Funny

Bongo, bongo stylee

Wednesday 27th November 2013Sunday 16th March 2014Baggie

After an early hat-trick of updates at the beginning of November this site has been a little quiet. Three weeks into our new home I thought it was perhaps times to rectify this and give you a little insight to the life of the Bagnalls in the new Bagnall manor.

November was always going to be a busy month. A wave of productions were due to relocate from Chiswick to our company’s new base at Stockley Park and a number of these involved Live Operations (and hence me and my team) including the Football League Show. Therefore if there was one month I didn’t want to move home it was November. Unfortunately fate conspired against me and so a busy month at work coincided with the move. With no opportunity to take leave, the relocation of the family was done on days off and hence we are still mainly in boxes.

Although I, personally, have not had much time to settle into the new abode it does feel like home. Again that is despite the fact that we still have dozens of unpacked boxes and the heating isn’t working. Yes, the biggest problem that we have faced is the fact that the temperature has dropped close to freezing point over night and the heating has serious issues. We have had heating engineers around who both have confirmed that the system is full of gunk and thus the hot water is not filling the radiators. The good news is that the boiler works as does the pump, however that hot water is not reaching the radiators and thus downstairs, especially, is barely warmer than outside. Unfortunately due the design of the hot water system it is not the easiest of systems to service and that design is part of the issue, there are lots of turns and u-bends where gunk can gather. Fortunately phase one has begun and now the radiators take the chill out of the room (I wouldn’t say it is tropical but at least it is a step in the right direction) and hopefully the chemicals in the system carry on dissolving the gunk and allow the hot water to do its job.

Apart from the heating, we are as much in love with the house now as when we first looked round it. There are only a couple of minor annoyances that we hadn’t noticed when we looked round: a) the kitchen light switch is located behind the door, so as you walk into the room, you have to then close the door before you can switch the light on. Why do people do that? It is so annoying, surely when you are designing a room you automatically place the light switch on the opposite wall to the door hinge so that you can open the door with one hand while simultaneously turning the light on with the other and b) the hot water tap in the downstairs shower room (hark at us – downstairs shower room!) opens clockwise and closes counterclockwise which is the opposite direction to every other tap in the house including the cold water tape on the same sink. These are minor annoyances and the kitchen light switch will be changed when we manage to scrap enough spare cash together to redesign the kitchen.

The girls have settled in well too. They do not notice the cold (something that we have to watch for as they wander downstairs with no dressing gown or slippers on). They do not seem even to miss the old house, which is nice. They have settled in quite quickly and both are happy to use the extra space that the house offers to run around and play hide and seek. Their playroom is coming together and now we have just got to encourage them that their toys live in there (or in their bedroom) and are to be put away each night in the new boxes we have bought them. Let’s see how that goes.

So while I have been busy at work, the girls have been busy at school. Éowyn, especially has been excelling at school, she has begun to read and write and is brilliant at breaking words into their letter and then blending the sounds together. It is great to sit with her and see how excited she is when she reads a sentence. It is quite exciting for her parents too! She also has a line in the Christmas play, but more of that in the December write up. Needless to say there is plenty of practising She knows it off by heart and now we are working on projection. Éowyn wants to take it one stage further though and has started making up some actions to help emphasise the words, building her part up! We have a little diva. There is no truth in the rumours that her rider includes 23 orange smarties and a bunch of daffodils.

Although it has been a busy month at work, there was one ‘dark weekend’ and my friend and colleague cleverly chose that weekend to get married. John and Sara have lots of friends that have small children so their wedding was organised with children in mind and as a consequence my invite also included an invite for Éowyn, Amélie and Ezra.

John and Sara were married at St John’s the Evangelist in Blackheath and therefore the shortest (it turned out not to be the quickest route) was to drive through the centre of London. It was a great opportunity to point out the Natural History Museum, Buckingham Place, The Houses of Parliament and the Tower of London. There were colouring books and pencils to keep the children entertained during the ceremony and afterwards there was cake and bubbles. Then it was on to the reception at Devonport Hotel at Greenwich. This is where the beauty of the S-Max comes into its own. One of my colleagues, Matt, was going to have difficulty getting from one venue to the other, so with our seven-seater beast we could offer him a lift.

