Family

Peppa Pig World

Baggie

I promised you a second update within a week, and here it is.  As I mentioned in the previous update, I had worked eleven straight days and so I juggled a couple of extra days around the weekend to recuperate and get back in touch with the family.  Fortunately I timed those days off with a mini heatwave (two days of 30°C temperatures (apparently the warmest day in the UK for 5 years) – nothing compared to the heatwaves of old, but a heatwave nonetheless!).  The first of those days off was blessed with a visit from my family, as mentioned in the previous update.  The next two (the hot days!) were taken up with what we sold to Éowyn as adventures.  So with sun block (not sun tan lotion as we are all fair skinned and the idea of a tan is ridiculous we just need to stop our skins from burning!) on and picnic packed we headed out in the trusted Honda Civic!

Sunday saw us in West London, not that far from my place of work, at Kew Gardens. Lucinda’s uncle and aunt are season members of Kew and thus have a number of free tickets for friends and relatives and hence we took them up on their offer of heading to Kew for a family day out.  It was my first visit to Kew, even though I lived in Richmond for over 4 years and could see the pagoda from my bedroom window.  I hadn’t realised how much ground Kew covered (300 acres!) and how extensive gardens were.  Éowyn, however, was more interested in the Climbers and Creepers and Treehouse Towers play areas.  Although we did drag her away to visit the Xstrata Treetop Walkway.  Unfortunately they are having issues with the lift and so it was a long climb up the stairs carrying Éowyn, although thankfully Lucinda’s mum and dad stayed at the bottom with Amélie and the pushchair which was a bonus.  Whether it was the hot weather or the walking but we felt thoroughly exhausted by the end of the day and were quiet relieved when we got back home.  Overall the children play areas are excellent but Éowyn is a little too young to appreciate the grandeur of Kew Gardens and so we will probably have to wait until she is a little older before we visit again.

Monday, however, was all about Éowyn.  Éowyn’s favourite television programme is currently found on Channel 5 at 0815.  For the non-parents (or non-UK) readers of this site, the answer is Peppa Pig. For those of you that are not familiar with Peppa Pig:  it is a series (or three series) of five minute cartoons centred around Peppa (an anthropomorphic girl pig) and her family (parents, one set of grandparents and her little brother George).  All of her friends have similar family structures and are all mammals with alliterative names (Peppa Pig, Suzy Sheep, Danny Dog, Pedro Pony etc).  They all live in houses, have jobs (in the case of Miss Rabbit: many jobs!), drive cars and wear clothes.  Éowyn will watch episode after episode of Peppa Pig without getting bored and if I am honest, they can be quite enjoyable from an adult point of view as there is enough in each episode aimed at the parents to keep them interested.

In April (2011) Peppa Pig World opened at Paulton’s Park in Romsey in Hampshire.  The journey is only 60 miles or so and is motorway all the way so it took just over a hour for us to get there.  Éowyn’s friend Alexander was on holiday in the New Forest with his parents (obviously) Verena and David and baby sister Olivia, so we arranged to meet them at Peppa Pig World and make a day of it.

Peppa Pig World is excellent, there are lots of rides for the young ones to go on and because it is in a corner of Paulton’s Park it means that it is self-contained and you haven’t got miles to walk between rides.  Again it was a very hot day (except for the short sharp shower that hit while Lucinda and David were on the tractor ride with Alexander and Éowyn, leaving Verena and me to grab the picnic and the babies and hide under the shelter of a tree!).

Éowyn thoroughly enjoyed herself and I think we will have to go back, as we did not manage to get on all the rides.  We also managed to keep her away from the big Peppa Pig gift shop, as I don’t think I have that much limit left on my credit card!  Again I think the heat defeated us and by 1500 all four adults we were shattered and in fairness so were the kids, so we decided to call it a day and head back up the M3.  Would defiintely recommend Peppa Pig World to all parents out there, and although we didn’t explore it, Paulton’s Park proper also looked quite interesting for older kids.  Pity it’s not part of the Merlin Pass family.

The following day the heatwave broke.  A heavy thunderstorm hit our part of the world (in fact the business park that my company is situated took a direct hit and it has upset a number of pieces of technical equipment).  The weather is now closer to 20°C than 30°C and a lot fresher.  Summer is over.

