Veg Patch

Lunapigs!

Sunday 5th July 2015Monday 6th July 2015Baggie

It doesn’t take long for a week off and a holiday in Turkey to fade in the memory as normality and the daily grind come back into view. The girls returned to school the next day, while I had an extra day off before heading back to the land of Sports Television. A land of Sports Television over a summer with none of the additional quadrennial events that tend to fill in the gaps between football seasons. Therefore, my working pattern over the summer resembles some form of normality with free weekends to spend with the family.

Not one to miss these opportunities Lucinda has booked up our weekends for the summer so that we can make the most of them. The first weekend off saw the family Bagnall head down the road to Windsor. To the Legoland Windsor resort, to be specific. Legoland is an ideal destination for the Baguettes since most of the rides and attractions are geared towards their age range. In addition it is about 9 miles from home, so takes next to no time (depending on traffic) to get there. It was with this in mind that we decided to use this year’s Tesco vouchers to buy an annual pass to Legoland. This allows us to ‘pop in’ whenever we like and not feel obliged to spend a whole day with tired children so that we don’t feel like we have not got our money’s worth.

We certainly got our money’s worth on our first visit though. We were there from just after the park opened until late afternoon. We were limited on rides though since the Baguettes are still of an age (or height) where they require an adult on the ride with them. When you have three children that poses some problems. However, Legoland have this sussed a little with ‘parent swap’. Effectively, either the parent stays on the ride and swaps children with the other parent, or alternatively the parents and the children swap to save double queueing. It works and with Ezra still a little too young to go on some of the rides it was very handy.

There were still a number of rides that we could go on as a family however and so we took full advantage of those even if the queues were a tad long at times but that is the problem of going places at weekends when the weather is nice.

June has been quite a pleasant month, weatherwise. The overall the temperatures have been below what one would expect for the summer month, but there has been little rain (in the South East of the UK at least). This is both beneficial and a hindrance to the Bagnall household. The sunshine is great, not just generally (who doesn’t like the sunshine) but also for our electricity generation. Having bright, sunny days when the days are longest is a definite bonus, despite the ever growing threat of the pigeons that have decided to nest under our panels.

I have always thought of pigeons as rather dumb birds, which is completely undeserved, they have passed many cognitive tests, but the ones nesting on our roof have demonstrated the exception that proves the rule. Obviously, they have demonstrated some form of intelligence by nesting under our photovoltaic cells, as it offers protection from the elements, and some warmth from the cells themselves. Nevertheless they have not yet worked out that laying ovoid eggs on a sloping roof is not necessarily a good idea and we have found many broken on the patio and driveway. More disgustingly that is not all that we have found splatted on our patio and driveway. So if anyone has a hawk that they would like to exercise over our house I would be very grateful.

The flip side of bright sunny days is the lack of rain, as our water butts can testify. I am happy for our lawn to change from green to brown however the vegetable patch is another matter. Our vegetables will not flourish without a daily watering and so we are having to resort to water from the tap. Even the thunderstorms of last night (110,000 lightning strikes in one night) haven’t replenished the water butts. What I wouldn’t give for a heavy downpour (sorry to all of you who are enjoying the weather) or a couple of days of rainy weather. I would have expected the heatwave (if you can call two hot days in row a heatwave, more a heatsplash) to have triggered more thunderstorms over chez Bagnall, apart from the night before’s mega-storm, as it is being labelled, nothing, just uncomfortable nights of sleep and the knowledge that the baguettes have seen the hottest UK day in their lives.

Since the football season has finished, Lucinda has been filling my weekends up. The first one saw us in Turkey, on holiday so that doesn’t really count. Then I was back at work for European Qualfiers! I thought that the football season had ended.