Now, Éowyn and Amélie have started to make up their own language and phrases. Bongo, bongo Stylee is one of them (it means something that is very good), others are more nonsensical. One day going to school they were talking to each other in one of these made up languages so I started to join in and they thought it was one of the funniest things that they had ever heard. So now they will ask me to talk in my made-up language.

So on the way to reception the girls requested that I spoke my made up language. So I strung together a line of vowels and consonants into an amusing set of words and they started laughing. Matt thought that he would join in and copied what I had done. Amélie, however turned to him and said, ‘Matt, you’re not even funny!‘ Put into your place by a three year old, how we laughed!

Ezra, too can be amusing and seems to be a ladies man. He is forever trying to catch the eye of the ladies and with his blue eyes and cheeky smile he tends to melt their hearts. Sometimes he is not content with just a smile though. In a restaurant a week or so ago, he had caught the eye of a couple of ladies and they were cooing over him. However they turned away from him and begun talking to each other, Ezra was not happy. He started calling out to them, getting more and more agitated. When they turned to see what he was doing, he immediately stopped shouting and just looked at them and gave them a big blue-eyed smile! He is going to break hearts if he continues like that! His latest smile is even cuter as he screws his eyes up as he grins. I will try and get a photo.

Unfortunately we have all been fighting a winter cold. Éowyn was the first to succumb, although we were not convinced at first. The Bagnalls are the kind of family that do not stop for a mere cold, so when Éowyn had a bit of a cough we gave her some cough syrup, wrapped her up warm and sent her to school. We were surprised when Lucinda received a call on a Tuesday afternoon to say that Éowyn had vomited and would we collect her. Lucinda asked her why she had vomited and Éowyn told a different story, namely that she had accompanied one of her friends to the toilet and (I quote Éowyn directly) ‘She did a smelly poo and it make me sick.‘ Therefore thinking that there was nothing in it, we sent her to school the next day. School must have thought that we were bad parents and immediately called Lucinda to collect her again, saying that when a pupil had vomited they needed to be off school for 24 hours.

Thursday morning came and we sent her to school. Her cough had got a little worse but nothing too much to worry about. However at lunch Éowyn had a coughing fit while eating and once again vomited. So the bad parents were called back and they requested that Éowyn stay at home the next day. Thus Éowyn will not receive a 100% attendance certificate for the next half term.

So as we settle into our new home we haven’t had many visitors (we are still in boxes and it is a little cold) but the first of my friends to visit has one of the longest journeys. Sanjiv, was over in England for a couple of weeks from his home in New Delhi (India for those of you with an F in geography) and we managed to meet up (for the first time in ages) and he came round to look at our new home and also to meet the family. Éowyn was a baby the last time he met them, now we have Amélie and Ezra – how scary is that? It was good to see him and it illustrates how we let life get in the way of living, years seem to pass so quickly and before you know it, friends’ children are going to university. Surely I am not that old? Although I have just ‘celebrated’ 18 years at IMG. I can now employ people that were not born when I started at IMG in November 1995!

With those thoughts I will leave you and see you in December!

Peace and Love

Baggie

PS Apologies for the lack of decent photos, have been a little busy, I will try harder for the next update.

Cute smile for Zebra

Smile for Mommy!

Look at my teeth!

Smiler!

Cheeky boy

First meal in the new house

Bagnall manor

John and Sara cut the cake

Matt eats the cake!

Éowyn’s Fifth Birthday

Friday 1st November 2013Saturday 2nd November 2013Baggie

This was meant to have been posted before we went on holiday, but life got in the way and so this post is very belated. Apologies, but it will mean that you will possibly have 3 (if life doesn’t get in the way again) updates in the next week or so.

