Friends

The Olympics are here!

Monday 6th August 2012Thursday 9th August 2012Baggie

So after 7 years of preparation the London Olympics are here, and aren’t we doing well? 16 Gold Medals and still counting! Unfortunately throughout the build up to tournament I was a little nonplussed by it all, I didn’t apply for tickets and to be honest was thinking more about the impact it was going to have on me at work and its impact on being able to get to work. Both fears have been somewhat allayed in this first week. The traffic is incredibly quiet (even for August – i.e. school holidays) and apart from some long shifts at work it hasn’t been too bad! And now I really wish I had some tickets, even just to the Olympic Park. The girls are a little young to appreciate it but at least they would be able to tell their children that they were there!

It is always good when there is a major sporting tournament on because part of my work responsibility is ensuring that the television signals from those tournaments are arriving back at base in an acceptable way. That means I get to watch an awful lot of sport on television. It is my job! And whereas most people have to chose which one of the many Olympic channels that the BBC are making available to the general public (on satellite and through their website) I can watch all of them at the same time. The beauty of a monitor stack! And what do I do when I go home? Switch the television on and watch some more!

The week leading up to the Opening Ceremony was the best week (weatherwise) of the year so far with temperatures peaking over 30°C. However it was not to last and by the time the Opening Ceremony began we were back to 20°C and the chance of a shower. We are used to it by now, aren’t we? And three days of summer is better than none at all! The sudden increase in temperature and return to norm was accompanied in the Bagnall household with all of us succumbing to a summer cold, this made the girls a little miserable and they both keep waking up in through the night. Thus a disturbed week of sleep followed by some long days at work left both Lucinda and me exhausted.

Lucinda was so exhausted that she missed the Opening Ceremony and opted for an early night instead (she was working at 0500 the next morning, in fairness). I watched it at work arriving home a little after 0200, so we were passing ships in the night. The talk before the Olympics was how London would compete with Beijing’s Opening Ceremony. For the first 20minutes or so I was worried, and perhaps a little embarrassed, it was all a little too twee. Then the Lord of the Rings motif began and with more than a nod to The Black Country (O.K. it was the Industrial Revolution) complete with Olympic rings of ‘Molten Metal’. The James Bond/Queen sketch was genius and Mr Bean dreaming of Chariots of Fire very amusing. Overall is was fantastic, at times bewildering but definitely an Opening Ceremony to be proud of.

However you do not read this website to find out what is happening in the Olympics (Team GB doing really well) you read this website to find out what is happening in the world of the Bagnalls (or at least to look at the photos!). So what have we been up to? Obviously August is probably the busiest month for both Lucinda’s job and mine so holiday is not an option so we have to take advantage on days off to do things. So when I managed to get 3 days off in a row we filled them with a couple of trips.

The first was to visit my sister Mary and her new flat. She is still in Woking but has moved out of a large shared house into a top floor flat with one of her friends, Louise. We decided to be nosy and this enclave of the Bagnall family visited en masse. Éowyn loves to see her Aunties, probably because she gets so much attention and this time was no different. Children do not have that same sense of personal space that adults have and Éowyn quickly explored Mary’s flat. Then it was time for a game of hide and seek. Mary got bored more quickly than Éowyn, then Louise decided to take over. We then didn’t see either again. Louise kept Éowyn thoroughly entertained (or was that the other way round?). Indeed on the way home Éowyn if we could visit Auntie Mary the next day. I asked if she enjoyed seeing her auntie. ‘Yes,‘ she replied, ‘but I want to play with Louise.‘ Someone has a new best friend.

Then we headed out on a bit more of a journey, to Cranbrook in Kent, to pay our annual visit to friends of our that we met on our N.C.T. course. Ed and Marisol moved to Cranbrook not long after they had their daughter Frieda and so we do not see them that often. Frieda and Éowyn were the only girls that were born in our class so since Frieda has moved Éowyn had to grow up playing with boys. Considering that Éowyn and Frieda hardly know each other, their initial cageyness soon gave way to sororal closeness and were playing in Frieda’s room hiding from Amélie, something I think Amélie will have to get used to. It was a long day trip but great to see Ed and Marisol and were very happy they could see us especially considering the fact that Marisol is due to give birth any day now. We wish them all the best.