The following weekend saw Lucinda’s ex flat mate, Emma, celebrate her 40th birthday. She had reserved a room at a pub in Chiswick on the River Thames. This is where living next door to a baby-sitter and just a short walk from Staines train station comes in handy. A direct train from Staines to Kew Bridge and a five minute walk saw us at the pub. a good time was had by all and return by train although requires some time discipline is far cheaper than a taxi. I think Amélie must have missed us because at 0330 she crept into our bed, I think primarily to ensure that we hadn’t left for the weekend.

Then Lucinda took advantage of not only the fact that I was off at the weekend but also having holiday entitlement to use up and went away on Friday returning Sunday lunchtime. Not just Sunday but Father’s day but more of that later. I took the Friday off and took the girls to school, then it was a boys’ day for Ezra and dad. Nothing too exciting but it was nice to spend some time with him alone. Friday night is usually movie night but this had already been cancelled so after dinner, the Baguettes and I cuddled up on the sofa and watched Despicable Me 2.

I think the kids were aware of the lack of Mum, and although they weren’t particularly upset about it, it must have played on their minds. For at about 0200 I felt a little presence creep into bed. It was Ezra. Although Ezra has been sleeping in his bed, as opposed to his cot, for many months now he hasn’t really worked out that he could get out when he wanted to. The drive this night must have helped him realise and he found his way to Daddy. So while I was giving him a cuddle, before preparing myself to pick him up and put him back in his own bed, in wanders Amélie. So another child to comfort before finally getting back to sleep.

Before Lucinda had left on the Friday morning she has given Éowyn my Fathers’ day present and got her to write the card in preparation for not being there on the Sunday morning. Therefore as I put them to bed on the Saturday night, and remembering the night before I told them that as it was Fathers’ day that daddy would appreciate a lie in and no nighttime visitors. At 0700 É0wyn and Amélie come in with a card and presents and asked if it was too early. How can you refuse that?

With the approaching end of the academic year and the conclusion of after school clubs it means two things. The first is the perennial Sports Days. Éowyn’s school has adopted the new Sports Day standard where there are no individual races as such, it is all relay based races and you are competing for your house. Éowyn’s house won, so she was over the moon.

Amélie’s was probably even less competitive and every child received a medal – real plastic gold! Nevertheless Amélie was very proud of her medal, and rightly so.

Éowyn’s after school drama class is coming to an end and that means only one thing – shooting has begun. Last week Éowyn filmed the first of her scenes for the film that Sense Theatre are producing. There will be a quick turnaround in post production as the premiere is on Sunday 12th July and there are still scenes to shoot. Éowyn said it was a little daunting with the lights and the camera lens in view and it took her a little while to relax and deliver her lines. For anyone that has been in front of the lens I am sure that you can relate.

I can’t wait to see the finished film. Tickets have been bought for the premiere and the dvd has been pre-ordered. You never know it could be the start of a promising career.

Before I leave you, this month’s funny word comes from Amélie. Referring to her brother and sisters madly running around and came in complaining that they were acting like Lunar-pigs. I think she meant Lunatics but Lunar-pigs or should that be Lunapigs sounds so much better!

Peace and Love

Baggie

I’m not with these

Sisters

Zonked

Close up

Look into my eyes

The Boy!

Father’s Day cake

Sports Day

My Magnum

Grin

Daddy and Amélie

Daddy and Ezra

Too tired for the iPad

Ready for take off

Can we take it home?

The Bagnall ladies

The Bagnall boys

Éowyn

Our new friend

Smell the flowers

Can we join the gang?

Legoland!

That is impressive

Can I have a couple of bricks?

Welcome to 2015

Thursday 1st January 2015Thursday 1st January 2015Baggie

It is traditional for my first post of the year to look Janus-like at the year that has just been and one the one yet to come. Who am I to stand in the way of tradition?

2013 was an extremely hectic year with much of what life can throw at you and so we were hoping for a more sedate 2014. With 3 children life is never going to be sedate, neither however, was it hectic. In 2013 life through many things at us including: births, deaths, marriages, holidays, big birthdays, and house moves and although my company relocated (and came under new management) there were no new jobs in the Bagnall household. It seemed that life was not finished with the Bagnall household and does not conform to the convention of numerical years and almost before the Christmas decorations had found their way back into the loft and certainly before Lucinda had returned to work from maternity leave the news broke that she would have to find a new job.

