First

Amélie’s first day at school

Wednesday 9th September 2015Baggie

On the same day as Queen Elizabeth II became the longest reigning monarch in British history (63 years 217 days) our second born started full-time education. Yes, this auspicious day saw Amélie, who will turn 5 at the end of the month don her school uniform for the first time and head through the park to school. Just a few short days after Éowyn started year 2 Amélie took a big step in her life: starting full-time education. As this is an important stage in all of our lives she deserves a write-up all to herself and this is it.

I had the day off work so I could be there when she went to school and be at home when she got back. Lucinda had child-minding commitments so it was quite handy that I could help and so we could give Amélie as much attention between us as we could.

She usually wakes up early so she had her bath and washed her hair early so that she could get a good night’s sleep. However she still got out of bed early all excited and this excitement continued throughout the morning and putting on her school uniform. Wearing her school uniform and carrying her school bag she looked very grown up, how can Lucinda and I have two grown up girls? So after taking the customary photos (see below) we headed to school en masse.

Obviously with Éowyn at one campus and Amélie at the other we needed to split at some point, thus on the fork in the path in the park I gave Amélie a kiss and wished her well for her first day at school. Then I took Éowyn to her school and Lucinda headed to reception with Amélie. Éowyn got a little upset when I dropped her off (probably because she wasn’t the centre of attention, so I stayed with her until Miss Benarth opened the door. I then ran from one campus to the other to see if I could wave Amélie off, but I arrived as Lucinda was leaving the classroom. Lucinda said that as soon as Miss Snow had opened the door, Amélie had run in and started to play with the reception toys, she wasn’t in the least concerned about going to school, or even saying goodbye to her mum. Lucinda managed to snatch a kiss and then Amélie went back to her game.

Seemingly, the excitement stayed with her all day. She came back enthusing about school and how brilliant it was. School dinners were brilliant; Miss Snow was brilliant; they had stories; they played games and there were lots of toys. Oh, yes she enjoyed her school lunch. Whenever we asked her about school, she said it was brilliant and the best thing was the school lunch, she is a Bagnall! I don’t think that we will have any problems convincing her to go to school tomorrow, especially as she is going to see her new best friend, Olivia (or at least that is what she thinks her name is – names aren’t important when you are four years old!) and there will be school lunch.

The real reason that you have clicked on the link is to see Amélie in her school uniform, so without wishing to detain you any longer here are those customary photos of our latest ‘big’ girl:

Peace and love

Baggie

A laugh for Mommy

She’ll grow into it

Smiler

February half term

Monday 23rd February 2015Monday 23rd February 2015Baggie

February is nearly over and once again this site has been bereft of updates. You are getting used to this by now I am sure. Does this put pressure on me to deliver an evocative passage of prose? Well, if you are expecting such a delight you will be sadly disappointed but hopefully the photos will make up for it!

The weather so far this winter has been relatively benign. No great storms like last year therefore no flooding; no heavy falls of snow (we did have about 5mm one morning, with drifts of nearly 10mm but not enough to warrant a Facebook posting) and no prolonged periods of cold (unlike the North Eastern U.S.) . Nevertheless, it is winter and therefore the fact that our central heating works has been greatly appreciated. It is very pleasant walking in from the school run and being greeted with a wall of warmth as you open the front door. A small something, and something that I had taken for granted for many years; as with many of today’s creature comforts it is only when they are taken away do you realise how much you have come to rely on them.

In my bachelor days I shared a flat in Richmond Upon Thames with 2 other bachelors. In a throw back to the 1970’s we had a power cut one evening that lasted several hours. It was only then that we realised how all of our usual evening entertainment relied on electricity. Nevertheless we endured and a candlelit game of kerplunk with a Chinese take-away and a slightly warm beer kept the chthonic gloom away.

It is something that I am conscious (ok, semi-conscious) of ensuring that the Baguettes do not become so reliant on electricity for entertainment. There is no denying that they do enjoy watching TV and playing on the iPads but in fairness to my little ones they do enjoy playing with dolls, cutting up bits of paper and, in Ezra’s case, playing with his ‘choo-choo‘.