Before I returned to work we had one more place to visit.  Amélie had an appointment with the paediatrician at St. Peter’s hospital (the place of her birth).  This was a follow appointment regarding her reflux (the milk protein intolerance is being treated by the dietician).  It appears that Amélie has grown out of her reflux and thus we have been told to stop the drugs.  We expressed our concerns that she does not seem to be developing as quickly as Éowyn did (although she was quite precocious!).  The paediatrician gave her a physical examination and is quite happy that there is nothing physically impairing her, it is just that she is taking her time.  Apparently taking after her dad, as I only learned to crawl backwards and decided that it was easier to walk on two legs than learn to crawl.  Taking to two legs much earlier than my contemporaries.  Time will tell.

I will leave you with photos from Kew Garden and Peppa Pig World, enjoy and don’t forget there are plenty of new photos on our Flickr site (link in right hand column).

Peace and love

Baggie

Popstar
It’s you!
Popstar, in waiting…
Ice lolly and Granddad
Nanny and Granddad
Getting ready to crawl
Windy Castle ride
On the Windy castle ride
The Balloon ride
Peep-po!
I haven’t done anything…
This is fun!
Wheee!
Verena and Alexander
Éowyn and Mommy
Meeting Peppa Pig
I’ve a beard like Daddy’s
Éowyn, Alexander and Duck!
All aboard, a tractor?
All aboard, a dinosaur?
All aboard, a train!

We have a kitchen!

Baggie

Again it has taken me longer to update you than I had hoped that it would.  This is nothing to do with the fact that I have hit the 100 mark and given up but as you can imagine it has been a busy time with a variety of demands on my time and so updating this website suffers.  The demands on my time are coming from all angles.  It is a busy time at work (when isn’t it?) with the end of the majority (apart from the Russian Premier League) of the football seasons (and hence much of my work – for a couple of months until it all starts again!) including the last day of the English Premier League (with the unusual feeling for a West Bromwich Albion fan of knowing that we have been safe for a couple of games and heading for a mid-table finish!).  It has been quite manic with the kitchen build which has effectively turned the whole house upside down and now that it is complete, it is taking longer than expected to put it all back together again.  Juggling this with the usual family commitments has not left a lot of time for dallying on the computer.  In theory, therefore, this should be a fun-filled update jam-packed with interesting ancedotes.  Please don’t be too disappointed.

The end of April has seen much of the country take nearly two weeks off work.  This has been due to two four day weekends in succession.  The first was the belated Easter weekend, the second was courtesy of the second-in-line to the British throne’s marriage to Catherine Middleton and the May Day bank holiday.  I had to work the Easter weekend (football does not stop for Jesus or the Easter bunny) but managed to retain the second weekend off.  Hence I could sit and watch with billions (more strictly milliards) of others around the world the first major royal wedding in a quarter of a century.  We sat down as a family and tried to get Éowyn interested in this major historic event.  However we were greeted with ‘This is boring.  Can I have my programmes on, please!‘  We tried to explain that it was a wedding of a prince and one day they will be King and Queen.  ‘No Daddy, I want Toy Story 3 on.‘  I maybe thankful of this one day.  As soon as the television schedules began to return to some semblance of normality (none of your normalcy nonsense) we headed to the Stanwell Moor street party.  Unfortunately it wasn’t in the street and it wasn’t much of a party, so we made our excuses and headed to Lucinda’s parents for a cup of tea and a cake.  Bit of a shame really, we were hoping that it would have been a good excuse for a party.  They just don’t do street parties how they used to!

The next day we headed up to West Bromwich to wish Nanny Fran a belated birthday.  Éowyn was so excited to see her Nanny Fran (and Auntie Liz) and kept everyone entertained (and on our toes) for the whole weekend.  Nanny Fran saw a big jump in Amélie too, for since she has been taking her solids she has really begun to fill out.  She is thoroughly enjoying her food and will demolish her meals with consummate ease, even calling for seconds!  She has even begun to grab the spoon and start feeding herself if she thinks you are not feeding her quick enough.  She is still a little bit of a lazy minx though.  She still has not begun to crawl, although with the power in her legs maybe she has decided that crawling is a waste of time and will just wait until her legs are strong enough and begin to walk.  It is still wonderful to see how much Éowyn loves her little sister and will often lie next to Amélie or sit next to her or ask to hold her.  To think that we feared that she might be extremely jealous and in all fairness to say that there is no hint of jealousy would be a lie but apart from always stealing Amélie’s things (‘I am sharing with her!‘), Éowyn has the makings of a very good big sister.