The biggest news to affect the Bagnall family though is that Jo, our childminder for the last 3 years has given us notice. We can fully understand why, we only give her around 8 days a month and that means that she can not take on other children who would give her more days work a month and in this economic clime then everyone needs to maximise their income but it is quite sad. Both Éowyn and Amélie love Jo and going to her house. Jo does so much with them and educates as well as entertains them so they are going to miss going as much as we are going to miss them going. It puts us in a difficult position for since we only need a few days a month it is almost impossible to find a childminder or nursery that will take children on a shift pattern (as opposed to fixed days) and that is why Jo was a godsend when our paths crossed (with thanks to Nanny Vera). Nevertheless we wish Jo well and thank her for three years of hard work looking after our brood.

The next few weeks are join to be very busy for me and so there may be a gap before the next update but before I leave you a quick update on one of the saddest stories that this website has bought you. In February 2009 a friend and work colleague Eilidh Cairns was knocked off her bike and killed by a lorry while on her way to work. The incident was put down to a tragic accident and the driver was free to continue driving. However the Cairns family have not been the only family who have been affected by his actions and this week saw him in court once again for causing death by dangerous driving. This, however is not the forum for this but if you are interested please click here for a more detailed write up.

Peace and love

Baggie

Extreme Close Up

Zonked!

Mr McGee, don’t make me angry

Off on an adventure!

Quick, follow me!

What’s in the field?

We can’t get through

Run!

And Run!

Wind’s blowing in from the West

Got you!

Daddy!

I don’t want to be in this photo!

Éowyn and Frieda

Éowyn and Mommy!

Amélie…

Say, yes!

Cheese!

In control

Picnic!

Like my hat?

Cousins!

Miss Wooden Tractor 2012

This is brilliant!

Paschal Playtime and the Great Easter Egg hunt!

Tuesday 10th April 2012Friday 29th March 2013Baggie

April is here and the promise of Sunshine has disappeared in a blizzard, not a metaphorical blizzard, an actual blizzard. Admittedly not in the South East of England but across great swathes of the country, Aberdeenshire for instance which was basking in the warmest March day every recorded in Scotland a mere week ago is now under 8 inches of snow. Must be a sign that the Easter bank holidays are here and children are off school.

However before the Artic low pressure begun to dominate our weather we managed to squeeze in some out door fun to wit: The First (and possibly The Last) Great Bagnall Easter Egg hunt; held at Lucinda’s parents we invited many of Éowyn’s friends, fourteen in total. So we arrived early Sunday morning armed with chocolate eggs and buffet food. Éowyn’s cousins Lauren and Maddie were really excited and came round to help and, of course, Lucinda’s parents helped get everything prepared. Fortunately, although it was a little chilly to begin, the ground was dry and we could hide the eggs around the garden, in flower beds, against trees all easily accessible since their were, on average, only 3. Amélie, the lazy monkey decided to have a morning nap and slept through the whole of the preparation – which actually was probably the most helpful thing that she could have done!

We managed to prevent the early arrivals from heading off into the garden but that involved distracting them with the variety of bikes, cars, prams, doll and balls that Nanny and Granddad have accumulated over the years of being grandparents. Éowyn tends to regard them as hers, unless of course her cousins are there so she was a little perturbed to see so many children playing with ‘her‘ toys. A quick father to daughter chat about sharing and then a little distraction technique and she was fine and didn’t complain for the rest of the day.

The Egg Hunt kept the little ones occupied for a good 20 minutes or so and all managed to find some eggs to fill their baskets. We then turned our little ones and the egg hunt into a utopian communism by means of the sharing blanket. We had bought enough eggs so that all could have one big one, three little ones and a kinder surprise egg. Amazingly all the children loved the idea of the sharing blanket and all happily sat cross-legged around the perimeter of the blanket while the eggs were shared. Then it was party food for everyone. By mid-afternoon everyone had left and we were exhausted, however it was so much fun and all the children seemed to enjoy themselves that it would be nice to turn it into an annual event – I think we may have to persuade Nanny and Granddad!

Obviously, Easter isn’t just about Easter Eggs and Éowyn prouded came home from pre-school just before the holiday and announced in the car on the way home that she has learned all about Easter. Lucinda was driving and asked what had she learned? ‘That Jesus died on a hot cross bun.‘ Lucinda said that it was a miracle (pardon the choice of word) that she didn’t crash the car. Poor Éowyn was none the wiser and when I arrived home from work proceded to tell me the same thing. I haven’t actually corrected her and occasionally she still will bring it up, especially when there is an advert on the television for hot cross buns.

