Holiday

The Badger Moot 2014 – Part Two: The Hollywood Party

Wednesday 12th November 2014Wednesday 12th November 2014Baggie

For those of you that have landed here without reading the first half of the 2014 moot please click here.

We returned back to Berwick Manor late afternoon as the sun went down. The kitchen was out of bounds as Adam and Lucy and Steve and Zoe prepared not only the evening meal but the decorations necessary for the Hollywood Party so we herded the kids in the TV room to keep them out of the way.

Ezra was so tired after his earlier excursions that we put him to bed before dinner and therefore he didn’t join in with the fancy dress but everyone else took the evening to heart including little Letty (a papoose from Dances with Wolves). You would think that with a subject as wide as Hollywood that there would be a variety of different costumes and indeed there was but great minds seldom differ and we did have a couple of duplicates: John and Steve both came as chimney sweeps à la Bert from Mary Poppins, and Lucinda and Lucy both came as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz.

As usual Adam and Lucy and Steve and Zoe worked hard to decorate the kitchen to help everyone get in the spirit of the party. There was a red carpet down the hall to the kitchen, a Hollywood style Walk of Fame and a gold curtain to stand against for the paparazzi photos. There were even three mini Oscars that were awarded to the best male costume, best female costume and best child costume as voted via secret ballot. Lauren won the Oscar for the best child costume as Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series, replete with a hand-crafted spell book with every spell from the series; Zoe won the best female costume with her Mary Poppins outfit and I won the best male costume as Animal (from The Muppets). I felt a little bit of a cheat as mine was completely bought with no extra effort required, however I was very pleased with the outfit and was delighted with the win. You can see everyone’s photos below so feel free to make your own decision and whether you would agree with the Badger clan voting.

Tuesday was the Bagnall turn to cook, therefore we did not venture too far from Berwick Manor. We drove to the nearby town of Abbotsbury to have a mooch but primarily to buy a Christmas decoration that we had seen the previous day when we drove through on the way to Portland. A very simple idea, but it caught our eye, an enterprising local had made snowmen from three different sized cross-sections of logs. It will sit nicely in our porch for the yuletide, greeting our Christmas visitors. I promise to take a photo when it is in situ and post it on here but in the meantime here is a photo of Amélie choosing it.

We also took the opportunity to go for a cream tea. We had passed the Eggcup tearoom on the Jurassic Coast road many times over the last decade but had never gone it for a scone but this year we rectified that omission. Situated in Swyre directly off the Jurassic Coast road about halfway between Abbostbury and Berwick Manor it seemed rude to past it by. The scones were big and delicious the only disappointment being that there was no view of the sea (they are situated on the wrong side of the road for that). We bought the girls a slice of Victoria sponge to go with their drinks but for some reason neither of them like it, therefore Daddy had a Victoria sponge chaser to go with his fruit scone and jam! I would quite happily recommend a pit stop there if you are on the B3157.

A year does not go past without a trip to Lyme Regis and so it was this year. Lyme Regis is probably one of our favourite places in the world and if we are in the area we will visit. So although Wednesday morning saw the first downpour of the week the inclement weather did not stop the Bagnalls from going to the seaside. Our faith was repaid for although it rained heavily during the journey as we arrived the rain stopped and even if the clouds sat on the surrounding hills and it wasn’t until the afternoon that the sun came out we still headed straight to the beach to build sandcastles and collect seaweed for decoration.

The good thing about the weather being a overcast is that you pretty much get the beach to yourself. The day before, a number of the family went to Lyme Regis but because the weather was so good everyone in the area had the same idea and so the car parks were full. Indeed some of the family had to find an alternative, as there was simply no where for them to park.