Éowyn thoroughly enjoyed herself at Nanny Fran’s, especially when Auntie Liz put her face-painting skills to good use and turned Éowyn into a tiger.  Tigers are definitely Éowyn’s favourite animals and she will quite often pretend that she is one.  With the added bonus of a stripy face we all had to endure being on the tiger’s menu.  Although with her mop of hair she looks more like a lion with a rather impressive mane.  One of the things to do while at Nanny Fran’s was to get Éowyn’s hair trimmed, unfortunately with the bank holidays it seemed that everyone had the same idea and with no available appointments it was left to Lucinda to hack away at Éowyn’s fringe so that at least she can now see without constantly brushing her hair out of her eyes.

The weather that had been so kind to us throughout April has continued into May.  It has been a little cooler, but apart from the odd shower has been relatively dry.  This has been a blessing while the kitchen has been done.  It has meant they we could get out of the house and not worry about where we were going.  However the good weather seems to have bought the insect life out of their winter hiding places.  Wasps, and mosquitoes seem to gravitate to our house.  Éowyn is not too keen on either (much like her parents) but strangely seems to detest mosquitoes more.  She calls them midgiebugs and fears that they are going to eat her.  Not sure where she has got that one from.  However, all this glorious weather this early into the year is bound to mean that the height of summer will be a wash out.

Éowyn is now back to school and seemingly very happy there.  Although before she went to school on Friday she said, ‘Mommy, I don’t want to go to school it is yucky!‘  Lucinda told her that she had to go to school and off they went.  They walked into school and Lucinda took Éowyn’s coat off to hang it on her coathook, when she turned around Éowyn wasn’t there.  She had wandered off into the classroom.  Lucinda asked her if she was going to say goodbye to Mommy.  She just turned waved and that was it.  We are glad that she is happier at school and has seemingly made at least three friends.  Hopefully the skills she will learn at pre-school will be easier when she moves up to school proper.

I think I have stolen enough time today so I am off to dandle Amélie while accepting pretend choclate cake and a nice cup of tea from Éowyn as I sit in her hairdressing salon.

Peace and Love

Baggie

The speed of the sponge
Pleased with the result
ROAR!
Contemplating
This is how to eat an Easter Egg
I’m hungry…
Smiler
Pat-a-cake
Cheeky!
Posing
Maddie and Amélie
Lauren, Maddie and Éowyn
I have to feed myself!
Zonked
The new kitchen

Century Celebrations

Baggie

The Keen-eyed among you will have noticed that this is a very special post in the history of this website.  This is the 100th article written for baggieandlucy.com.  Yes, 100 different times I have sat down and transcribed the latest goings-on of our little family – that’s nearly a book – and hopefully 100 times you have sat down and read them. These 100 articles consist of 9 static pages (the Major Events) and 91 posts (the regular updates); over 70,000 words, nearly 1000 pictures and have received nearly 90,000 hits.  Not bad for 2½ years of stolen time.  So we would like to extend a big thank you to you (our readers) for popping by and enjoying the trials and tribulations of our growing family and we look forward to the next milestone, our 100,000th hit (by my reckoning some time in late August, early September).

As if to celebrate this milestone the weather, too, has been kind to us with an early summer in time for our late Easter.  Temperatures of 25°C in April are definitely unusual (hottest April day since the 1940’s apparently!) but more than welcome however it probably infers that we will have a dull and wet summer.  So enjoy it while it lasts!  With that in mind the Bagnalls are not shy to take full advantage.  We are quite fortunate that we live fairly close to three major theme park attractions:  Chessington World of Adventures, Legoland and, closest of all, Thorpe Park.  Therefore when we discovered that you can trade £40 (it has since gone up) worth of Tesco Club Card vouchers for an individual Merlin Pass we jumped at the chance.  The Merlin Pass is almost a must have for families in our situation, it allows free entry to the three aforementioned theme parks plus many other attractions around the country as well as giving you discounts on purchases (including food) at those places.  Since both Éowyn and Amélie are (for the time being) free to enter all of these attractions, two adult passes were all we required.  Thus armed we must take advantage and get our money’s worth.

The first on our list was Chessington World of Adventures.  Mainly because, if you recall, Éowyn had asked to go to the zoo and see a tiger (and a giraffe(!)).  Chessington World of Adventures begun life as a zoo in 1931 and although the theme park that has developed around it (since 1987) is possibly more famous it still retains an impressive collection of animals (around 1,000) including the all important tiger (two actually, Sumatran to be specific) although sadly no giraffes!

