May you live in Interesting Times

We are rapidly approaching the end of the academic year.  A year that has been momentous for all three Baguettes in varying degrees.  Éowyn moved to the big campus and automatically went from being one of the bigger children in a small pond, to one of the smallest in a larger pond.  In addition to this change of location (and a change of teacher half-way through the school year) school work started to become more serious: there was homework and regular spelling tests culminating in her end of Key Stage 1 SATs.  Amélie’s year was, arguably more momentous as she began her journey through full-time education with her reception teacher Miss Snow while Ezra begun his journey of school (or pre-school) life taking advantage of the 15 hours of child care that the government provides for over threes.

All three of the Baguettes enjoy school and that shows in their varying success in their respective development.  Amélie is progressing well with her reading and writing and maths.  Indeed she has rapidly progressed through the reading levels, finishing the year on level 10, one of only two that have reached those dizzying heights.  Her writing is coming along and she has begun to create little books filling the pages with stories.  She has also, in some ways more importantly, made some good friends that she so desperately wanted to do at the start of the year.

Éowyn, too, has progressed well.  The previous school year saw her move schools and to a teacher that she didn’t get on with and this upheaval and disenchantment therefore meant she did not progress to her potential.  This has been highlighted with hindsight in how she has progressed this year and how hard she works for a teacher she likes.  Indeed, not only a teacher that she likes but teachers she likes.  Éowyn’s first teacher of year 2, Miss Bernath left at Christmas to travel around Australia and was substituted by Miss Jetten.  Éowyn responded well to both teachers and their respective teaching styles, progressing well in both numeracy and literacy.  Indeed, since Miss Jetten took over and homework has changed she has scored 10/10 in every spelling test – only one of two in the class to have done so.

This may sound like it should be something that Éowyn and, indeed Lucinda and I would be proud of, and yes, we are however until last week we didn’t realise the pressure Éowyn was feeling.  A constant stream of 10/10’s is definitely something to be proud of but it heightens expectations, not from Lucinda and me as such but from Éowyn herself.  She begun to think that we would be disappointed in her if she got 9/10 or less.  We didn’t think we had ever given her this impression and thought we were doing the right thing praising her for her outstanding marks, but that was not what was going through her mind.  This came to a culmination and thankfully a resolution when she tried to fake illness on the day of her spelling test.  Parents have an innate ability to detect fake illnesses and so we realised something was up and made Éowyn go to school.  Wanting to get to the bottom of it I sat Éowyn down in the evening to find out what the problem was.

It was then that she confessed that she thought that we would shout at her or be disappointed in her if she didn’t get 10/10.  You can imagine how we felt: the archetypal pushy parents.  We had both been trying to praise her for her outstanding scores not put pressure on her to keep that 100% record going but somehow we had got the balance wrong.  So, we had a long chat about how test marks are not something to get upset and worried about; doing your best is important but never worry about exams.  Exams can’t measure the important things and certainly can’t measure you as a person, just whether you have a got a good memory.  Yes, Mommy and Daddy are happy when you do well in a test but Mommy and Daddy are also happy when you read Ezra a story, or cuddle Amélie when she is upset or help Mommy to lay the table or help Daddy in the garden.  These things are much more important that whether you can spell ‘discussion‘.  We will have to keep an eye on this for the future.

The end of the academic year also means a number of things ubiquitous to schools up and down the country and so it is for the Baguettes.  Éowyn and Amélie has their respective end of year discos, held on the same day though not at the same time.  Amélie’s was straight after school, then there was an hour or so break for the teachers to tidy the school hall ready for the slightly older children in years 1,2 and 3.  They both enjoyed their discos, dressing up and taking a little handbag with some money that they could spend on sweets, drinks, tattoos and glowing rings.  When I came home from work, Amélie had returned from her disco and was shattered, getting ready for bed so I picked up Éowyn (and our neighbour’s son Blake).