We did not have any such problem and managed to park exactly where we went wanted. After a couple of hours building sandcastles and paddling (in wellies) in the sea we headed for lunch. A little café near the beach is a particular favourite and being creatures of habit we found ourselves there. Their lunchtime special caught both Lucinda’s and my eye: fish finger sandwiches. As we sat waiting for our lunch, Éowyn mooched around the shell and fossil shop next door. The girls profited well from their visit to Portland, not only did Auntie Margaret buy both girls colouring books and pens and made them cupcakes she also gave them some money to spend on ice-creams. Éowyn is a little savvy when it comes to money and knows that Daddy will buy her ice-cream so she asked if she could buy some shells. I tried to dissuade her by saying that there were lots of other shops if she would like to compare prices. She thought about this and decided that as long as she could return to this shop if she didn’t see anything else then she would want to return. An agreement was reached.

We took our usual wander around Lyme Regis and it was little Ezra who spent his money first. Éowyn and Amélie spent their money from Daddy on their first day of the holiday. Ezra didn’t. He didn’t seem interested in anything on that first day and to be honest, when you are trying to help a 6 year old and a 4 year old choose their toys it was too tiring (especially after a disturbed night’s sleep) to try and encourage him to choose something. Perhaps he was just binding his time for as we passed a shop in Lyme Regis there were some knitted dinosaurs and he grabbed one. So we picked the three types of dinosaur that they had: A green tyrannosaurus rex, a blue stegosaurus and a red triceratops and asks him to choose. The red triceratops came out as favourite (my favourite dinosaur was the triceratops when I was a boy, too!). So Ezra had now spent his money it spurred the girls to spend the money off Auntie Margaret. The other shops did not have anything of interest so we popped back to the first shop and they bought their shells, to go with their mermaids before heading back to bass.

Thursday morning saw the Bagnalls visit another sandy beach and another one of our favourite haunts in the shape of Weymouth. With the weather warming up after the rain of the previous day (and heading for the warmest Halloween on record – in the UK) it seemed a shame not to spend the last full day of our holiday on the beach. Weymouth is one of the largest towns in Dorset and is a popular tourist venue in no small part due to its beach, low tide and warm(ish) sea. So we parked the car and headed directly to the beach and that was where we stayed for most of the day. Fish and chips on the beach added to the idiosyncratic Britishness of the day, especially when you consider that it was the end of October and we were wearing coats and wellies.

The last day of the moot coincided with Halloween and what a Halloween – the thermometer in my car registered 23°C on the drive home and as mentioned above it was indeed the hottest UK Halloween on record. We had to vacate the house and conscious about trying to miss the rush hour traffic around home we decided that a quick pit stop at Hive Beach and another drive along the Jurassic Coast road would be the last of our Dorset views for 2o14. Hive Beach had a disturbing, if somewhat fascinating sight: the decomposing body of a baby dolphin. It looked like it had been dead a while and had lost its head but Éowyn and I were fascinated – Lucinda and Amélie on the other hand were disgusted. There are photos on my Flickr pages here, if you are at all interested.

We made it back late afternoon in time to answer the door to all the trick or treaters. But you will have to wait until the next write up to see the photo of our Pumpkin carving.

Peace and Love

Baggie

PS The photos below are of our family movie night party (feel free to judge the costumes yourself and see if you agree with the family). If you want to see more general photos of the holiday please see: Badger Moot 2014 – Part One.

Family movie night

Walk of Fame

Admit One

Bert, relaxing

The Award (and reward)

Bert and Mary

Maddie – Minion

Lucy – Dorothy

Steve – Bert

Finley – Clint Eastwood

Megan – Lara Croft

Zoe – Mary Poppins

Adam – Batman

Maddie – Minion

Amélie – Anna

Éowyn – Sophia

Lauren – Hermione

Lucinda – Dorothy

Mike – Gru

Sally – ‘get your choc-ices’

Bill – The Phantom

Diana – Minnie

John -Bert

Kate, Nolan and Letty

Baggie – Animal

Mike and Maddie

The children

Child – winner

Female – winner

Male – winner

Badger Moot 2014 – Part One

Tuesday 11th November 2014Wednesday 12th November 2014Baggie

A little delayed due to a couple of important updates but let me take you back to the October half-term and the greater Badger clan tradition of descending on deepest, darkest, Dorset (for the 11th time). As regular readers will know every year the descendants of Grandpa Badger (Lucinda’s Granddad) gather in Dorset for a week’s holiday. It is a great opportunity to catch up with members of the family that we do not see for the majority of the year.