2014 saw the opening of the new Terminal 2 at Heathrow Airport and Air Canada, the company where Lucinda had worked for the past 16 years, was one of the Airlines that was due to make it their new home. Air Canada though, took this opportunity to look at their accounts and decided to outsource ground control to the handling agency ASIG. Lucinda therefore had two choices: transfer to ASIG or redundancy. Since Lucinda had such long service it made sense to take redundancy and then apply to ASIG, hopefully be offered a similar position and try to negotiate favourable terms as an individual.

Thus the stress of returning to work after maternity leave was coupled with the uncertainty of redundancy and job applications. Nevertheless, Lucinda took it in her stride, took the favourable redundancy package, applied for a position at ASIG and managed to retain her job share hours which ties in, as nicely as it can, with my hours.

My hours have just been ridiculous this year with the conclusion of the move from Chiswick to Uxbridge (doesn’t sound too exotic, does it?) and especially moving Premier League Productions and at the same time taking on another major client in the guise of European Qualifiers. It is nice to know that we are busy (better than being the opposite) but it would be nice to spend some time with the family. However 2015 is bring a new structure and hopefully this will free me from the coal face and move me to the management side of my role and thus free me from the shackles of weekend fixtures.

These upheavals in work life have obviously been coupled with the usual stresses of being the parents of three young children and the small matter of moving into a new home. We had only owned our new home for two months before 2014 was upon us and with Christmas 2013 around the corner all we had time to do was unpack. Therefore this year was the first chance we had to do anything major with the house.

The house felt homely when we moved in and rooms were allocated almost on our first viewing and a year on they haven’t changed. Our furniture, however felt dwarfed in the bigger living space and although we didn’t want to clutter the space with furniture for the sake of it we have acquired a few new pieces including the extending table that was used to full effect for Christmas dinner.

We haven’t made too many changes to the house so far, indeed we have only really made three major changes:

The installation of photovoltaic panels
Painting of the exterior
New French doors

The installation of the photovoltaic panels was never a definite plan but something I have always been interested in, especially when I realised how much bigger the fuel bills were for a larger, older house. When we investigated the various methods to acquire them and how much it would cost to buy an array and we decided that there was no better time than the present. We are earning about £800 a year from them, if this year is at all typical, and our dual fuel bill had dropped by £60/month. At that rate they will have paid for themselves in less than 6 years (not including any energy price increases) and they are guaranteed for 20 years. Could be a good little earner; I’ll keep you informed.

The first thing that we noticed about the house when we came for our initial viewing was the colour. The house is pebbledashed (something I am not too keen on) and was of the original mortar colour. Not very exciting, it was a good job that the rest of the house was so good. We decided as we stood in the driveway in those first minutes that if we purchase the house that we would like to paint it.

After moving in, it seemed that painting the house was an unnecessary extravagance and we should just live with the colour. Then the wettest winter in many a year hit (and parts of Staines Upon Thames became Staines up-in-Thames) and the one thing that we noticed (apart from the fact that we were not flooded apparently, we discover we sit on a 1,000 year flood plain) was that there were an awful amount of pebbles on the driveway. The mortar was absorbing the rain and crumbling. This then pushed us back to the idea of painting the house. It would serve two purposes, the first brighten the exterior of the house but secondly and more importantly it would bond the mortar and pebbles and add an extra layer of protection against the elements.

It was about this time that Lucinda was made redundant as Air Canada outsourced ground operations at Heathrow Airport to the handling agency ASIG. With a nice little bonus in the bank it seemed to be the right thing to do to invest some of it into looking after the house. So the house is now a Country Cream colour and certainly looks a lot brighter as you drive down the road.