Éowyn and Blake were hyper when I picked them up.  They couldn’t stop talking and telling me all about the evening and the amount of sweets that they had eaten.  There is no proof that high levels of sugar caused children to behave hyperactively (is that a word), however I think sweets coupled with the excitement of being at a disco with all your friends didn’t help.  It was like walking home with slightly drunk friends who can’t stop giggling and half tell you stories that make no sense to your sober mind.

Unfortunately Ezra is a little too young for a disco, however the nursery organised a pirate party for the class.  Ezra was quite excited at home about dressing up as a pirate and looked quite good with his hat, sword and drawn on beard.  He seemed quite happy when I dropped him off and all his friends were dressed in their pirate finery.  When Lucinda picked him up, however, the teachers said that he got a little overwhelmed with all the piratical shenanigans and spent most of the day sat on the lap of one of the teachers.  Poor sensitive soul.

The other main school event found at this time of the year is ‘Sports Day’.   Éowyn and Amélie have been placed in the same house at school and with modern school days being about team effort rather than sporting prowess, we knew it was going to save arguments and were thankful.  However they had to wait a little longer than we expecting for this year’s sports day.  The weather this spring and early summer has been awful, cold and wet and the weather was so bad that the event was postponed for an extra ten days (and even then nearly didn’t go ahead on the second date).  Indeed, the weather has been so bad that we have, on more than one occasion, serious considered lighting the fire.  1st July 2015 saw temperatures approaching 37ºC, 1st July 2016 it barely touched 17ºC, however Summer will start soon.

Therefore, Ezra had his Sports Day before the girls.  Ezra isn’t very sporting, he can be lazy and you don’t find him running around for the sake of running.  Therefore, it was no surprise that he didn’t win any races for in addition to his inherent unsportyness (another new word for you all) he is one of the youngest at nursery.  Some of the other children are 18 months older than him and when you are three, 18 months is a significant percentage of your age.  Nevertheless in the spirit of ‘no one is a loser’ Ezra received his medal (real plastic gold) of which he was very proud.

Éowyn and Amélie’s Sport Day was all about team races and therefore eliminating the individuality of the races (for both eliminating individual competitiveness and because with 90 children per year and 3 years worth of pupils, it would probably take a two-week tournament to involve all children in all races individually).  As mentioned both girls were in ‘Yellow’ house and so the result didn’t really matter, however it was the icing on the cake that ‘Yellow’ won!

Discos, parties and Sports Days are not the only things that have been happening since the last update.  Amélie has taken a bit step towards growing up: she had her first solo sleepover at her best friends.  Amélie has had one sleepover before but with Éowyn at Éowyn’s best friend, and has had sleepovers with the other Baguettes at Nanny Fran’s but this was her first on her own.  She had a fantastic time and was impeccably behaved and so can go again!

Despite the weather we have had recently we have nonetheless had invites to a couple of barbecues.  The first was Lucinda’s friend Lisca.  Lisca and her family live in High Wycombe and the barbecue was in part to celebrate her birthday and as a good-bye for her, Theo and the kids are moving to Norfolk.  There will be no more nipping over for a Saturday afternoon barbecue, Norfolk is a tad further than High Wycombe.

The second barbecue of the weekend was a little closer to hand: next door.  Our next door neighbours are completely renovating their house and building a two storey extension so, somewhat ironically, it has brought us closer together as neighbours as we have had lots of, amicable, discussions about the work.  We felt very blessed to be invited and kids loved playing in their big garden, especially since they had hired two large inflatables: a bungee run and a basketball game.  It must be the ‘in-thing’ to do at barbecues for Lisca and Theo had hired a bouncy castle at their barbecue.  We will have to buck up our ideas for our next soiree.