As I mentioned above this is the 11th annual moot and the 10th at Berwick Manor in the Bride Valley, West Dorset just north of Burton Bradstock. This year’s moot was sorely lacking in Badgers (although there were two ex-Badgers) however there was a new addition to the clan: Letty Woodman, Kate and Nolan’s baby daughter, (our children’s second cousin) the first time myself and Lucinda had met her.

As usual we can pick the keys up for the manor on the Friday afternoon, however with it not only being the last day of term for Éowyn and Amélie it was also their respective last days at their current schools, so we decided that it would be unfair to take them out of school denying them the opportunity to say goodbye to their friends. We also had to ensure that both girls had collected all their belongings since they would not be returning. Therefore, we did not set off down the M3 until well after 16:00 and perilously close to rush hour. We were fortunate, however, that although the traffic was heavy it kept moving and we arrived in good time at around 19:00. This gave us just enough time to unload the car and put Ezra’s cot up before Uncle Bill and Auntie Sally’s traditional Friday night curry.

The girls and Ezra are usually very good sleepers. Amélie will usually be the first to rise (perhaps a throw back to her early years when she would scream through the night – she was 17 months old before her first ‘full night’s’ sleep) but that is usually not until 0630 at the earliest. Now whether it was the excitement of being in a house with all their cousins, all five of us in the same room, or just being in a different place but none of us got a decent night’s sleep (indeed we didn’t get a decent night’s sleep all week – so much for a relaxing holiday). Indeed Ezra woke up about 0300 and sat chatting in his cot (which was at my side of the bed) for about 3 hours before falling back to sleep. In fairness, he didn’t cry just sat there chatting, and although, after checking on him, we lay there ignoring him it did mean that we were only ever half asleep. Ezra probably fell asleep just before 0600 and then Amélie woke up at 0630 – so much for a bit of a lay in!

Saturday morning, was the traditional mooch around Bridport Market. There wasn’t much to buy (as usual) but we enjoy the wander and bumping into other members of the Badger clan. I had also give the girls (and Ezra – not that he knew) £10 each for them to spend on their holidays. Bridport is home to a Toymaster shop and when we said that the girls could go it, their little eyes lit up with wonder and delight. ‘This is the best place,‘ Éowyn gushed. They ran from one aisle to another trying to decide what to spend their money on. Neither Éowyn nor Amélie have the full appreciation of what ten pounds can buy you these years and were constantly disappointed when they pointed to the biggest boxes and Daddy had to say that they didn’t have enough money. Nevertheless, after what felt like an age, both finally made a decision and wangled an extra £2.50 out of Dad. Normally, I wouldn’t be such a soft touch but Amélie had spotted a Barbie and Horse set that was half price (must take after her Nanny Fran spotting a bargain like that) and it seemed unfair that Amélie was allowed a little extra money and Éowyn wasn’t. For the record Éowyn, unsurprisingly spend her money on another mermaid (and a mini my little pony). Éowyn does seem to have an mermaid obsession and has countless mermaid related toys so when I saw her contemplating what to buy and one of them was a mermaid then there was only going to be one outcome.

Toys were left at Berwick Manor though as we headed to Hive Beach in the afternoon. Hive Beach in Burton Bradstock is the closest coastline to Berwick Manor and we always head there at least once a moot! We took Lauren and played the age old game of playing chicken with the tide. The usual and inevitable outcome transpired and at some point the tide won and there was a trio of soggy children climbing back into the car for the trip back.

Saturday may have seen us visit familiar haunts, Sunday on the other hand saw us explore a new corner of Dorset. In November 1943 notice was given to the villagers of Tyneham that they would be required to leave their homes before Christmas as the area was being commandeered by the Ministry of Defence for forces’ training. The last of the inhabitants left on the 17th December believing that they would return after the war. This never happened, and today the village is still part of the Ministry of Defence Lulworth Ranges and is one of the country’s ‘lost’ villages.