Amélie is still enjoying having a room to herself (and so are we!) for she is sleeping through the night and, indeed, slept through until 07:20 one morning. Sheer bliss. However, she is still a cheeky little madam and ‘Swiper’ in disguise. However she gets away with it because she is so cute and will give you such a cheeky grin when she knows she is up to something naughty. Éowyn’s Easter Egg stash was the lastest casualty of our own veritable swiper. Éowyn and Amélie were in the lounge while Lucinda was getting showered and dressed one morning. Lucinda came downstairs and entered the lounge, Éowyn was happily sitting watching Peppa Pig while Amélie was hiding her crime out of sight of her big sister, although the half-eaten egg in her hand and the chocolate smeared around her face betrayed her guilt.

We still believe that Amélie has her Cow’s Milk Protein Intolerance and the above crime seemed to confirm that assumption as she cried throughout the next night and seemed to be in pain. Some things seem to be OK and we have introduced her to Soya products now so she can join in with the yoghurt eating and milk on her cereal. She has an appointment to see the dietician next week so we will see where we go and what is the next step.

Éowyn’s behaviour has been fantastic of late. She has been very well behaved and more than that is seemingly revelling in being good. Whenever she is good I have been telling her that I have been proud of her and this encouragement technique seems to reap rewards. In fact she said to Lucinda just the other day, when Lucinda dropped her off at Nanny and Granddad’s, ‘I am going to be a good girl and make Daddy proud.‘ She was and she did! We have been a little reliant on Nanny and Granddad with pre-school shut for Easter holidays, myself and Lucinda both working and Jo, our childminder taking holiday too, it doesn’t give us too many options – apart from wasting precious leave from work. Unfortunately we don’t get the same kind of annual leave entitlement as a teacher.

Before I leave you to the current crop of photos another amusing ancedote from the vaults of Éowyn. We have an extensive Disney collection and Éowyn enjoys watching films, something that she inherits from her father (and grandfather Bagnall) before her. She asked last week while at home with Lucinda, if she could watch Aladdin. Lucinda dug the DVD out and put it in the player. The film started and Éowyn said ‘This isn’t Aladdin!‘ Lucinda confirmed that it was but Éowyn was adamant that it wasn’t. ‘I want the real Aladdin,‘ she said, ‘The one where there is a man on a motorbike and some cats in a basket and he throws them into the river.‘ Lucinda’s film knowledge is not as encyclopedic as mine, especially when it comes to children’s films, so Lucinda asked me when I got home if I knew what she meant. I said that it sounded like the Aristocats. So we put the Aristocats on and asked Éowyn if this was the film that she wanted to watch. She confirmed it was and so I explained that it wasn’t called Aladdin (or even ‘The Real Aladdin’) but it was called The Aristocats. I asked her to repeat it and obviously not really knowing the word repeated what she thought she heard: ‘The Embarrassing Cats‘. Much better title in my opinion.

Peace and Love

Baggie

Lauren and Maddie’s cakes

More of Lauren and Maddie’s cakes

A hidden egg

Painting our eggs

The egg and spoon race

They went that way!

I like the swing

Higher Granddad

Mommy and Éowyn

Smile for the Camera

Nanny and Amélie

Granddad and Amélie

I’ve just swept that!

Peep-po

They are my toys!

Mommy and her daughters

Three Generations

Hello!

Bundle!

Static!

Giz a kiss!

Chilling with the Grandparents!

A well-deserved ice-cream

All too much!

100,000 words and bipedal motion!

Monday 30th January 2012Monday 30th January 2012Baggie

We have seen 100 posts, we have seen 100,000 hits and now we have hit another milestone 100,000 words (total words across all posts and pages). Yes this website now has more words than the average novel. Impressive ne pas? I never realised I was so verbose or that so much has happened to this enclave of the Bagnall clan over the last 40 months or so.

However, that is not the greatest achievement since the last update. For the greater accomplishment is that my second child can now be truly classed as bipedal. Yes, last Thursday (19th January 2012) Amélie just decided to stand up in the middle of the floor and walk. Not just one or two steps but half a dozen. The encouragement that she received spurred her on. Within minutes that total was up to 11 and by the end of the day had nudged that total up to 12. I suppose because she has been cruising for so long her legs have the strength to support her, she has the balance to carry herself but she is just lacking the confidence to continue. It will come, with encouragement it will not be long before she will leave her crawling days behind her. She will happily hold your hand and walk for yards and hopefully the more we do this the more this will give her the confidence to strike out on her own.