The second and third weeks of October were emotional, pivotal, exciting and to top it all, the week that our oldest child celebrated her fifth birthday. Yes, five years ago we became parents when Éowyn came into our lives. I probably write this every year and will do for years to come, but it does not seem like five minutes ago that I first held her in my arms. So, need I explain the first sentence a little more?

Emotional – obviously with the passing of my Nan at the beginning of the week.

Exciting – My 40th birthday present and the track day in the Ariel Atom.

I have missed one haven’t I?

Pivotal – The most pleasant of the big news stories of the last couple of weeks is that we have exchanged on our new home. The remortgage on our current home is through and so the monies can be transferred and the 10% deposit paid and the contracts can be exchanged. We complete on the 1st November and the 5 months of an emotional rollercoster is easing into the station. Yes, there will be the small matter of making the new place a home, no to mention the packing, moving and unpacking that we are yet to face but positive moves are afoot and we can let ourselves believe that it is actually going to happen! But the gory details of the move will be a subject for another update what have we missed since the last update about the Bagnall household?

As you may recall from the write up entitled Amélie’s Third Birthday Éowyn’s N.C.T. group 5th birthday party was held at Alice Holt but unfortunately due to work commitments I was unable to go. Therefore with an rare Sunday off we decided to head to Alice Holt for a family day out. To make it a little bit more fun we told my university friends Charlie and Mel hoping that their boys and our girls would have someone new to play with. When we woke that Sunday morning the heavens had opened and it was heavily raining. Undaunted we still headed to Alice Holt and so, too, did Charlie and Mel. Thus the two families trudged through the rain and the mud, with wellies and waterproofs, you have to be prepared. We headed to Charlie and Mel’s for coffee and cake before heading back home with two very tired girls. It was good to see Charlie and Mel and hopefully we will have better weather next time we meet up.

Éowyn’s actual birthday was a little subdued. Being a weekday she was at school. Unfortunately we may have set a bit of a precedent with taking cakes and sweets (Éowyn’s insistence) for her classmates. Although I was at work, I managed to get out a little early and headed to Nanny and Granddad’s for a birthday tea with Uncle Michael, Auntie Cristina and Lauren and Maddie in addition to the Bagnalls and Nanny and Granddad. As ever she was spoilt with presents and thoroughly enjoyed her birthday cake that Nanny Fran had sent down with me earlier in the week.

Nanny Fran had planned to surprise Éowyn and come down on her birthday and stop the night. Unfortunately with Nan’s (Great Grandma’s) passing on the Monday before Éowyn’s birthday, Nanny Fran was unable to come down as she had a lot of organising to do and Nan’s affairs to put in order. As Éowyn didn’t know that Nanny Fran was coming down, she was not disappointed but nevertheless Nanny Fran was and so will have to make amends in a couple of weeks.

Éowyn has grown up considerably over the last couple of months and this is obviously due to school. With half-term approaching her love of education is not diminishing. It probably helps that she is one of the oldest children in the year and she is also gregarious and quite clever. She has received a number of stickers for good work and two certificates for being a ‘superstar‘ the first with explaining what a repeating pattern is and the second for reading. Yes, our little girl can now read (one of the first in the class to progress to reading – very proud parents). She also received a certificate for perfect attendance.

This information is not just second hand, we have received it first hand from Éowyn’s teacher when we had our first ‘proper’ parents’ evening. Miss Finbow spoke very highly of Éowyn, she said that not only is Éowyn academically bright but that she brightens the room with her presence. She will organise games with the other children and has learned to share and think about the other children, something she has demonstrated on a number of occasions. Miss Finbow said that there was nothing we needed to be worried about but just to continue the things we do with Éowyn to help develop her reading. We told Miss Finbow that we would be moving shortly and so we are concerned that it may affect Éowyn and she said that she would keep a close eye on Éowyn and report if she thinks that it is having any adverse effects on our eldest. She did say a nice thing in reply to our news though, almost pleading with us not to take Éowyn out of the school as she would miss her.