Tyneham is open to the public most weekends and all main public holidays and is free. The intervening 71 years have taken their toll on the village and many of the cottages are but shells. However the church and the school are in good order with St Mary’s church housing an exhibition on the history of the area and the school a wildlife project.

It was definitely an interesting place to visit and the girls Éowyn especially, we initially intrigued by the ruined houses. However, it is only a village and although Lucinda and I found it fascinating it did not capture the girls imagination. A tour of the village probably took about an hour and I would have liked to have stayed longer to take more photos but tummies were rumbling and so we headed down the road to Lulworth Cove.

I would recommend visiting Tyneham, if you are in the area as it is a fascinating part of our war effort. Indeed it brings it home to you that men from the village were off fighting in foreign lands to protect their homes, only to find that when they returned home that they did not have a home, or a village, or a community – the very things that they were fighting for. This is not only true of Tyneham where the village was taken over but many of our cities (and cities across Europe) that were destroyed by bombing raids.

As I mentioned above, many of the houses in the village are but shells but the church and the school have been faithfully restored (even if, in the case of the school it is a little contrived with the school work) and it was interesting trying to explain to 21st Century children the need for a ‘K1’ telephone kiosk and telegrams.

The unseasonable warm weather encouraged us to head to the coast to Lulworth Cove rather than head straight back to base. Lucinda and I would have liked to have explored the area a little more and walked the coast path to Durdle Door however three little ones had been patient around Tyneham and so after grabbing a spot of lunch we headed to the beach in Lulworth Cove.

There isn’t much of a beach at Lulworth Cove but the girls (and Ezra) found a bit of sand to build their first sandcastles of the holiday. For the second time this holiday they also ventured a little too far into the sea and the sea won. Prepared with spare clothes, we poured the sea-water out of their wellies and dried their feet, changed their socks and re-shod them in their shoes and headed back to the car. Walking up the road toward the carpark we had to pass through the visitors centre and their ice-cream parlours, the lure of which was too great. So, we sat on the wall eating our ice-creams before heading back to the car and home. The only downside was that somewhere between the beach and the car we managed to lose one of Amélie’s wellies. Not the worst thing that could happen but we did need to replace them, which we did the next morning.

When I was a child we would regularly visit my mom’s cousin, my Auntie Margaret (actually my first cousin once removed) but I hadn’t seen her and my Uncle Ray until we met at my Nan’s funeral last year. So, during last year’s moot we initiated another yearly tradition of visiting Portland and spending a day on the isle. After a Sunday night that was very much like previous two (Ezra waking up in the middle of the night chatting followed by Amélie waking up early) we set out from Puncknowle along one my favourite roads in England (the B3157 – the Jurassic Coast Road) towards Weymouth and Portland.

Auntie Margaret had made cupcakes for the kids and had left them undecorated for the girls to have some fun when they arrived. After decorating the cakes and colouring one of their pictures in their colouring books that Auntie Margaret had bought them we headed across the road to the junior playground over the road. The girls and Ezra had fun but it was aimed at kids a little younger that Éowyn, and even Amélie was probably a little too old for some of the rides so we headed a little further down the road the ‘big’ playground.

This was much more suited to Éowyn, but maybe a little on the big side for Amélie however one that enjoyed it the most was Ezra! In the centre of the playground was a slide that towered above me, the top was easily 2.5 metres (around 8 feet) high. Éowyn and Amélie were both a little nervous but nevertheless climbed the ladder to slide down. Their 18 month old brother had no fear. We tried dissuading him from going up, but he wasn’t having that, so as he made the climb Auntie Margaret followed closely behind and myself and Lucinda positioned ourselves along the slide. No need to worry, he loved it and as soon as reached the bottom he ran round to climb to do it all again. Auntie Margaret followed him down the slide and then back up the stairs behind him again. That was exercise that she wasn’t expecting. Ezra showed no signs of stopping so we decided it was an opportune moment to walk back to Auntie Margaret’s house and lunch.

