Work

(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

Down the slide

All aboard!

Mother and son

Before the painting began

Sisters

Partway through the job

Blue racing car

Horse race

Red racing car

Wyldstyle

Round we go

Everything is awesome

Ezra’s gone!

Are you still watching me?

I’ve definitely gone

Chocolate toast

Do I look like Daddy?

Look at that!

7 years and nothing itches

Sunday 24th August 2014Baggie

It has been a while, hasn’t it? I thought I would take the opportunity to try and squeeze in a quick update before work became the dominant force in my life as the football seasons kicked off and IMG Studios at Stockley Park was tested to capacity. That didn’t happen, work crept up and slapped me in the face with a wet fish (metaphorically speaking) before I managed to sit down and regale the latest Bagnall adventures. Therefore, firstly accept my apologies for the hiatus between updates and secondly for any discrepancies or omissions that will undoubtedly occur. It has been nearly seven weeks!

So let me take you back to the end of June and Staines upon Thames day. One of the many stalls was run by the local estate agents ISIS (named after the stretch of the River Thames above Iffley Lock, not the Egyptian goddess, AVID storage or the Islamic State militant group). We bought our house through ISIS and were very pleased with their assistance in the purchase so we thought we would pop over and say hello. After collecting a number of ISIS branded freebies we decided to enter their competition. An ISIS branded Smart Car was filled with helium-filled balloons; 50p entitled you to have a guess at the total number for a chance to win £100. With a combination of back of a fag-packet calculations and a stab in the dark I put my guess on the entry form and thought no more of it.

A week later I received a phonecall from ISIS to let me know that, not only was I the closest, I had got the number spot on and had won the prize money. ISIS asked if we would pose of a photo with one of those oversized cheques for promotional material, to which we agreed. However, with the Managing Director on holiday that has not yet materialised. Nevertheless a cheque for £100 duly arrived in the post the following week and has been cashed!

Although it seems a little strange to be saying it this week (with overnight frosts in some parts of the country and a weather warning in force for Bank Holiday Monday) July and the beginning of August have been blessed with warm weather and dry days. Indeed, ideal days for exterior painting. Yes the second big job to personalise the house has been completed. The first was installation of photovoltaic cells to provide electricity; the second was to paint the exterior of the house.

One of the few things that we didn’t particularly like about the house when we saw it was the dull colour of the pebbledash render. We thought about painting the house as soon as we moved in and initially we just thought that this was just an aesthetic choice on our behalf. The winter of 2013-2014 was extremely wet and although we escaped fairly lightly in terms of damage, it was evident by the number of pebbles that worked loose from the render that something needed to be done to the exterior to prevent further damage before winter returned to finish the job. One of the solutions to help protect the render is to paint it with a suitable weatherproof paint.

After receiving a variety of quotes we settled on a company that was both reasonable and had good on-line reviews. The next decision was which colour. Éowyn was disappointed that we chose the neutral ‘Country Cream’ rather than a shade of her favourite colour: pink.

Since this was the first time the house had been painted it makes the job a little more difficult as the render absorbs much of the first coat. I have to say that even after the first day the house looked completely different. Indeed I almost drove past the house on my return from work.

It is satisfying to know that not only does the house look so much better but that the paint is protecting the render and hopefully will be saving us a hefty repair bill should the weather win the war against the pebbledash.

We are hoping to make one more major alteration to our home before the end of the year. Will we manage to make it happen? You will have to keep popping by to find out.

But what has else has been happening in the Bagnall household?

July is the traditional end of the academic year and this July saw Éowyn’s first school year come to an end. Éowyn has thoroughly enjoyed going to school and has done extremely well in her first year. Her reading and writing has developed quickly. Indeed she doesn’t just write sentences she makes books. Her spelling might need a bit of work (she tends to write phonetically) but she is very good at capturing her imagination in the written word.

Éowyn’s strength has been her personality, she can be strong willed and determined but that makes her a good leader and thus seems to be the centre of fun in the classroom. This made an impression on her teacher Miss Finbow, who spoke very highly of her and her leadership skills. This has also lead to her having many friends but more importantly she has made two very good friends. Unfortunately, one of these friends has moved to Hastings over the summer holiday and the other has been out of the country for the entire summer vacation. Therefore she has to rely on her little sister for entertainment over the holidays. So it will be interesting to see what happens when she returns to school in September. A new teacher and one less friend: I am sure she will cope.

Before work became the main force in my life we tried to squeeze in a few family days. It may have been a couple of years since we have had a Merlin Pass but those days were not wasted and it has given us a good knowledge of the attractions in the area and Legoland in particular.

For our first day out we decided to head to Windsor. The girls are getting bigger (and bolder) and so were more interested in going on the rides. Realising this, and also looking to have a little fun ourselves, we decided to leave Ezra with Nanny and Granddad. It was a little strange being a family of four but at the same time it was a little liberating not to have the pushchair and not have to try and entertain a baby as well as keep an eye on young children.