‘May you live in Interesting Times,’ is oft purported to be a Chinese curse.  The saying is apocryphal and there is no such evidence of its use in China.  The closest Chinese expression is ‘Better to be a dog in a peaceful time, than to be a human in a chaotic period,’ and that is exactly how we find ourselves at the moment.  I could write reams about my feelings regarding the result of the E.U. referendum but this is not the forum.  However, I will say that it is extremely concerning that the political elite that offered this choice to the general public to placate voters of a far right party had no plan of what to do if the ‘leave’ side won because they are so out of touch with the general public that they never truly believe that the ‘Leave’ vote would win.  But win they did and since that vote, the Prime Minister has resigned, the leader of the Brexit campaign has resigned (because he really didn’t want to win), the leader of UKIP whose raison d’être was to leave the European Union has resigned because his job is done.  The Labour party are ripping themselves apart because they have a leader than 60% of members like and voted for but none of his M.P.s like and have tried to use this political maelstrom to try to oust him rather than take the Government to task for their lack of vision.  There seems to be no leadership and no direction and no one wants to activate article 50 – which is the no turning back exit from the European Union.  And in our democracy 0.2% of the population are going to decide our new Prime Minister.  ‘(Theresa?) May you live in Interesting Times’.

Work is still manic but for once viewers in the UK can see some our work.  The Caribbean Premier League (T20 Cricket tournament) is happening through July and into August and can currently be seen on ‘Dave’ at 1300 each day (that there is a game).  This is a rerun from the game that will have happened through the previous night, however they are broadcasting a number of games live.  Both the re-runs and the live offerings are coming under my watch so if you find yourself watching cricket on Dave think of us.

Before I leave you today one amusing little tale. Ezra has stopped telling you that he loves you.  If you say that you love him, he will reply with ‘I like you.’  Regardless of the incentives you offer or how many times you tell him that you love him we will only go as far as telling you that he likes you.  Cheeky little tyke!

I will leave you now to enjoy the photos and see you soon.

Peace and Love

Baggie

 

Our first taste of Eurocamp, Italian Style! – part ii

Hopefully, you have read part i before jumping straight in to part ii, if you haven’t and you would like to remind yourself about how we got to where the following begins then please click here.

As you are reading on I am assuming that you have read part i and so I will begin.  With the organised trip to Venice a no-show and our hearts set on going to Venice on Wednesday we asked at the information desk for options.  We were told that there was a bus that stopped outside the campsite that took you to Ponte Sabbioni from where you could get a ferry.  That option filled us with dread.  A long bus journey with three young children before an equally long ferry journey before we stepped foot on Venice, wasn’t our idea of fun.  We had also read some stories of people who hadn’t been that attentive to the various timetables and found themselves stranded in Venice or Ponte Sabbioni because there are only so many ways back, indeed the return bus from Ponte Sabbioni stopped in the early evening and we didn’t want to be held hostage to public transport timetables.  Therefore, we decided to cut as much of the public transport aspect out of the journey that we could.  Thus,we would only need to concentrate on one timetable and so we fired up Waze and headed south in the Ford Focus to Ponte Sabbioni.

We blindly trusted Waze through back roads and across country all the way to Ponte Sabbioni.  There, we parked at the first car park we saw, which was a very reasonable €7 for the entire day; cheaper than 5 return bus tickets!  We joined the queue for ferry tickets and before long we were aboard and heading across the lagoon to Venice.  Lucinda and I took a city break in Venice back in 2005, long before the Baguettes made an appearance.  Nevertheless, Venice probably hasn’t changed that much for a couple of hundred years, and certainly hasn’t changed since Lucinda and I visited.

We got off the Ferry and decided that the first task was to try to find somewhere to have lunch, to put some fuel in our bellies in readiness for exploring the alleyways and campi (little squares, the name piazza is reserved for St Mark’s Square – campi means ‘fields’) of the island.  Moving away from Piazza San Marco and its ludicrous prices we found a small pizzeria away from the hustle and bustle.  Suitably sated we began the exploration of the city.  The Baguettes are too young to fully appreciate the history of Venice and so we decided that we would not join the tourist queues for the tours of the Doge’s Palace, St Mark’s Basilica or its Campanile and simply view them from the piazza.