The girls were on best behaviour and endeared themselves to Margaret and Ray by asking if they could call them Grandma and Grandpa rather than Auntie Margaret and Uncle Ray. As you can imagine both were delighted to have been asked and were very happy to agree to. We left mid-afternoon to return along the Jurassic Coast road to Berwick Manor for the family meal and this year’s fancy dress party. But you will have to wait until the next instalment for part two of the holiday and The Hollywood Party for the details and more importantly: the photos.

Peace and Love

Baggie

PS Before you look at the photos below I must warn you that there is one that might break your heart. It is not all joy and happiness on holiday as Amélie aptly demonstrates below. Do not fear the long face didn’t last too long!

The Baguettes on Hive Beach

Looks a bit choppy

How to get wet feet

Éowyn and Ezra on the doorstep

Collecting Conkers

Life is soooo unfair

The beach is brilliant!

Having fun on the beach

Mommy and her kids

Amélie and Ezra

Mommy and Ezra

Look wot I dun!

The Badger Moot

Chesil Beach

The Badger Clan

Brother and Sister

Just moi!

Amélie

Down the slide

Peep-po

Fun on the swing

I like ice-cream

Sisters

Mum

Lauren looking after the Baguettes

Cousins

A trip to Hive Beach

A week in Wales: part one – getting there

Wednesday 11th June 2014Baggie

After four updates in a little over a week we are back to the self-imposed fortnight hiatus. However, the two week gap has not be idle and there has been a lot happening to the Bagnall clan, not necessarily in the Bagnall home though so this, once again, will be the first of a trilogy of updates that I will delight you with this week.

I have worked for my company for nigh on 19 years and as such I sit on the top tier of holiday entitlement (28 days plus the usual public holidays). My holiday entitlement runs with the calendar year so we are nearly halfway through and as yet I have not taken any days from the this year’s quota. This is not down to idleness just not had the opportunity and with the biggest technical move in IMG’s history reaching its conclusion in the next few months I probably will not have another opportunity until the autumn. Hence the Whitsun half-term break seemed like a logical time to use some of that entitlement. This was not a happy coincidence that just happened, this was something that we had identified at the beginning of the year and booked accordingly.

The main decision had been where to go. With three kids everything starts becoming very expensive. You can’t guarantee the weather in the UK at the end of May (or at any point in the year) and we felt that Ezra was a little too young to take on an aeroplane, mainly because of the paraphernalia that you have to take added to the fact that Éowyn and Amélie are a little too young to take responsibility for their own things so you end up carrying a truckload of gear while shepherding kids while trying to negotiate airport security before you even manage to get to the resort!

Lucinda was interested in taking a ferry to Brittany and staying in France for a week, which is definitely a possibility for the near future but in the end we decided to stay in the UK but head to foreign climes: Tenby (or Dinbych-y-pysgod – the little town of the fishes in Welsh) in Pembrokeshire in South West Wales and the Kiln Park Caravan site. Taking advantage of the two inset days that Éowyn’s school had tagged to the end of the half-term break we booked the caravan Monday to Monday as it was cheaper than going weekend to weekend.

I am unsure if this is a phenomenon in other countries but in the UK the holiday companies completely rip off families. Knowing that it is increasingly difficult to take children out of school during term time (in principal I agree although I completely disagree with the local education authority imposing fines on parents that do!) the holiday companies increase the price of holidays as much as three fold. It is outrageous that if we had taken Éowyn out of school the week before or indeed the week after the half-term break we would have saved over £700! Although you can see the supply and demand argument from the holiday companies point of view and the argument for the local education department to try and ensure that children have a fair chance at education but as fair as I can see it is profiteering on both sides. A week’s missed education at the age of five is not going to adversely affect a child, I missed nearly three months of education at the age of nine due to open heart surgery has that had a detrimental affect on my cerebral ability? This is going to become more of an issue for us as a family as the kids get older as my job means that my busy times are Christmas, Easter and July-September, all the major school holiday times. Watch this space to find out what happens.