We let the girls choose rides to go on and Lucinda got to choose a ride too: The Viking River Splash. I don’t think that Éowyn forgave mommy for at least an hour. Éowyn doesn’t like getting wet! Despite the soaking on the first ride, the girls thoroughly enjoyed their day at Legoland and enjoyed the freedom of not having their little brother distracting their parents. It gave Lucinda and me a glimpse of the near future when Ezra is a little older and we can finally ditch the pushchair and the associated paraphernalia that a baby or toddler requires.

Ezra is still ‘walking’ on his knees, he still hasn’t taken that bold step (forgive the pun) and begun truly solo bipedal motion. Nevertheless there has been a development: Ezra has begun to walk with his walker, or one of the girl’s pushchair. You can tell that he has the strength and probably the balance for he will swing the walker around to change direction but seemingly wants the reassurance of something to hold onto. Another indication of the strength that he has in his legs is demonstrated by the distance he walks with it.

At the end of our road is an entrance to Staines (Commercial) park. Lucinda took the kids to the park for a quick and easy day out. Ezra indicated that he wanted to take the pushchair while the girls grabbed their scooters. Lucinda thought he would walk partway and that she would end up carrying him and the pushchair. indicated that he wanted to take the pushchair while the girls grabbed their scooters. Lucinda thought he would walk partway and that she would end up carrying him and the pushchair. Ezra had other ideas. He walked all the way to the park. Walked around the park, played with the girls and then walked halfway back home.

With this adventure you would think that maybe it would give him some confidence but no. However, I am determined that he has avoided walking for too long so I am trying to encourage him as much as I can. He is more determined however not to walk and so far he is winning. Nevertheless, there has been a little breakthrough with his eldest sister. With a little encouragement, we can get him to his feet and holding Éowyn’s hand he will walk forward as she walks backwards. Hopefully it will not be long before our little boy is truly bipedal.

I am going to stop here and let you enjoy the photos below. Fear not there is a lot more to tell and I am back in the writing frame of mind. For those of you that haven’t guessed the title of this update alludes to the fact that on the 20^th July Lucinda and I celebrated our 7^th wedding anniversary, only a month or so late but ‘Happy Anniversary’ darling.

Peace and Love

Baggie

What?

Éowyn and Ezra

Let me straighten my hat

Mommy and Nanny

Like Father, like Son

Movie night

Selfie!

Smile mommy!

Mommy and Amélie

Potato crop

Ezra!

The first sunflower

Making good my escape!

Look at me!

Daddy!

“My favourite food”

There is no such thing as a Gruffalo

“Astounding,” said the Gruffalo

Look what I’ve done to mommy

Crazy girls!

Sticker fun!

The Bagnall girls

Smile for the camera

On the Carousel

The Bagnall 3

Look at that!

Deer watching

Clean that up!

I’m off!

Time to scoot

The nights are drawing in

Thursday 3rd July 2014Saturday 5th July 2014Baggie

As the title alludes half the year has been and gone, the Summer (in the Northern Hemisphere at least) Solstice has passed and we are hurtling towards winter with ever shortening amounts of daylight. That is the natural order of things and it is only of import to the Bagnall family because it means that the amount of electricity we can generate from our Photovoltaic cells has passed its maximum for the year. Nevertheless we were fortunate with the elements around this solstice with fine weather and clear skies, thus plenty of electricity generated.

However, we are in a quandary with the weather now that we have a veg patch. Yes, our experiment in growing our own produce is giving us some joy even if we probably will not have the most bountiful of harvests. That was never the main driving force for this year. This year was to see if we enjoyed it and whether we could fit in enough time to look after our crops as well as introducing the girls to growing your own food, so they appreciate from where their food originates.

It is safe to say that we have definitely enjoyed the growing side, so much so that we have installed 3 water butts (enough for 520 litres of rain water) around the garden and have plans to expand the veg patch after harvest. We have learned much from this year’s experiment (especially how potatoes can take over a veg patch) and are currently growing raspberries, pumpkins, potatoes, runner beans, tomatoes and sunflowers. In fact we find it quite saddening when you go to check on your crops and there has been damage. So far we have had attacks by slugs on a variety of crops (although there are at least two frogs in the garden so imagine the amount of damage without predators), a case of blackfly (need more ladybirds), both strawberry plants and one pumpkin plant were dug up (I’m blaming squirrels) and half my potato crop were sat on (I’m blaming the resident fox family). It is a good job that we are not relying on these crops to survive nevertheless it would be good to have a least a few meals worth. It is with this in mind that in addition to expanding the extent of our veg patch, next year we also plan on trying to encourage natural predators as well as expanding our range of crops and that is even before we have harvested this year’s crop.

So our quandary is that we need the sun to generate electricity (and to grow our crops) but we also rejoice whenever there is a heavy downpour as it means that we do not need to water that evening and that our water butts are replenished. It is amazing how quickly those butts are filled from each rain shower and just shows how much water is hitting our drainage systems; no wonder there were so many floods over the winter. So can we have the best of both worlds with extremely sunny days but extremely wet nights?

The main topic of discussion on the streets and bars, for once, is the not the weather but more the sporting competitions that are going on in the world. Wimbledon and the World Cup are dominating the television schedules in the UK and my work life. Wimbledon has not really caught the girls attention but they have been intrigued by the World Cup. Their interest was first piqued by the prevalence of St George’s Crosses bedecked many of the houses in the area. Then, I introduced them to the perennial disappointment of being an England football fan.