The third improvement has been the replacement of the old sliding patio doors to some modern French doors. Again it was one of the features of the house that we disliked when we first looked round. We initially wanted bi-fold doors but apparently our opening wasn’t big enough so we comprised on French doors. They give us the bigger opening that we wanted, bringing the outdoors in, as the architects are fond of saying, (although not what we particularly want at the moment) but also additional security compared to the sliding style patio doors and additional insulation from the modern double glazing.

Not a bad haul for the first year in our new home. There are still plenty of things to be done, the most pressing in the heating system. Last year we had a power flush to try to make the system more efficient and allow the radiators to actually output the heat that they are rated for. The fact that last Winter was so mild (damp and windy but mild) it had sort of fallen to the back of our minds. However this winter has already had cold days, and even colder nights and with a lack of heating downstairs, this has become a level one priority.

From a non-expert point of view it seems that there is so much gunk in the system that the hot water can not circulate around the lower half of the system. Therefore we have hot water and a relatively warm upstairs but no heat downstairs. This is coupled with single skin walls and a lack of underfloor insulation meaning that it can be unbearably cold downstairs. Therefore, we have employed oil-filled radiators and fan heaters to attempt to make sitting downstairs bearable, which is denting the savings we would be accruing from the photovoltaic cells installation.

We have a heating engineer coming round in the week to see what he can do. It might involve new radiators and pipework. Hopefully not a new boiler but if it is needed, then it is needed. To help retain the heat in the house we will also be looking at underfloor insulation in the coming year but that is going to be a big job and probably involve new carpets (or floor covering of some sort). That however, can wait until the spring and be in place for next winter.

This past year has also seen our first attempt at cultivation. Not in a self-sufficiency kind of way but just to see if we enjoy it and to help teach the children where our food comes from. We were relatively successful with runner beans (there are still some in the freezer), potatoes, tomatoes and raspberries. Not so successful with strawberries (squirrels dug the plants up before they had a chance to grow) and pumpkins (only one survived until Halloween). The main thing was that we enjoyed doing it and managed to eat our produce so let’s see if we can do better next year.

The first event of last year that I would like to mention was the fact that in moving home we were further from Éowyn’s school but only a short walk to another. Therefore, we made the decision to move sc

hools. This was confirmed by the local education authority at michaelmas half term. There have been tears and she is not enjoying it as much as she was at her old school, but we are confident that it will not take her much longer to settle it, especially with everyone returning after the Christmas break.

Amélie, on the other hand, is positively enjoying her new pre-school and looks forward to going to her ‘new school’. The fact that both schools are a short walk from home and they can ride their scooters their, we think is a huge positive too. There are also around 4 or 5 other families in the street with children of the same age so we feel more part of a community than we ever did at the previous school. If only Éowyn’s best friend and favourite teacher were at this school then there would not be a problem, but life is not like that.

2014 has been another interesting year in the Bagnall household and I am sure that 2015 will just as interesting. Plans that we have will come to fruition and I am sure that this will be coupled with unforeseen obstacles that life will throw at us that will need to be overcome. No doubt some things will go smoothly and others will be more bumpy; some things will fall into place without too much planning while others will fail despite being planned to the nth degree, and on that note I would like to leave you with this thought from Neil Gaiman:

“I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.

So that’s my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody’s ever made before. Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever.”

Peace and Love

Baggie

PS. 2013 saw disappointment surrounding Comet ISON which strayed too close to the sun, denying us a promised ‘Comet of the Century’ experience. January brings us, not a ‘Comet of a Century’ but with luck and the benefit of a dark sky you maybe lucky enough to see Comet Lovejoy that should become visible to those of us in the Northern Hemisphere from the 9th January reaching perihelion on Friday 30th January 2015. Keep those eyes peeled.

PPS. Geeky web stats for 2014 can be found here.