Venice is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world.  The little island welcomes over 20 million visitors per year and thus outnumber the 60,000 or so residents on a daily basis.  With this in mind we were very conscious that it could be very easy to lose a Baguette in the overcrowded alleys, and so we took a water-based felt tip pen and wrote my mobile number on their arms.  Slightly paranoid, maybe but better safe than sorry.

Venice was an adventure for them all.  They saw Piazza San Marco and the aforementioned, Doge’s Palace, St Mark’s Basilica and its Campanile and the Bridge of Sighs.  We then walked through the alleyways via the Pandora shop (Lucinda wanted a Venice related charm for her charm bracelet) and the Hard Rock Café (Lucinda wanted a Hard Rock Café badge for her collection – the Hard Rock Café was not there when last we visited).  We showed them shops full of Venetian masks and Murano glass as we weaved towards Ponte di Rialto (The Rialto Bridge) one of four bridges (and the most famous) that span the Grand Canal.  Unfortunately, the bridge is currently obscured by scaffolding and so they did not see it in all its splendour.

The Baguettes really enjoyed exploring Venice.  Éowyn and Amélie spent some of their remaining Euros to buy a Venetian fan and Éowyn also bought herself a pen with pictures of the major landmarks of Venice.  One thing that we didn’t take into account, which was evident as soon as we disembarked and we felt foolish for not considering it before we landed was the fact that Venice is criss-crossed with canals, it is kind of what it is famous for (although Birmingham has more miles of canals that Venice), and to cross those canals there a a myriad of bridges.  Now, many of these bridges are decades if not centuries old and as such were not designed for accessibility.  Therefore, taking the pushchair for Ezra was perhaps a bit of a luxury and we should have made his 3 year old legs walk the 15 or so kilometres that we walked that day.  Still, was good exercise for yours truly, lifting the pushchair up a flight of stairs, across a bridge and down a flight of stairs every 100 metres or so.  I have no idea what wheelchair users do.

We planned to visit Murano and Burano on the return journey, but time was pressing on and the baguettes were getting tired.  Thus we made do with a flying visit to Murano.  Murano is an island (or more strictly a series of islands linked together by bridges) about a mile north of Venice.  It is world-famous for glass and the glass art and jewellery and so we browsed the various glass shops but all we bought was an ice cream and a Murano glass Christmas tree decoration before boarding the ferry back to Ponte Sabbioni and home.

After our excursions in Venice we decided to have a relaxing day by the pool on Thursday.  It would have been a nice relaxing day except it was somewhat marred by an incident that happened at dinner.  Throughout Wednesday and Thursday both Éowyn and Amélie loved playing with the fans that they had bought with their money in Venice.  Taking our evening meal and our favourite restaurant the fans came too!  Before our meal arrived Éowyn decided to go, with Lucinda and Ezra, to the toilet and against my advice she took her fan.  As they left the toilet there was a mum with her young daughter heading towards the toilet.  As Éowyn returned to the table she realised that she had not picked her fan up after washing her hands, so Lucinda and Éowyn headed back to the toilet.  The mum and the girl left the toilet and Éowyn and Lucinda went in.  The fan was not there.  Éowyn was distraught.  So Lucinda headed over to the table with Éowyn, apologised for disturbing their meal, and asked if they had seen the fan or indeed picked it up while they were there – the evidence did kind of point to that.  Before Lucinda had even finished the sentence the father replied ‘Nein‘ and both turned from engaging eye contact with Lucinda.

Lucinda returned to our table and as we sat consoling Éowyn and contemplating what we should do, and indeed feeling impotent but not wishing to start an Anglo-German incident we noticed that they had quickly paid their bill were leaving the restaurant.  We are certain they picked it up, possibly in all innocence but they did have the perfect opportunity to do the right thing and return it to an obviously upset 7-year-old.

