Nanny Fran

I've got five minutes…

Tuesday 24th August 2010Friday 11th May 2012Baggie

It literally is only five minutes or so (OK about half an hour) on only my second day off work this month and it is raining. Therefore the lawn can wait to be mowed and I can take the opportunity to write a quick update.

Since work is full occupying my time at the moment (up to 18 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week – the glamour of television) I am not seeing an awful amount of either Lucinda or Éowyn and so I will have to regale a couple of tales second hand.

Éowyn is definitely growing up fast and seems quite advanced for her age. She is only just 22 months old but has a vocabulary of at least 75 words and probably over 100. She can string words together to make simple sentence. Can recognise colours, shapes, numbers, animals, my car (and other cars of the same model) and Lucinda’s car (and likewise other cars of the same model), count to fourteen (?!) and is beginning to say her a,b,c’s.

Lucinda and Éowyn paid a visit to Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz during my mad build up to the channel launch as she still is having difficulty getting about due to her knee injury and certainly can not drive to come and visit us. This was a change from Skyping Nanny Fran that we try to do once a week. I think Éowyn wore Nanny Fran out, keeping her on the go for the entire time she was there. She also astounded her Nanny with her ability to recognise numbers and to go one stage further. Éowyn picked up one of her number blcoks and said “Number 9, Nanny.” Nanny Fran replied that it was and that she was a clever girl. Éowyn then turned it upside down, and said “No, number 6!”, giggled and ran off. Now that is true understanding of the shapes of numbers, and humour in tricking people. Don’t know where she gets that from… whistles innocently…

Éowyn has also begun to start to look for me when I am at work. Éowyn will say “Daddy, where are you?” and Lucinda will tell her that I am at work and Éowyn will open the front door and go and look for me. Lucinda is now having to be really careful. Fortunately we have a green outside our house so she doesn’t run straight into the road but worrying nevertheless.

Lucinda’s parents have been golden, with me working I have been unable to do my share of child minding, they have been looking after Éowyn when Lucinda has been working or socialising. Éowyn loves it around their house, they have a big garden and a trampoline. So she runs them ragged as she doesn’t want to be inside it is always “Outside!” and the point and the forlorn look.

Well my short amount of freetime is up and so I must do something constructive. Please enjoy the photos below and hopefully I will be able to get another update in before we become a family of four.
Peace and Love

Baggie

Rock Star pose

With Arabella

Jazz flute

Look Nanny, a pig

Checkmate

Look at the pig!

Any relation?

Look at my hands!

The service here is good!

More Cheese!

Fast asleep

With Auntie Liz

With my Mommy!

Smiler

Me and mommy

A quick update

Sunday 1st August 2010Monday 6th September 2010Baggie

Time is something I have precious little of the moment. The push to launch the channel and move to the realm of HD is in its final stages and so I will have little time to spend with my family yet alone update the website. So I thought I would venture a little catch up while Éowyn catches 40 winks.

Éowyn is still coming on leaps and bounds. her vocabulary is growing daily. She can count to 14 (how or why not really sure) but always seems to miss out 7. Not too worried yet. She has also begun to identify shapes, circle, square and triangle, however circle is pronounced with a strong Black Country accent for some reason. Although I still retain the vestiges of an accent, I do not think that I have ever pronounced circle as strongly as she does. May be it is genetic! She has also begun to string words together and her favourite phrase seems to be “Mommy, sit down now!” She can identify my car (and cars of the same model) and Lucinda’s car (and cars of the same model) and recognise them from quite a distance. Quite often before you do.

She thoroughly enjoys playing with Play-Doh and has to almost every day. She also enjoys racing against you in the back garden. A game that she calls “1, 2, 3, go!” However, if you ever play it with her just bare in mind that it is quite rarely 1, 2, 3, go! It can be any random number up to 9 (obviously not including 7) before she says “go” and she will be halfway down the garden before she shouts it!

Another new favourite is Skyping her Nanny Fran. As we do not see Nanny Fran too often we try and Skype her at least once a week. So much so that Éowyn will pick up out little laptop computer and say “Phone Nanny”. She gets quite excited and dances and plays in front of the webcam and includes Nanny Fran in playing Play-Doh. It is a good way for them to keep in touch.

Apologies for the brevity of this entry but I am sure that the photos will more than make up for it. If possible I will attempt another update in August (although I am not promising anything) then it is September! The month that our second born is due. Rest assured there will be plenty of updates then.

Peace and Love

Baggie!

My serious face

My happy face

Special Cheebies

Daddy’s shoes!

Not amused!

Concerned looks!

A lady that lunches

Look what I made

Wheee!

Seesaw

Margery Daw

Here comes Finley!

Éowyn's first trip to foreign climes

Monday 28th June 2010Sunday 1st January 2017Baggie

Éowyn has done what it took me nigh on another 22 years to do: take a trip on an aeroplane. My first flight was in 1996 at the age of 23.5, Éowyn took her first flight just before she turned 20 months old. Friends of mine Simon and Stefania were getting married on the 18th June in Stefania’s home town of San Baronto in Tuscany, Italy. We therefore decided to make a holiday around the event and, considering other events due this year, make it our big holiday for the year.

The holiday didn’t start in the most positive fashion. Our flight was due out at 09:00 BST and so we decided to push the boat out and have tea (or dinner for you Southerners) at the Earlybird at the local Harvester restaurant. We went with Nanny and Granddad as we do relatively often. Both Lucinda and I decided that we fancied the scampi and chips and duly ordered said meal each. It tasted lovely and thought no more of it, and what followed may or may not have anything to do with it.