(Football) Season’s greetings

Thursday 28th August 2014Saturday 30th August 2014Baggie

You wait seven weeks and then there are two updates in a week. Yes the football seasons are well underway and work has already started to slip into a pattern. It is nice to know that the hard work put in over the summer have borne fruit quite quickly and workflows and procedures seem to be working. There is one more hurdle to jump, one more client to incorporate into the system and then hopefully I can ease off the weekends and start to see the family more. Don’t hold your breath!

This update however takes us back to before I lost my weekends to the behemoth that is IMG. Lucinda’s friend Lisca decided to celebrate her birthday inviting a select group of friends for a spa weekend. So Lucinda took advantage and headed off to the country while I stayed at home with the kids. I was looking forward to spending time with the kids but it appeared that my body decided to rebel and use the opportunity to lower its guard and let the infection that it was fighting have the upper hand for the weekend. So, probably before Lucinda had even checked in, I was running a temperature of nigh on 40˚C while every muscle ached.

The kids were playing nicely together so I lay on the settee to try and regain some strength. Éowyn saw that I was ill and asked if she could put on a DVD and curl up on the settee with me. So, she chose a film (Brave) put it in the player, handed me the remote controls and curled up on the settee with me. Amélie, wondering where Éowyn was came into the lounge and curled up on the settee too. Then the Bagnall sandwich was complete with Ezra squeezing himself in the group hug. There we stayed watching Brave (the first time for me!) the four of us curled up on the settee. It was delightful.

The following day we had arranged to go to the cinema with the cousins. Ezra was duly packed off to Nanny and Granddad’s and Éowyn, Amélie and I went to watch Muppets Most Wanted. The girls are a big fan of The Muppets (indeed Éowyn’s first trip to the cinema was to see The Muppets) and know all the songs from the first film, so it was an easy choice. Neither of the girls were as captivated as they were with the first film (and in fairness neither was I, and I’m a big Muppets fan) however Éowyn has begun to do a very good Russian accent, in the style of Constantine (the world’s most evil frog).

A fortnight later was our 7^th Wedding Anniversary and how did we celebrate this momentous occasion? Lucinda was working, then we had friends round for a barbeque before I, and two friends, went to the cinema to watch the simulcast of the last night of the Monty Python Live (Mostly) stage show. It is a good job that I have an understanding Wife, and perhaps, in part it is why we got married. The show was the first time in 30 years that all the (living) Pythons were together on stage and they kept us all happy by performing all the favourites, with a bit of new material thrown in for good measure.

The favour was returned a couple of weeks later with Daddy spending a Friday night in while Lucinda and Lisca once again went out on the town for a kid-free night. We had told the girls that Lisca was going to stay the night and would be in the spare room and so not to go in there in the morning. This is the room that Éowyn and Raine spent the night when Raine came for a sleep over. Something must have clicked in Amélie’s head and equated Lisca’s stay with a sleep over. Now as Éowyn had the chance to sleep in the spare room with her friend, the cogs started turning in her head and Amélie decided that this was her opportunity. As I put the girls to bed, Éowyn duly climbing into the top bunk while Amélie disappeared; I found her snuggling into the spare bed. I asked her what she was doing. ‘I’m going to have a sleepover with Lisca,’ was her reply. I don’t think that Lisca would have been very pleased to have come home after a few fizzy drinks to have found Amélie starfishing in her bed.

July also saw the harvest of the first of our crops (16 potatoes from the first plant!). Indeed for the past month we have kept ourselves in potatoes and beans. I have always thought about the idea of having a veg patch and so this year was firstly an experiment to seeing if we were any good at growing food and whether we could dedicate the time and effort into looking after the plot. Secondly, it was to introduce the girls to where food comes from and by encouraging them to be involved in the growing process to get them to eat more veg. Any produce was therefore a bonus. Nevertheless we have been fortunate and have had a bountiful harvest of potatoes and beans. It is surprising how much better vegetables grown by your own fair hand, taste; indeed our potatoes are full of flavour. The girls get quite excited when I go to the veg patch to dig up some potatoes and insist on coming with me armed with a bag. I think the girls enjoy it because of the unknown. When you stick your fork in and lift the plant up, you never know how many potatoes you are going to get or how big they are. It is like a poor man’s Christmas day.