Éowyn learned a hard lesson that day and we spoke to her about her feelings saying that she could either hope that the little girls loves the fan and it is her favourite toy and she treasures it for ever; or she could hope that the fan breaks and it upsets the little girl and her parents have to buy her a new one; or indeed anything in between but however she feels is fine.  She was still upset despite contemplating on this emotions so Lucinda and I became 7 year olds ourselves and helped Éowyn make up a rhyme about a mum, with a stinky bum that gave a fan to her daughter, when she really shouldn’t oughta!  This cheered her up.

The next morning, Éowyn said that she had thought about her fan and hoped that the girl really looks after it and loves it but she was still upset that she had lost it.  She is more magnanimous than I.  After breakfast we decided to explore a little more of the area and drove to the nearest town to the resort:  Porto Santa Margherita.  Porto Santa Margherita appears to be geared around tourism and there are many hotels along the sea front.  One of the striking things that you will notice about our photos is that there are not hoards of tourists in the background.  It seemed very much that we were the only ones on holiday and in Porto Santa Margherita that was even more pronounced.  It appeared that the holiday season hadn’t even started, it felt like an English seaside town in November (except for the 25ºC weather and clear blue skies).  There was only so much that we could do to entertain ourselves in such a quiet town so we headed back to Pra’Delle Torri.

After lunch we headed back to the pool and only moved away for ice creams.  Anyone with young children will know that they sometimes do not appreciate how quickly an ice cream or lolly can melt while they are eating it and before you know it they are covered in ice cream or there is a pool of ice cream on floor between their feet.  Amélie had decided that she didn’t want a ice-cream but wanted a lolly instead.  However, she wa taking her time and savouring it, oblivious to the drips collecting at her feet.  Then she made the mistake and looked down at the floor.  Then the screaming started for enjoying her lolly drips were some ants attracted to the sugar.  I tried to calm her down but before I could stop her, she had climbed on the table screaming and sobbing because of the ants.  The joys of parenthood!

Conscious that our time was rapidly coming to an end we decided that the final Saturday in Veneto should be spent in Caorle.  Saturday in Caorle is market day so it sounded like a perfect combination.  We eased ourselves into the day and headed to Caorle.  We noticed that there was a park and ride car park on the outskirts of the town with free parking and a free bus ride into the town.  We took advantage, although it appears that we were the only one.  The car park was empty and there was no bus, nevertheless we parked and decided to walk into town.  It wasn’t too far and the highlight of the walk was to wait for a swing bridge over one of the canals to swing back after letting one of the fishing boats back into dock.

We arrived at the market for about 11am (we were on holiday!) but like San Donà di Piave before we were too late.  The market was packing up but there were still a few stalls open and time to grab a couple of bargains, including riding on the tailcoats of a nice German lady who was haggling in English for the same item as we wanted.  We let her do the hard work and then said make that two!  There was also time for Daddy to buy Éowyn (and Amélie who had broke hers, and Ezra who didn’t want to feel left out) a new fan – for a fraction of the price that Éowyn and Amélie paid in Venice!

Caorle did not let us down and we discovered probably the best gelateria in the world.  You make your own gelato.  Yes, as you walk in you can choose you choice of cone (or tub), then add your favourite flavoured gelato (as many as you want) and then add as many toppings as you can balance on top.  The gelato is charged by weight and was very reasonable – although the peanut m&ms were probably a mistake.

After the ice cream we took a stroll along the prom (prom, prom) where the sea is held back by big rocks as many shore around the world.  However the rocks that face the prom have been individually carved by local artists with a nautical theme – see the pictures on Flickr.  We walked the full length of the prom passed the Church of the Blessed Virgin of the Angel to the beach.  As we passed the church a newly married couple walked into the world as man and wife to the whoops and cheers of random strangers (including ourselves) who were playing by the shore.