It is a shame that Amélie isn’t quite as well behaved. She has been a little naughty (although still cute with her naughtiness) of late. It is probably due to the upheaval in her life at the moment. She is no longer the baby of the family, Ezra has taken that accolade. She is going to school but only twice a week while Éowyn goes everyday. Also Éowyn is getting a lot of praise with her school work, she has a birthday and then three weeks later Éowyn has a birthday.

This culminated in Amélie having a poo on the bathroom floor. Not sure why she didn’t go to the toilet, or indeed the potty that was in her room but when we asked her why she had done it, she denied that it was her. Not only did she deny that it was her but blamed an imaginary friend, not her imaginary friend but one of Éowyn’s!

In Amélie’s defence, she has been very well behaved at school (nursery) and is enjoying going which is a great turnaround considering at the beginning of September she was nearly apoplectic with the notion of going. Now, she positively runs up the path eager to spend the day at TinyTots.

Before I leave you for the day a quick update on Ezra. His crawling has gone from Ninja rolling to crawling backwards to zooming around the house getting under your feet. He has also started to pull himself up on the furniture; not quite to his feet but to his knees, somehow I doubt it will not be long before he will progress to standing – then the trouble will begin.

Not the greatest selection of photos below, for which I apologise but rest assured there will be plenty uploaded to Flickr in the next week or so.

Peace and Love

Baggie

Enjoying my crisps

Father and son

Cheeky smile

Last minute advise

A father’s kiss

Ready to go

The Bagnall children

Amélie and Ezra

Ezra!

Up to something

Amélie’s feet

Pass the parcel

Settling into School

Wednesday 18th September 2013Thursday 19th September 2013Baggie

Another week, another write up. I’m back in my stride. I have a little more free time and there is plenty to write about. You have had the two recent specials with Amélie going to Nursery and a week later with Éowyn going to school. Momentous times in anyone’s life and although the first day can be frightening, exciting or a mixture of both it is when the realisation dawns that you have to keep going (and going) that the real stories begin.

Éowyn as you may recall was extremely excited about going to school; she couldn’t wait to put her school uniform on, pack her schoolbag and head off to the car. This didn’t change the following day and neither did it the day after. The only problem was the day after was a Saturday. Éowyn was really upset that she didn’t have to go to school. We tried to explain that Saturdays and Sunday were the weekend and you didn’t have to go to school at weekends. She wasn’t convinced. It probably doesn’t help that Daddy works weekends and so there is no point of reference. I am sure she will get used to it.

Indeed the following week was her first five day week and by the Thursday she was bushed, ‘Do I have to go to school tomorrow?‘ Éowyn asked. When we said that she did, she nonchalently shrugged her shoulders and conceded. I think it was just a lack of an appreciation of how long a week actually was rather than wishing the weekend would hurry up and arrive.

Éowyn has come home almost everyday with a sticker for good work. Whether that is helping to tidy up, or for demonstrating her knowledge she is proud of each one. Sometimes she doesn’t understand why she got a sticker: counting to 20 for instance. Éowyn has been able to count to 20 for quite a while, indeed she can count to 100 and Amélie who will be three at the end of the month is capable of counting as high, so Éowyn was surprised that not everyone in her class had the skill. However her favourite sticker was one the states ‘I’m a genius‘. She was given it on Monday for knowing that the date was the 16th September. Lucinda and I were both surprised, a) because neither of us knew what the date was and b) we didn’t know that Éowyn was so knowledgable about the days of the month.

Amélie, on the other hand, is not nearly as excited about nursery. Indeed, we have had tears most days. We have also discovered how sly she can be too! She is obviously upset with the change in her life. She has always been either with Lucinda or at one of her grandparents’ homes and if she is anywhere else then she is usually with Éowyn. Therefore, being on her own in a strange place is bound to be disconcerting if not downright frightening. She is also picking up vibes from Lucinda who is probably as attached to Amélie as Amélie is to being at home with mommy. Indeed there are few tears with daddy, more a questioning of whether she is going to school. With Lucinda, however, there are tears and sobs and refusal to go.