It is the gift that keeps on giving; we still have beans and potatoes to harvest and now the tomatoes are beginning to ripen. We thought that our three raspberry bushes were not going to fruit this year, however it looks like we might get a late harvest, which I am quite excited about. Unfortunately we have had a bit of a disaster with the sole remaining pumpkin plant. The leaves developed a white growth and within a couple of days all the leaves had died before we had a chance to try and cure the infection. The vine itself still seems to be alive and the pumpkin is ripening so we may be lucky, we will have to wait and see.

The pumpkin probably suffered due to the heavy rain that we have recently had. Indeed Bank Holiday Monday saw a month of rain only a couple days after the lowest August temperature recorded in the UK (a shade above -2°C in Northern Ireland) and the news that a glacier has begun to form in Scotland (despite this article from 7 months previous stating that they will not return in our lifetime). So we many feel that we are hurtling in Autumn, and the return to school but it wasn’t like that at the beginning of the month.

Indeed we were more worried about sun cream than wellies when we spend the day at Bushy Park. We headed there with our N.C.T. gang and enjoyed a traditional day at the park, playing football, frisbee and soft ball all based around a picnic. The day was made more exciting by an invasion of the Bushy Park resident deer. First it was the Red Deer that actually kept a discreet distance but not so their smaller relatives. We sat amazed on the picnic blanket as a couple of fallow deer wandered over and unafraid stuck their noses into our bags to see if there was anything of interest. I had to stand up and usher them away, only for them to head to an unoccupied picnic blanket and helped themselves to the food that had left behind. (See our Flickr pages for photos). So if any of you decide to take a trip to London’s second largest Royal park watch out for cervine thieves, it was definitely a first for the Bagnalls.

Another first for the Bagnall was Amélie’s first visit to the haridressers. Amélie’s hair has never grown as quickly Éowyn’s but has recently become a little wild, so we thought it was time for her to go for a haircut. Lucinda took both girls to our local hairdressers in Stanwell Moor. Éowyn has been before and only needed a trim of her blond locks. Amélie, however, needed a bit more work and we were a little worried how she would react. She nearly fell asleep when she had her hair washed and was as good as gold while they cut her hair until she saw it on the floor. Then she started to cry and asked them to put it back on. The hairdresser was very good with her and said that they collect all the hair and put it in a magic box. Then we you are older and you would like it back you can take it home. This seemed to placate her and then said that she wanted to get rid of her curls as she didn’t want her curls any more. So the hairdresser straightened her hair. Fortunately, the curls have fought back but not before Lucinda took some photos of her without curls. She looks very different I am sure that you agree, and probably not as cute.

Before I leave you to enjoy the photos let me regale one small amusing anecdote. Éowyn may suffer, like her father, from an inability to carry a tune she nevertheless, like her father, enjoys to sing. However her choice of songs seems to be far too influenced by Disney films and her mother’s CD collection. One of the songs that she likes is 22 by Taylor Swift. However, she hasn’t quite nailed the lyrics. For those of you not familiar with the song, it opens with the line ‘It feels like a perfect night to dress up like hipsters.’ In fairness to our oldest child, she is only five that therefore doesn’t know what a hipster is never mind what they dress like, so Éowyn fills in the unknown word with a more familiar one singing ‘It feels like a perfect night to dress up like hamsters’. A somewhat different fancy dress shop but would probably work better visually.

A big welcome to the latest member of the greater Badger clan: Letty Louise Woodman the first child for Lucinda’s cousin Kate and her partner Nolan was born on the 17th August 2104. Interestingly another girl, the 11th of her generation (compared to only 2 boys), there must be something in the water. She looks a real cutey from the photos and we can’t wait to meet her!

Peace and Love

Baggie