Now usually on Thursday morning I would be at work, however I still had a number of days left over from last year’s entitlement to use by the end of January and therefore, fortunately, I was at home on annual leave for the week. It was good to spend some time at home but it wasn’t the most exciting of times (apart, obviously from Amélie’s first steps!). Lucinda took some time off too but with Amélie already booked to go to Jo’s and with Éowyn still at playbox myself and Lucinda had time to off together but there was no time to enjoy that for we decided that we would attempt to straighten the house after the Christmas period. Not that the house needed that much straightening but it was more an opportunity to go through the kid’s toys and either take the ones that they never play with down the local charity shop or put away the ones that they have outgrown. Then finding space for them all, either in the toy boxes (yes plural), Éowyn’s bedroom or just tidied away. It felt good to get back some of the house!

We also managed to take advantage of my tastecard (for the first time!) and go for lunch, which was good to spend some time as a couple rather than a mommy and daddy, although there is still that little voice in the back of your head saying, Keep an eye on the time, you have to pick Amélie and Éowyn up. On the Thursday we also managed to invite friends of ours, Neil and Emma, around for an evening. So we managed to put the girls to bed early (not that early but early enough for us to enjoy our evening) and to their great credit they went down and we heard not a peep out of them all evening. It was good catching up with friends especially Neil and Emma who we hadn’t seen in over a year. It is amazing how quickly time passes us by and if truth be told we have a long list of friends that we have not seen in over a year, something that perhaps we need to rectify in 2012.

We also took advantage of the time off to head up the M40 to West Bromwich and Nanny Fran. Éowyn gets very excited about seeing her Nanny Fran, so much so that she didn’t take advantage of the 120 mile car journey and sleep but rather stayed awake for the entire journey asking the epitomic question ‘Are we nearly there yet?‘ They start early don’t they? However this tiredness manifested itself as grumpiness and misbehaviour, so there were a number of trips to the re-instated Thinking Step.

In fact, there has been quite a number of trips to the Thinking Step of late. After many months without even the threat of a trip to the Thinking Step, Éowyn has been a regular visitor of late. There are a number of reasons for this, namely: She is doing 3 days a week at school, plus trips to her childminder’s so she is missing her afternoon nap (I know the feeling) and getting tired and when she is tired she gets grumpy and her behaviour get worse; Amélie is getting a lot of attention of late, especially with regards to the encouragement that she is getting with her walking and her increasing vocabulary, so jealousy plays a part; She gets influenced by the behaviour of other children (as all children do) so making sure that she realises that just because her friends do it, it doesn’t mean that she has to (I think that is going to be a battle for many years to come!); and I have been working some long hours so she doesn’t always see me and Lucinda has, obviously, returned to work so she is not always seeing Lucinda either. Plus she is probably just going through one of those phases where they try to push the boundaries and see what they can get away with, which is going but it puts pressure on us to keep the boundaries well defined.

Despite her frequent forays to the Thinking Step Lucinda treated Éowyn to a special day out last Wednesday. A Peppa Pig live stage show was enjoying a run at Richmond Theatre and so Lucinda and Éowyn and her friend Christine and her daughter Arabella took the short trip down the A316. Éowyn was completely enthralled by Peppa Pig’s Treasure Hunt (a puppet show) in complete contrast to the last live show that she saw which was the In The Night Garden live show, so much so that at the interval she got a little upset that it was over. I think this is because, unfortunately, between booking the In The Night Garden tickets and actually going Éowyn grew out of the phase and was no longer interested in the antics of Iggle Piggle and Upsy Daisy (not to mention the hosts of other similarly named characters). Now, Peppa Pig is a different matter, it is by far her favourite show and with trips to Peppa Pig world and a bed full of cuddly Peppa Pig characters I think it will stay her favourite for a few years to come yet.

Unfortunately I must end this update on a sad note. My Great Uncle Albert passed away just after 1505 on Friday 27th January 2012 aged 90. He had been ill for a little while and while the loss of any one is always sad in some ways his passing is a blessing. Uncle Albert was my materal grandmother’s brother and was an inspiration. He gave me my first paid job (in the despatch department of Accles and Shelvoke packing slaughter equipment: bolt stunners and cartridges) the summer after my GCSE exams. He also ignited my interest in genealogy, tracing his own family tree back to 1546. He also typed (with one finger and a lot of correction fluid) his wartime memories dubbing himself (in his self-depreciating style) Churchill’s Secret Weapon on an old manual typewriter. The reasoning behind his monicker was that shortly after he completed his training the war in Europe ended. Then, as he set foot in Asia (he was posted in India) the war in Asia ended. Obviously, the enemy did not want to engage Albert Wyton in battle. He is now at peace with his wife of 64 years (my Great Auntie Iris), sleep well both, reunited in love.

Peace and Love

Baggie