It is up to daddy to be the bad guy. I am quite happy with that. It is something that needs to happen and if I am the one that needs to harden his heart to ensure that this transition happens then so be it. Lucinda can be the good guy and pick her up and give her plenty of attention on the days she isn’t at nursery. She is getting better and on Tuesday when I took her to nursery there were no tears. Admittedly, neither were there cartwheels of joy but she held my hand and walked into the classroom then, after kissing me goodbye, ran over to one of the teachers to give her a cuddle.

In fairness, it can only get better. The day after the first traumatic day she followed Lucinda around the house never leaving her side. She was obviously afraid that Lucinda was going to leave her, in fact she did say to Lucinda on a number of occasions, ‘Mommy, you aren’t going to leave me, are you?‘ The day before she was next due to go to school she once again tried it on with Lucinda. I was a work and Lucinda was bathing the girls when Amélie began to force a cough. It was a very pathetic, obviously faked cough. ‘Mommy,‘ she began, ‘I have a cough, I won’t be able to go to school tomorrow.‘ Nice try.

Amélie also confessed to a crime that we knew was her but neither had caught her in the act, nor got her to admit to it. We have a wicker laundry basket and bits of it had be picked off and left on the floor. We had asked both girls if it was either of them and neither of them had admitted to it. Amélie, however decided that perhaps honesty was the best policy, either that or perhaps she was hoping it would be a bargaining tool to stop us sending her to school. Whatever was the motivation she turned to Lucinda, completely out of the blue, ‘Mommy, I’m real sorry, you know the washing basket I pick it and when you ask me I say no but I do it all the time because I like doing it.‘ What can you say?

With two emotional girls, a pile of paperwork to catch up with for mortgaging both the house we are trying to buy and our current house that we will be renting out and the fact that I haven’t seen my family in about six weeks we made a decision not to go to one of the four weddings we have recently been invited to. With Amélie in such an emotional state and Éowyn having only just started school it just didn’t feel right to leave them for a night. It was a decision not made lightly as both Lucinda and I were looking forward to a night away and obviously sharing in the celebration of our friends but as parents there are many sacrifices you have to make and this we felt was something that needed to be done.

So where are we at with our house purchase. The good news is that our mortgage for our new house has been approved. We are, however, still waiting for approval for our buy to let (or should that be ‘let to buy’) mortgage. For those of you that have been in this position it can be a waiting game. You answer the questions posed by the solicitors, the banks, and the estate agents then everything goes quiet before all of a sudden you have the keys to your new home. That’s the plan. Time will tell if that’s how the next few weeks develop.

It is not often though that the house that you are leaving is under threat of being demolished along with the entire village in which you have been raised. That is what is facing Lucinda and her family not to mention Éowyn, Amélie and Ezra. Of the fifty or so proposals for expansion of London’s airports the South West Heathrow proposal will see the complete destruction of Stanwell Moor. We have had two village meetings with representatives from BAA, HACAN, Gatwick, The London Mayor as well as political figures including our MP. However, they have only outlined their proposals, a hard sell of their ideas if you will; nothing to address the blight that has affected the village (and this is not just a virtual blight but, for us, it is a reality). In some ways it just makes you more frustrated with the situation as there is nothing that we can do at the moment. Until the 50 or so proposals are whittled down to the 3-10 proposals that will receive greater investigation (mid-December for that decision apparently) and then, if we are still on the shortlist, until the actual proposal that gets the green light (mid 2015 at the earliest) we will be in limbo. Obviously this is the same for residents of all the areas that are affected at each of the airports. Not the nicest of positions to be in and we sympathise with all that are affected by this process. I wonder if it does go ahead how much Éowyn will remember about her first home?

I will leave you there with the usual photos be warned though one of the below may move you to tears.

Love and peace

Baggie