Sunday, was our last full day in Italy and we woke to heavy rain.  This lasted all morning and so we began the arduous task of packing ready for home.  We then had lunch using the remainder of our food and by the time that was down the rain had stopped and so we headed to the pool.  The afternoon was sunny and warm and so we stayed  by the pool for a good four hours before heading back to change for our last dinner in Italy.

Before heading to our favourite on site restaurant we had one thing left to do that we had promised the girls that we would do before the end of the holiday: we headed to the bike hire shop and hired a two-man (person) pedal car.  Lucinda and I were the power while Amélie and Ezra sat in the front seat and Éowyn balanced between Lucinda and I.  We only hired them for 30 minutes which was ample for exploring the park, including a whole area that we hadn’t seen before which included two restaurants and mini golf course!  Ezra didn’t like it at first and kept asking us to stop.  So we encouraged him to say ‘Ciao’ to everyone.  This was a great distraction and before long he was laughing and really enjoying the reaction he was getting from everyone.  As we passed the Nutella crepe girls he shouted ‘Ciao, sweetie’, I’m not sure he whether he was being smooth or (because they also sold sweeties) that he was in fact saying goodbye to the sweeties.  I’d like to think it was the former.

Monday morning we packed up and left the site early for one last arrividerci to our favourite town, Caorle, and an ice cream at favourite gelateria before returning to Treviso airport and home.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Italy and at Pra’Delle Torri in particular.  Our first foreign caravan holiday was a great success and are already looking to see where we should go for the next Bagnall foreign trip.  Obviously, you will have to tune in to see where that will be.

I will now leave you with a few more photos from our holiday and please look through the 600+ pictures on Flickr.

Peace and Love

Baggie

 

The Football Season draws to a close

Again, this update has been delayed due to life (and work) getting in the way.  Time is precious and the weather has been glorious (for three days at least) and so many things get pushed to the sidelines, and one of those things is this website.  However, nigh on a month is far too long to keep you, dear readers, waiting for a debrief of the latest shenanigans of the Bagnalls, so I shall keep you no longer.

The last time I sat down to regale you with our news the children were yet to return to school from their Easter holiday break, and now we find ourselves a few weeks shy of the half term break.  So, what have we been doing and how are Baguettes enjoying the final term of this school year?

It has to be said, that we have not been resting on our laurels, indeed the girls have a more active social life that either Lucinda or me, and probably a more active life that I have ever had (cue the violins!).  This is in no small part due to the fact that the girls’ school has a plethora of after (and pre-) school clubs that cover a wide variety of interests.  At the start of each term you put your name in the hat against the clubs that you are interested in and with luck you will get into the club that you want.  We gave the girls a full choice of clubs to join, put their names against them and fortunately they both got the clubs that they wanted to join.

The first club of the week is non-school related, however, for it is the joys of Brownies for Éowyn at the local Church hall.  She thoroughly enjoys Brownies even though none of the other girls that attend actually go to her school; it is therefore a completely different circle of friends which we think is good for Éowyn, as it develops her social skills, not that they need too much honing.  Most of the girls attend the local Catholic school where Ezra attends pre-school.  It is quite nice that when we drop Ezra off there that some of the girls that go to Brownies are really excited to see Éowyn.  It is a busy start to the week for Éowyn; Brownies finishes late on a Monday evening and Tuesday mornings before school is her first school club of the week: Choir.  Yes, choir.  Anyone that knows our first born will know that she has inherited her delicate, dulcet tones from her father and so it is quite surprising that she has managed to hold on to her place.  Can’t wait for the feedback at the end of term.

There is then a bit of a gap before both girls attend then next school clubs on a Friday afternoon.  Éowyn at performing arts (much more fitting to her personality and inherent skills) and Amélie at dance.  Indeed, as the beginning of the week is busy for Éowyn so Friday afternoon is the start of a busy twenty four hours for Amélie.  After dance she returns home for a quick bite to eat before her third clothing change of the day and from her dance outfit to her Rainbow uniform.  Seeing how much Éowyn enjoys Brownies Amélie has followed big sister’s footsteps into the world of guiding.  Amélie, who is not old enough to join Brownies (she has another 18 months or so to wait) has joined the local Rainbow pack.