As the above demonstrates, Ezra’s vocabulary is increasing daily and it is now easier for him to convey want he wants. He has recently discovered his wooden train set that we bought him for Christmas and he delights in sitting on the floor pushing the train around the track. In fact, he has become a little obsessive with it and will keep tugging on your leg saying ‘choo-choo‘ and squeals with excitement as you connect the track together in a loop. It is in contrast with his other obsession: Peppa Pig, or more accurately ‘George‘, her little brother. I think that a trip to Peppa Pig World is in order, in the not too distant future.

Ezra’s other new found love belies his Midland roots: Pork Pies. I had bought myself a couple of mini pork pies and as I took it out of the fridge to garnish my dinner (lunch for those of you in the South of England) plate, Ezra reached out his hand and said ‘Mine‘. I always like the children to try new food so I gave it to him, half expecting it to be returning with barely a nibble gone. No such luck. He polished it off completely. It is not a one off either, he will regularly eat a mini pork pie with his father. Flat cap, pork pie, all he needs now is a whippet!

Ezra’s next big stage will be to move into his big bed. He is still in his cot, but he is rapidly outgrowing it. Therefore a new bed has been built in his room but we have not moved him into it yet. I will update you all in the new write up as to his progress to a big boy’s bed.

Ezra isn’t the only one with new milestones over the last few weeks. Éowyn has completed her first fundraising activity, no doubt the first of many. Organised through the school it was for the NSPCC (the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) and involved physical exercise. She had to perform 100 sets of various activities, running, skipping, hopping, star jumps and the like. The more sponsors she received the more reward badges she received. Obviously she wanted the highest level of badge: the Rainbow badge. Therefore Daddy took the sponsorship form to work to see if he could coerce his colleagues into parting with their hard earned money. They came up trumps and with the family filling in the blank lines, Éowyn not only reached the Rainbow milestone but raised a grand total of £184.03 (the odd thruppence came from colleagues trying to outdo each other by a penny!).

Amélie’s first was her first school report from her new school. Her school has just had its latest Ofsted (the office for standards in education) inspection and had been rated Outstanding, which is fantastic news. So would Amélie’s report be as favourable? We need not of worried, for she received an outstanding rating of her own.

They are very pleased with her and have said that she development-wise she is hitting the targets that are given to reception year children, in fact the one fear they have is that she may be bored when she goes to school as there may not be much to engage her. The other observation that they have is that she tends to play on her own. It is something that we have noticed at home too. She is often in her own little world even when she is playing ‘with’ other children. I have put with in inverted commas because she has a tendency to play next to her friends (as does become upset when her friends are not about or will not play next to her) but they do not interact. That is maybe a little unfair for she will play with other children but I think she just prefers her own company.

As the title alludes last week was half-term. We had no trips planned so we decided that it would be nice to pop up to see Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz. It seems an inordinate amount of time since I last went up to West Bromwich. Coming on back of Valentine’s day Nanny Fran also offered to look after the kids on the Sunday evening that we arrived so that we could take advantage of one of the restaurants in the new development in West Bromwich town centre.

All three kids love seeing their Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz mainly because they do not see them that often. Even Ezra got excited as we arrived in Hateley Heath. We only spent two and half days in West Bromwich, for I had to go to work on the Wednesday and Lucinda the next day. However it was nice spending some time with Nanny Fran and the kids enjoyed it especially since they were allowed to visit a toy shop and spend some of their Christmas money. Not that they were allowed to spend all of it, for one of the jobs that Lucinda and I managed to complete on this visit was to pay some money into their West Bromwich Building Society accounts.

When I was born an account at the West Bromwich Building Society was opened in my name and as part of a tradition (of two generations) we have done the same for my children shortly after they were born. Well, all but Ezra. For some reason or another we have not managed to do so for our son. This was rectified on this trip and now he, too, can begin to put some money aside to squander on a gap year, a trip around the world, or his first car or indeed what ever he sees fit and the same for his older sisters. Hopefully there will be enough in there for them to find useful.

I take your leave and as March approaches as a West Brom fan we are in the rare territory of still being in the F.A. cup with a trip to our arch rivals Aston Villa in the quarter-final. A win will mean a trip to Wembley and a semi-final appearance, but defeat will leave us open to mocking from Villa fans for many a-year.