We only spent a few hours at Chessington (with a Merlin pass it doesn’t matter, you can always come back!) and only really concentrated on the zoo (and food) side of the park.  Viewing the zoo through adult eyes is never a good thing and in places I felt that it showed its age and is indicative of the sorry state of zoos around the world; a male lion (albeit of the Asiatic subspecies) with a single lioness a pride does not make!  But the wonder on Éowyn’s face as she saw a tiger pace inches away from her on the other side of a glass window is what you need to take away.  Her fear when the male lion roared to warn the lioness away from his food is something that can not be captured in a book, or even on the best of the wildlife documentaries.  There is something primeval that is triggered when you hear big cat roar, the part of the brain that remembers being on the menu.

She thoroughly enjoyed the zoo and kept talking about the lions and the tigers (‘The daddy lion roared: Get away from my Dinner! I was scared‘).  Chessington also has a monorail (called the Safari Skyway) that travels over the zoo and so while Lucinda fed Amélie (who was as good as gold all day), Éowyn and I took the circular route over the cages.  Not exactly the best view but it was a good trip for Éowyn especially since most of the rides in the area we were in, were unsuitable for her.  I think that was the impression that we took from Chessington that it is probably a little too old for Éowyn but a good alternative than taking her to a dedicated zoo.

In order to make a Merlin Pass pay, you do not have to go to the attractions that many times.  In fact for us, twice.  Hence we are already in profit as the following week we headed to Legoland.  Now I love Lego.  I loved Lego as a boy and still love Lego now.  Not obsessed by it as some people I may mention but I think it rightly deserves the title of Toy of the 20th Century, but I was intrigued on how a whole theme park based around Lego would work.  Now interestly, since it was Éowyn requesting to see tigers that took us to Chessington, Legoland is actually built on the site of what was Windsor Safari Park and was the world’s second Legoland (after the one in Denmark).  It is the third most visited theme park in the UK (after Alton Towers and Thorpe Park – both included in the Merlin Pass) and most importantly is aimed a three to 12 year olds.  Thus making it ideal for Éowyn and her friends and more likely that we will return regularly.

Again, we only spent a couple of hours around Legoland (because we can) and thus just scratched the edge of the park (I was surprised how big it actually is).   However this time Éowyn did manage to go on some rides.  Far from being scared, which we thought she might be, she loved it and didn’t want to get off when each of the rides had finished.  We had feared that half way around the track she would have been asking to get off or to stop the ride.  Nope.  Not our little Éowyn; Again!’ was the cry.

The hot weather has bought out the huge mosquitoes again.  Where there is pleasure there must be pain.  We seem to have a number of different species around our corner of the globe, with the biggest being close to an inch long with stripes along thieir   .  Who needs to go to the zoo when you have tigers in Stanwell Moor.  That drone at night when you are just about to drop off to sleep is one of the most annoying noises in Christendom.

Éowyn has taken another step in her development this week.  She had her first plaster put onto a cut.  She fell over while out with our childminder and Jo put a plaster on her elbow.  Éowyn was very proud of it and very upset when Daddy took it off to look at the ‘wound’.  She didn’t cry because it hurt when I took the plaster off, as I thought she might, but because it was her plaster and she wanted it back on.  I am such a cruel Daddy!  Then on Good Friday Lucinda and her brothers took all the cousins to Woking Leisure Pool.  A great time was had by all and both Éowyn and Amélie loved it but on leaving the pool, Éowyn slipped and cut her toe.  The lifeguard was very good with her and gave her another plaster.  They are obviously badges of honour now!

Before I leave you, a quick ‘Happy Birthday’ to Nanny Fran for last Wednesday, and for those of you interested we are hoping that our kitchen will be finished before Friday’s Royal Wedding.  It will be bliss to have, not only, a working kitchen but the rest of our house back.

Peace and Love

Baggie

Safety first!
I like driving in my car!
Watch out!
My first queue for my first ride!
Hello Dad!
Pooped!
Wheeee!
More!
Do we have to leave?
It started innocently!
Twisted Firestarter
Now that’s what I call a fire!

Just as I was about to post this update I received some bad news, hence the slight delay.  A friend and colleague Marc Aberson passed away on Easter Sunday.  He had a heart attack while cycling with friends near his home in Gloucestershire.  He was 48 years old (although until his memorial service we were not sure.  It appears that he had told a number of different people, with different ages, that he was the same age as them.  It brought a smile to our faces when we found out!). 

I have worked with Marc for nearly 14 years and was a hard-working bloke, always willing to help and get stuck in.  Nothing seemed to phase him at work and he always had a smile on his face.  He has been a mainstay of our VT department during that time (even while he studied for his degree) and has trained many of the guys that have passed through our doors.  He was a true gentleman and will be sorely missed.  He leaves a partner and two sons; our thoughts are with them.  Sleep well Marc.

Marc Aberson
Twisted Firestarter