For those of you who are not familiar with the Girl Guiding world, Rainbows is the first step into that world.  Girls aged 5 to 7 can become a Rainbow before joining Brownies (at the age of 7) and then the Guides (at the age of 10).  We had attempted to get Éowyn into Rainbows before she joined Brownies at the end of last year, but unfortunately all the places had been taken and so we learned from this and had Amélie’s name down ready for the first available place.  That place became available as the Easter holiday ended and therefore we were quick to ensure that Amélie went for her taster session.  As we thought she loved it and so subs were paid, uniform is on order and she is now a fully fledged Rainbow and thus both girls are members of the Girl Guiding sorority.

Amélie’s busy end to the working week doesn’t stop with Dance class after school and Rainbows after Dance but continues on Saturday mornings with a short walk to the local leisure centre for swimming lessons.  She is going to be one fit little girl.

The girls’ week of exercise doesn’t end there either.  The local leisure centre runs a Roller Disco every Saturday night.  With a shift pattern that gives me two weekends off out of every three, we have headed through the park to the leisure centre to introduce the girls to the world of rollerskating.  Ungainly and ill-balanced at first the girls have taken to it very well and although they still resemble Bambi on ice they are growing in confidence and thoroughly enjoy skating around the gym.  The first week Lucinda and I were fully engaged in helping them stay upright while Ezra sat on the sidelines, however he didn’t want to be left out and all week asked if he could rollerskate the following Saturday.  All for equally opportunities the following Saturday we obliged.

He didn’t take to it in the same way as his older sisters.  He didn’t like having the skates on (even before he tried to stand up).  I took him to one side of the gym and tried to give him confidence on his wheels, as I had with Éowyn the week before.  He didn’t like it.  He kept saying that he was going to fall, despite my reassurances that he couldn’t fall because Daddy was holding him.  Nevertheless this did not fully reassure him and he got a little more upset crying out ‘Daddy, I’m going to die rollerskating!‘  After stifling a laugh, I thought that perhaps he was not quite ready for rollerskating and carried him to the side of the gym and took his rollerskates off.  We will see if his interest in rollerskating is piqued next time we go.

Ezra seems to have something about dying at the moment.  He said to me one morning, ‘Daddy, I don’t want you to go to work.‘  I explained that I had to go to work and he replied, ‘But Daddy, if you go to work you will die.‘  I asked him why he thought I would die if I went to work.  With his nascent interest in the dark side of the force I am not sure whether his reply was a warning or a threat. ‘Because if you go to work, you will have a car accident and they will not find you because you will fall down a hole.‘  I have been checking my break cables recently.

This may have come from the fact that Ezra has also returned to school and is now doing two full days (plus a half day on a Wednesday).  Thus life is changing for our son.  He is becoming more independent, he is walking everywhere now, rather than being the lazy tyke that he sometimes was and insisting on sitting in a pushchair.  He is interacting with older children at school and although he is used to sharing his space with other children being at school is a different experience.  Nevertheless we are proud of how well he is adapting to full days at school.

The weather since the last update has been a little unpredictable to say the least.  The weekend after the update there were snow showers, followed the weekend after with 27°C (80°F – for our American cousins) and thus the first barbeque of the season.  Indeed we had three very nice days in a row but now the weather has returned to the usual inbetween vernal average.  Regardless, the barbeque has had an airing and therefore will be a regular sight at Chez Bagnall.

With summer weather and Ezra’s new found enjoyment in walking, new shoes needed to be bought.  As anyone with small children will realise, kids shoes are expensive (especially when you need to buy three children shoes at the same time) and they grow out of them so quickly.  All three children were measured for shoes and all three of them a grown so much that new shoes were a necessity.  Let’s hope they last over the summer – I’m not banking on it.