Peace and Love

Baggie

In Amélie-world

On the way to cause trouble?

Dappled Éowyn

Nannnnnyyyy….

My owls

Whatcha doin’ sis?

I’m ready

And swing

Sisters

At Nanny and Granddad’s

Badly drawn boy?

Grumpy boy

My best friend!

Photobomb

Best friends

Concentrating

Making myself comfy

Playing with my new toy

Nanny Fran’s school photo

Whatcha doing?

Can Ezra help?

(Football) Season’s greetings

Thursday 28th August 2014Saturday 30th August 2014Baggie

You wait seven weeks and then there are two updates in a week. Yes the football seasons are well underway and work has already started to slip into a pattern. It is nice to know that the hard work put in over the summer have borne fruit quite quickly and workflows and procedures seem to be working. There is one more hurdle to jump, one more client to incorporate into the system and then hopefully I can ease off the weekends and start to see the family more. Don’t hold your breath!

This update however takes us back to before I lost my weekends to the behemoth that is IMG. Lucinda’s friend Lisca decided to celebrate her birthday inviting a select group of friends for a spa weekend. So Lucinda took advantage and headed off to the country while I stayed at home with the kids. I was looking forward to spending time with the kids but it appeared that my body decided to rebel and use the opportunity to lower its guard and let the infection that it was fighting have the upper hand for the weekend. So, probably before Lucinda had even checked in, I was running a temperature of nigh on 40˚C while every muscle ached.

The kids were playing nicely together so I lay on the settee to try and regain some strength. Éowyn saw that I was ill and asked if she could put on a DVD and curl up on the settee with me. So, she chose a film (Brave) put it in the player, handed me the remote controls and curled up on the settee with me. Amélie, wondering where Éowyn was came into the lounge and curled up on the settee too. Then the Bagnall sandwich was complete with Ezra squeezing himself in the group hug. There we stayed watching Brave (the first time for me!) the four of us curled up on the settee. It was delightful.

The following day we had arranged to go to the cinema with the cousins. Ezra was duly packed off to Nanny and Granddad’s and Éowyn, Amélie and I went to watch Muppets Most Wanted. The girls are a big fan of The Muppets (indeed Éowyn’s first trip to the cinema was to see The Muppets) and know all the songs from the first film, so it was an easy choice. Neither of the girls were as captivated as they were with the first film (and in fairness neither was I, and I’m a big Muppets fan) however Éowyn has begun to do a very good Russian accent, in the style of Constantine (the world’s most evil frog).

A fortnight later was our 7^th Wedding Anniversary and how did we celebrate this momentous occasion? Lucinda was working, then we had friends round for a barbeque before I, and two friends, went to the cinema to watch the simulcast of the last night of the Monty Python Live (Mostly) stage show. It is a good job that I have an understanding Wife, and perhaps, in part it is why we got married. The show was the first time in 30 years that all the (living) Pythons were together on stage and they kept us all happy by performing all the favourites, with a bit of new material thrown in for good measure.

The favour was returned a couple of weeks later with Daddy spending a Friday night in while Lucinda and Lisca once again went out on the town for a kid-free night. We had told the girls that Lisca was going to stay the night and would be in the spare room and so not to go in there in the morning. This is the room that Éowyn and Raine spent the night when Raine came for a sleep over. Something must have clicked in Amélie’s head and equated Lisca’s stay with a sleep over. Now as Éowyn had the chance to sleep in the spare room with her friend, the cogs started turning in her head and Amélie decided that this was her opportunity. As I put the girls to bed, Éowyn duly climbing into the top bunk while Amélie disappeared; I found her snuggling into the spare bed. I asked her what she was doing. ‘I’m going to have a sleepover with Lisca,’ was her reply. I don’t think that Lisca would have been very pleased to have come home after a few fizzy drinks to have found Amélie starfishing in her bed.