However, before we headed into the principality we had a weekend off and so we decided to fire up the barbecue for the first time and invite a couple of our new neighbours around. Emma and Martin and Clair and David may be new neighbours but they are not new friends we met them nearly six years ago on our NCT course and thus both have children the same age as Éowyn. Emma and Martin live a couple of doors down from us and that is how we knew our new home was up for sale. Unfortunately the British summer wasn’t exactly barbecue friendly (heavy rain) but that is where a few strategically placed umbrellas held in the scaffolding that still adorns our home kept the worst of it off me while I cooked the meat. Despite the weather fun and food was had by all and it was a rather successful first barbecue.

Not really giving ourselves much time for relaxation the next morning both girls had been invited to separate birthday parties, so Lucinda took Amélie and I took Éowyn. We had managed to complete the packing so Lucinda’s car was full to the rafters (do cars have rafters?) ready for the afternoon drive to Nanny Fran’s.

Yes, after driving the girls to their parties we reconvened back at Chez Bagnall and headed up the M40 to West Bromwich. We hadn’t seen Nanny Fran for a while and so we thought we would pop up and see Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz and drive to Tenby from there. Although West Bromwich is a lot closer to Wales than Staines Upon Thames, it is only about 30 miles closer to Tenby however it did mean that we could head into Wales on the M50 and miss the toll on the Severn bridge (not really worth the extra diesel on its own though!).

The girls we as excited as ever to see Nanny Fran and while there we charged Nanny Fran with a challenge. You may recall that for various achievements both girls had been promised items from the Disney store and both had chosen Frozen related items. Frozen is the by far one of the biggest Disney films in recent history. For some reason it has captured children’s imaginations and the song ‘Let it go’ has become the bane of most parents life’s with constant non-stop renditions from their little ones and countless you-tube covers invading social media. However the success of the film seems to have caught Disney on the hop and dolls and costumes are incredibly difficult to get hold of, with some people paying up to £1000 off auction sites for the correct outfit. Éowyn bares a passing resemblance to Elsa and Amélie to Anna and with those characters being sisters in the movie then those are the two that the girls have identified with respectively. So with the demand so high we have been unable to source an Elsa dress and doll for Éowyn and an Anna dress and doll for Amélie, so we charged Nanny Fran with the one week challenge while we were on holiday.

We left Nanny Fran’s on Monday morning and headed to Tenby in glorious sunshine. The long term weather forecast had not been promising and so we thought that this was just another example of the Bagnall luck with the only beautiful day being our travel day.

The DVDs in the S-Max earn their money with the girls kept quiet with two films during the journey. The countryside was beautiful (except for the proliferation of mobile speed camera traps) however there was the odd countryside smell (if you know what I mean?). Indeed as we crossed the border into Monmouthshire and thus Wales, I asked Éowyn was she thought of the Welsh Countryside. ‘It smells like horse poo!‘ Although truthful was not exactly the ideal start for Anglo-Welsh relations.

We arrived mid-afternoon and the weather was still glorious and so, with half an eye on the long range weather forecast, after checking in and dropping the bags off at the caravan (5 Caldey View – although there was no view – unless you count the back end of another caravan – and you certainly couldn’t see Caldey Island!) we decided to take full advantage and follow the signs for the short (although longer than we expected) walk to the beach. Pembrokeshire is famous for some of the most beautiful sandy beaches, indeed the best beach in Europe, according to a recent tourist organisation, is the harbour beach in Tenby. So we were blessed that it was a short walk to the 2.5 miles of golden sand; sand, perfect for sandcastles. However, the sun was going down and we had three tired and hungry children so we headed into the leisure complex to investigate the pool and the food outlets.

The caravan park was blessed with a nice pool and with Éowyn’s (and to a lesser extent, Amélie’s) growing confidence in the water we decided that we would have to take advantage this week especially when we saw a notice for beginners lessons for the over fours. After a brief conversation we signed Éowyn up (Amélie still too young) for a 0900 lesson each morning.

A warm meal in the Mash and Barrel and a quick trip to the onsite supermarket for essentials (like toilet paper!) and it was back to the caravan for our first holiday sleep and the start of the holiday proper.

Tune into ‘A week in Wales: part two’ to read about the holiday but feel free to peruse the photos below as a taster of what is to come.

Peace and Love

Baggie