and decided that as long as she could return to this shop if she didn’t see anything else then she would want to return. An agreement was reached.

We took our usual wander around Lyme Regis and it was little Ezra who spent his money first. Éowyn and Amélie spent their money from Daddy on their first day of the holiday. Ezra didn’t. He didn’t seem interested in anything on that first day and to be honest, when you are trying to help a 6 year old and a 4 year old choose their toys it was too tiring (especially after a disturbed night’s sleep) to try and encourage him to choose something. Perhaps he was just binding his time for as we passed a shop in Lyme Regis there were some knitted dinosaurs and he grabbed one. So we picked the three types of dinosaur that they had: A green tyrannosaurus rex, a blue stegosaurus and a red triceratops and asks him to choose. The red triceratops came out as favourite (my favourite dinosaur was the triceratops when I was a boy, too!). So Ezra had now spent his money it spurred the girls to spend the money off Auntie Margaret. The other shops did not have anything of interest so we popped back to the first shop and they bought their shells, to go with their mermaids before heading back to bass.

Thursday morning saw the Bagnalls visit another sandy beach and another one of our favourite haunts in the shape of Weymouth. With the weather warming up after the rain of the previous day (and heading for the warmest Halloween on record – in the UK) it seemed a shame not to spend the last full day of our holiday on the beach. Weymouth is one of the largest towns in Dorset and is a popular tourist venue in no small part due to its beach, low tide and warm(ish) sea. So we parked the car and headed directly to the beach and that was where we stayed for most of the day. Fish and chips on the beach added to the idiosyncratic Britishness of the day, especially when you consider that it was the end of October and we were wearing coats and wellies.

The last day of the moot coincided with Halloween and what a Halloween – the thermometer in my car registered 23°C on the drive home and as mentioned above it was indeed the hottest UK Halloween on record. We had to vacate the house and conscious about trying to miss the rush hour traffic around home we decided that a quick pit stop at Hive Beach and another drive along the Jurassic Coast road would be the last of our Dorset views for 2o14. Hive Beach had a disturbing, if somewhat fascinating sight: the decomposing body of a baby dolphin. It looked like it had been dead a while and had lost its head but Éowyn and I were fascinated – Lucinda and Amélie on the other hand were disgusted. There are photos on my Flickr pages here, if you are at all interested.

We made it back late afternoon in time to answer the door to all the trick or treaters. But you will have to wait until the next write up to see the photo of our Pumpkin carving.

Peace and Love

Baggie

PS The photos below are of our family movie night party (feel free to judge the costumes yourself and see if you agree with the family). If you want to see more general photos of the holiday please see: Badger Moot 2014 – Part One.