July also saw the harvest of the first of our crops (16 potatoes from the first plant!). Indeed for the past month we have kept ourselves in potatoes and beans. I have always thought about the idea of having a veg patch and so this year was firstly an experiment to seeing if we were any good at growing food and whether we could dedicate the time and effort into looking after the plot. Secondly, it was to introduce the girls to where food comes from and by encouraging them to be involved in the growing process to get them to eat more veg. Any produce was therefore a bonus. Nevertheless we have been fortunate and have had a bountiful harvest of potatoes and beans. It is surprising how much better vegetables grown by your own fair hand, taste; indeed our potatoes are full of flavour. The girls get quite excited when I go to the veg patch to dig up some potatoes and insist on coming with me armed with a bag. I think the girls enjoy it because of the unknown. When you stick your fork in and lift the plant up, you never know how many potatoes you are going to get or how big they are. It is like a poor man’s Christmas day.

It is the gift that keeps on giving; we still have beans and potatoes to harvest and now the tomatoes are beginning to ripen. We thought that our three raspberry bushes were not going to fruit this year, however it looks like we might get a late harvest, which I am quite excited about. Unfortunately we have had a bit of a disaster with the sole remaining pumpkin plant. The leaves developed a white growth and within a couple of days all the leaves had died before we had a chance to try and cure the infection. The vine itself still seems to be alive and the pumpkin is ripening so we may be lucky, we will have to wait and see.

The pumpkin probably suffered due to the heavy rain that we have recently had. Indeed Bank Holiday Monday saw a month of rain only a couple days after the lowest August temperature recorded in the UK (a shade above -2°C in Northern Ireland) and the news that a glacier has begun to form in Scotland (despite this article from 7 months previous stating that they will not return in our lifetime). So we many feel that we are hurtling in Autumn, and the return to school but it wasn’t like that at the beginning of the month.

Indeed we were more worried about sun cream than wellies when we spend the day at Bushy Park. We headed there with our N.C.T. gang and enjoyed a traditional day at the park, playing football, frisbee and soft ball all based around a picnic. The day was made more exciting by an invasion of the Bushy Park resident deer. First it was the Red Deer that actually kept a discreet distance but not so their smaller relatives. We sat amazed on the picnic blanket as a couple of fallow deer wandered over and unafraid stuck their noses into our bags to see if there was anything of interest. I had to stand up and usher them away, only for them to head to an unoccupied picnic blanket and helped themselves to the food that had left behind. (See our Flickr pages for photos). So if any of you decide to take a trip to London’s second largest Royal park watch out for cervine thieves, it was definitely a first for the Bagnalls.

Another first for the Bagnall was Amélie’s first visit to the haridressers. Amélie’s hair has never grown as quickly Éowyn’s but has recently become a little wild, so we thought it was time for her to go for a haircut. Lucinda took both girls to our local hairdressers in Stanwell Moor. Éowyn has been before and only needed a trim of her blond locks. Amélie, however, needed a bit more work and we were a little worried how she would react. She nearly fell asleep when she had her hair washed and was as good as gold while they cut her hair until she saw it on the floor. Then she started to cry and asked them to put it back on. The hairdresser was very good with her and said that they collect all the hair and put it in a magic box. Then we you are older and you would like it back you can take it home. This seemed to placate her and then said that she wanted to get rid of her curls as she didn’t want her curls any more. So the hairdresser straightened her hair. Fortunately, the curls have fought back but not before Lucinda took some photos of her without curls. She looks very different I am sure that you agree, and probably not as cute.

Before I leave you to enjoy the photos let me regale one small amusing anecdote. Éowyn may suffer, like her father, from an inability to carry a tune she nevertheless, like her father, enjoys to sing. However her choice of songs seems to be far too influenced by Disney films and her mother’s CD collection. One of the songs that she likes is 22 by Taylor Swift. However, she hasn’t quite nailed the lyrics. For those of you not familiar with the song, it opens with the line ‘It feels like a perfect night to dress up like hipsters.’ In fairness to our oldest child, she is only five that therefore doesn’t know what a hipster is never mind what they dress like, so Éowyn fills in the unknown word with a more familiar one singing ‘It feels like a perfect night to dress up like hamsters’. A somewhat different fancy dress shop but would probably work better visually.

A big welcome to the latest member of the greater Badger clan: Letty Louise Woodman the first child for Lucinda’s cousin Kate and her partner Nolan was born on the 17th August 2104. Interestingly another girl, the 11th of her generation (compared to only 2 boys), there must be something in the water. She looks a real cutey from the photos and we can’t wait to meet her!

Peace and Love

Baggie