As usual around this time, work is busy.  It is the culmination of many of the sporting seasons, including our biggest client the Premier League.  It has been a fantastic season for the neutral with Leicester City winning the title, and equally fantastic as a West Bromwich Albion fan with Aston Villa relegated.  It is amusing but there is a genuine fear that it will take Aston Villa a long time to regain their former glory, something that in all honesty one doesn’t really want to see for any club.   Villa’s season was poor but I don’t think Spurs’ fans will wish to be reminded about the last day of this season either, however I feel that life long Gooner, Terry Wood, will be smiling from that North Bank in the sky tonight.  (OK, pedants, with Manchester United’s game postponed due to a suspect package it technically wasn’t the last day of the season but it was certainly the last day for the other 18 clubs!)

Coupled with the end of season mania we have had the BBC in the house producing their transmission of the World’s biggest non-sporting live event: The Eurovision Song Contest for the second year running.  Unfortunately, there were no parties at an embassy (unlike last year), no raffles and thus no weekend trip to European cities.  Let us not forget that we are launching two new channels before the end of May and preparing all the upgrades, connectivity and new installs that will occur over the summer.  It is going to be a busy one and you may not see too much of me! (I will get my excuses in now!)

I am not the only one with busy weeks ahead.  Éowyn is in the middle of her Year 2, Key Stage 1, SATS.  KS 1 SATS test the children’s ability in English and Maths.  The English exam is comprised of four tests:  Grammar and Punctuation, Spelling and two Reading papers; while Maths is comprised of an arithmetic and a reasoning paper.  The results of which, are scaled, graded and then rated against the national average, all under the pretence of highlighting where your child might need extra help.  I don’t think that I have ever met a teacher that doesn’t know where the children in their care need extra help.  This is just a way of rating school but all it is doing is putting young children under pressure.  Education is not about passing exams it is about teaching children a variety of skills to help them to find their place in the world.  Performance tables can only give you a narrow view of a child (or a teacher, or a school), luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.  Thankfully, Éowyn’s school have been fairly relaxed with these exams and thus Éowyn has not felt any pressure and we certainly have been playing the importance of these exams down.  Éowyn has been doing really well at school lately, moving up levels in maths and keeping up her record of 10/10 in every spelling test; her hand writing is neat and her reading is fine so whether she can identify if the verb tense is a present perfect or present progressive or what 75% of 60 is, kind of falls into insignificance compared to whether she can identify why someone is upset, why racism is dumb (her words) and inventing games for her and her friends to play.

Éowyn is not the only one who is moving up levels of achievement at school.  Amélie has gone up another level at reading and is now the highest level reader in her class.  Fantastic news of which we are very proud, however, other levels of her education made need some assistance.  Lucinda’s birthday is just around the corner and Amélie decided that mommy might like some Vanish Gold as a present.  I was not ready for the suggestion when she proposed it and let forth a laugh.  This upset Amélie.  I tried to comfort her while I explained that mommy may not appreciate washing powder as a present but her reasoning was not without justification:  it comes in a pink and gold package, so it looks nice and it makes the mommies on the telly happy.  You can not deny the logic!

Logic is not something that can be assigned to the following nugget that may have passed you by.  The Grim Reaper has added a number of beloved personalities to his toll since the last update and the most prominent of which is arguably Prince.  Four years ago I, tongue-in-cheek, suggested that Prince was perhaps a time travelling Maya from the planet Nibiru come to save the world with his purply music, when the 2012 apocalypse did not happen.  Well, if this individual is to believed, that was but a reprieve for Prince’s death heralds the end times.  What is it with religious apocalyptics?  Perhaps they should go back to school and do their SATS!

I think I have preoccupied your time for long enough and I am sure that you are more interested in the latest crop of photos, and there are few hundred extra on the Flickr pages. Therefore, I will bid you adieu and unless I have a car accident and my car falls down a hole I will see you on these pages shortly.

Peace and Love

Baggie