Although the World Cup is one of major summer jobs (it is a hard job when you have to watch the World Cup) at work I still enjoy watching it when I get back home, especially when I have a fantasy footie team and some small bets on the outcome. Éowyn has taken to sitting next to me on the sofa and feigning interest, mainly so that she can stay up a little later. ‘Who are we?‘ she will ask. Then you have to explain that we are neither of them and she can chose which one she wants to win. Invariably she choses the referee for some reason, probably because he is the only one wearing whichever colour that FIFA have deigned will be the referee outfit for that match. It was much easier in my youth: Referees wore black. That was it. Football boots were black. It is the natural order of things. Nevertheless it is nice that she is taking an interest in the World Cup although at 5 she is a little young we will have to wait until 2018 and Russia to see if that interest is still there.

Football isn’t the main sport for the girls though, trampolining is the sport of choice. Amélie has been trampolining for most of the year and has passed the her first two trampoline gymnastic awards. Now Éowyn has begun going after school. She has a little bit to catch up with her younger sister but I am sure she will be spurred on not to be in her sister’s shadow.

Their little brother will not be following them on the trampoline though, mainly because he is still not walking. Éowyn was walking early, Amélie not so. Ezra has until the 4th July to progress to bipedal motion earlier than his sister. That is highly unlikely. Especially since tomorrow is that date! He was crawling quite early and has been cruising for a long time but he has not taken that next step (no pun intended). He has decided that he can get from A to B quickly by crawling and if he needs to carry anything then he can get there on his knees. He has the strength in his legs but he just doesn’t seem interested. I think that once he decides to go for it he will be walking in no time. He just needs to take the plunge and go for it. As always we will let you know about his first steps.

There was another first for the Bagnall family this week: Éowyn had a friend over for a sleepover. Éowyn and Amélie have had friends over the day, indeed every Friday is movie night which we alternate the hosting with our friends Emma and Martin, but their friends have always gone home at the end of the day. As the girls get older they will inevitably want to spend the night at a friends so when we were asked if Éowyn’s erstwhile best friend Raine could spend the night to help her Mum out with baby sitting we thought it would be a good opportunity to take our first tentative step into the world of sleepovers.

At Playbox Éowyn and Raine were inseparable, unfortunately however before they moved into full time education Raine’s family moved from Staines, nevertheless we have made sure that the have remained in touch. Therefore we know Raine very well, and more importantly she knows us, so she was comfortable stopping with us. Éowyn was so excited, getting more so as the day came closer. We made the spare bed up in the spare room so that they could sleep together without disturbing Amélie. It was good choice as the girls were still up when Lucinda and I went to bed. This was partly due to the excitement of seeing each other and partly due to the amount of sweets they had consumed for their ‘midnight’ feast.

Raine was extremely well behaved and indeed the actual sleepover was very easy as the girls kept themselves entertained and were very inclusive towards Amélie, which was nice. It was more the aftermath. Raine’s mum collected Raine just before lunch and left us with one extremely grumpy Éowyn. The grumpy mood wasn’t due to the fact that Raine had left, moreover it was due the lack of sleep (Éowyn isn’t used to staying up so late) couple with a sugar come-down.

Éowyn was a little better after a good night’s sleep, just in time for the third annual Staines-Upon-Thames day. Celebrating the town’s addition of the river suffix to its name the memorial gardens were packed with stalls, a music stage, a funfair while classic cars lined the High Street. Nanny and Granddad parked at our house and we all walked into the town centre. We turned up as it kicked off to take the first boat trip down the Thames (before the crowds turned up – something we learned from last year!). The girls enjoyed the 40 minute journey, but it was just enough any longer and I think they would have got bored.

After disembarking we headed around the stalls, and the rides. The girls encouraged Daddy to win a mermaid doll each on one of the stalls (which I did). We sat and listened to some of the bands (well we sat Amélie danced – photos below) while we ate an ice cream and then they chose a couple of fairground rides to go on. It wasnt long before the toll of the weekend was beginning to have an affect on the girls and so after a spot of lunch we left Nanny and Granddad to enjoy the fair in peace and headed home.

We were out of the country on the first Staines-Upon-Thames day but we did go last year (even though technically we were not living in Staines Upon Thames at the time) and in our opinion this year totally eclipsed the 2013 event. There was plenty to do (and to spend your money on!) but it would have been nicer to have had more local produce to buy and more local businesses and societies peddling their wares. Nevertheless the event is still in its infancy and perhaps after the success of this year maybe it will encourage more businesses next year. The high turn out was probably helped by the fine weather (despite the forecast of showers) but we will not take that away from the organisation and obvious enthusiasm of the people behind the scenes.

I will leave you now but warn you that from now I am going to get very busy at work so there may be a few gaps between updates so I will not promise the quantity or quality of the updates as I will be relying more on Lucinda for stories and photos. The joys of working in the Sports Television industry. Meanwhile here is an impressive crop of photos, including plenty from Staines Upon Thames day 2014.

Peace and love

Baggie