Cue 02:00 BST Lucinda begins throwing up. This took us back to when she was pregnant with Éowyn and suffered food poisoning from a re-heated quiche. That time we went to A&E and she was kept in for a few hours to monitor Éowyn. We were told then that the blood supply of the baby is separate to that of the mother so that the baby should be fine however it was important to keep up her fluid intake for dehydration was the real issue. This did become a concern as Lucinda developed diarrhoea.

Cue 04:00 BST and I began to feel ill. I did not vomit (which in hindsight was probably a bad thing as you will discover later) and only suffered the secondary issue (pun intended). So now there was no way we were going to be nipping off to hospital to get Lucinda and the bubba checked out before our flight (and for a while it looked like we were not going to be able to make the flight!). Fortunately about 06:00BST everything seemed to settle for a while so we decided to head to the airport (thanks Granddad).

At the airport we felt rough but (due to many years of experience) managed to check in and get through security and find the gate. Éowyn was being golden, and enjoyed looking around the shops. She eventually took me into one of the many shops in T5 Heathrow for she had spotted a World Cup ball and wanted it. As she was being so good I bought it for her for it was something else to keep her amused with, for airside we were both suffering new waves of diarrhoea. Fortunately we were out of sync with each other and could take it in turns to look after Éowyn.

We got on board and the plane filled up. It was going to be a full flight. As we taxied to the runaway we though we would give Éowyn her bottle to help with equalising her ears on take off. However we were foiled by the French! French air-traffic controllers to be precise who had decided to go on strike, thereby delaying all flights across French airspace. So we sat on the runaway, on a full flight, feeling rough with a 20 month old that rapidly drank her milk thinking things couldn’t be much worse. It wasn’t a good start.

However after about a 45 minute delay it was our turn to take off. We should have had no fear. Éowyn sat on my lap shouting ‘Wheeeee!’ all the way down the runway and into the air. She loved it. She was so well behaved on the flight, we could not have asked for any more from her. When we landed I felt incredibly bad and rushed for the toilet as we got off the plane. Somehow we not only got through customs, collected our luggage and hired a car. We managed to drive the 100km or so from Pisa airport to the Hotel Monti in San Baronto, check in before collapsing on the bed in the hotel room.

I stayed in bed for the next day and a half, unable to keep any food or drink down. I wouldn’t like to think how much weight I lost in that time frame but I was 9lbs lighter on my return and I ate nothing but pasta, pizza, cakes, beer and ice-cream while I was there. It was not much fun for Lucinda as she had recovered the next day and could not explore too far as I was the only one insured on the car and walking was out of the question as it was torrential rain for those first few days. The holiday had not started well.

I did, however, flush the toxins from my body and although weak and gaunt looking was able to get out of the hotel on the third day. Although I took it easy in order to save myself for the wedding, which was on the fourth day (Friday 18th June) of our holiday. My friend Hami also arrived on the third day just as I was beginning to feel better. Another good friend Sanjiv arrived late on the Thursday and caught up with him on the morning of the wedding.

The wedding was fantastic. The ceremony was held in the Church in San Baronto and the reception in Villa Rospigliosi in nearby Lamporecchio. Villa Rospigliosi is a 17th Century Villa built for Pope Celemns IX as a summer retreat from the Vatican. It was a fabulous setting for the wedding, Simon and Stef have true style!

We were in Italy for 10 days in total and took full advantage of being in the middle of Tuscany. We visited Florence, Lucca, Vinci, Empoli, Pistoia, Lamporecchio but missed out on Pisa (although we did see the learning tower from about a mile away as we headed to the airport on the way back home).

For Éowyn it was a holiday of many firsts:

First time she had used her passport
First time in the airport
First flight
First foreign country
First trip on a bus
First wedding
First trip on a coach
First trip on a train
First time she has used another language on a trio (Ciao and Grazie)
First Father’s Day spent outside of England

Highlights of the trip (apart from the wedding) would have to be meeting up with Simon, Hami and Sanjiv for me. The trips to Florence, Lucca and Vinci and the fact that we got to spend a considerable amount of time together as a family. Something that we very rarely do for any length of time. During our trip Éowyn is now confident counting up to 10. Can name a considerable amount of colours (her favourites being Orange and Purple) and can tell you the noises that animals make.

Funny moment of the trip goes to Sanjiv. Searching San Baronto for somewhere to have lunch (not an easy task I can tell you) Sanjiv spots some women perparing tables in a restaurant, calling over he shouts, “Scusi,” at this point we are impressed, we did not know that Sanjiv spoke Italian. Then Uncle Albert kicked in, “What-a time do you-a open?” he said, putting on an ‘Allo ‘Allo Italian accent. It makes me laugh now, just thinking about it! He should of course have said: “Scusi, Bootiful Lay-dees! What-a time do you-a open?” At least he gave it a go. I suffer from that English disease of being afraid of getting it wrong that I forget to try. I keep promising myself to learn another language but never get around to it. Perhaps I will rectify that some day. Sanjiv’s language skills narrowly beat the result of New Zealand v Italy game into second place, but as England were abysmal the least we say about the World Cup the better.

Returning home we had one more event before returning to work. Nanny Fran’s belated 60th birthday present. Due to her accident (she is still in plaster) our surprise trip to Rome has been cancelled and instead we took her to see The Sound of Music with Connie Fisher at Woking theatre. I have to admit it was a fantastic show and it also gave Nanny Fran a chance to see Éowyn who she hasn’t seen for quite a while.

Now I feel that I have waffled far too much, so please find some photos below to enjoy. I will be uploading a large number to Flickr in the next few days so keep your eyes peeled for those. I also aim to write a more detailed account of the holiday and post it as a permanent page under Éowyn’s own page in the right hand column, so keep an eye on that too.

Peace and Love

Baggie