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Welcome to 2014

Baggie

As we teeter on the edge of (OK, toppled headlong into) a new year (a new year that will see Lucinda and I celebrate a decade together) it is traditional to look back on the year just gone and look forward to the next.  What a year 2013 has been!  Probably the single most eventful year we have known as a family.  Yes, other years have had big events: births, deaths, marriages, holidays, big birthdays, house moves and new jobs but this year has definitely has had them all (apart from the new jobs! – although work did relocate; does that count?)

At the start of 2013 I made some predictions of what we were expecting to look forward to this year and it was already looking busy; not only did they all come to fruition, fate threw a few more in for good measure.  Hence why this site has seen a record-breaking number of updates and a record number of visits, well I do have to keep you all informed don’t I?  And seemingly you are interested.  Or is it just the photos?

So what were the big events of 2013 and what have we learnt?

Obviously the biggest event of the Bagnall year was the birth of our third child and first son.  Ezra John (named after his Grandfathers) was born a week before my 40th birthday.  Now whether it is because he is a boy; or whether it is because he is a third child or whether simply it is because every child is different but he seems to be far more relaxed than either of his sisters.  Amélie had an excuse with her Milk Protein intolerance and we probably spoilt Éowyn, especially initially as we were learning to be parents (and still are!), but he has been the easiest to get to sleep, he cries the least and apart from an aversion to lumpy food has not shown any dislike to his meals.  And although it is a new skill for Lucinda and I to master, juggling the needs of three children, the most important detail is that all three of them are healthy.  Even Amélie’s milk protein intolerance has seemingly lessened.

So with three children our home in Stanwell Moor finally felt a little on the small side.  Thus we decided to make the tough decision to leave the moor, the village that Lucinda has lived all her life!  It did not take us too long to find a house that we both liked.  However the course of house buying ne’er runs smooth.  So let me give you a précis:

Found house made offer – offer rejected; Vendors found house so offered house at a lower price if we could proceed – we can’t proceed as we had no buyer;  We found buyers but so did our vendors and their new buyers offered more that we could afford – we proceeded with our sale; The new buyers chain began to fail so we offered an improved offer (though lower than the other buyers) – the vendors decided to proceed with us.

So far so good – then the twist began.  The government formed an Airports Commission to look into the requirements for expanding capacity at the UK airports and invited proposals from interested parties.  BAA operate Heathrow Airport and one (two) of their three (four) proposals for the expansion of the UK’s busiest airports involved the building of a third (fourth) runway over the village of Stanwell Moor.  This puts a bit of a dampener over the future of a new home and hence our buyers pulled out.

This left us with a dilemma: go back to square one, find a new buyer that didn’t care that their house may not be there in the near future or find a third alternative.  The third alternative was found and now we are the proud owners of a new house and landlords (with tenants!) of our old house.  That certainly wasn’t the plan at the start of 2013 but as we enter 2014 that is where we are.  Will we still be there in 2015?  More than probably, indeed we plan to be in our current abode until we retire and move to the seaside!

Both of those changes to Bagnall family life eclipse the other differences the year has brought: a new car (our 7 seater Ford S-Max) and a new place of work (same company just different premises).

It has been a very important year in the life of our oldest child.  Éowyn not only had the upheaval of moving home (and we kept both Éowyn and Amélie across the notion of moving from the onset including taking them around the house and asking if they liked it and which room they would like as their bedroom) but she also started full-time education.  It was confirmed in mid-april that Éowyn would be going to our first choice school, a decision that was fraught with conflicting emotions.  On one hand, it is a well equipped school, with a new head with lots of new ideas and has had a recent injection of cash; on the other it has a bad reputation and is now far from our new home.

The decision has been made and although we and not too obstinate that we would not consider moving Éowyn at the moment she is loving school.  She loves her teacher Miss Finbow, she has a new best friend and most important of all she is learning.  Her reading and writing is coming along in leaps and bounds and we, as parents, are actively encouraged to help as she gets homework twice a week.

2013 was a big year in Amélie’s development too.  Amélie started pre-school at a private nursery on the grounds of Éowyn’s school (makes dropping off so much easier – and a consideration if we are ever to move schools).  After a bumpy start and lots of tears (Éowyn was the same if you recall) she now runs down the path to school and sometimes forgets to give her dad a kiss before running into the classroom.  It is comforting to know that both of our children enjoy their respective places of education especially with Lucinda returning to work.  We just need to find somewhere for Ezra to spend those days.

2013 also reminded us of the circle of life.  At the beginning of the year we welcomed Ezra into our family and at the end of the year we said goodbye to my Nan.  She was the last of her generation and although she had been ill for a long time her passing was still a shock and obviously upsetting.  The comfort that we have is that she met her first Great-Grandson, that her close family were there in her final hours and her suffering is no more.  She has left us some great memories, more than a handful of quirks and a wardrobe of knitted jumpers!  Sleep well Nan.

One prediction that disappointingly didn’t come to pass was comet ISON.  Even in the days leading up to its perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) we were hoping for a spectacular astronomical display with possibly the brightest comet for a generation.  Unfortunately like an empyrean Icarus it flew too close to the sun and was destroyed and thus became possibly the only disappointment that 2013 brought.

So, all things considered, 2013 was a good year that brought many changes to this enclave of the Bagnall name.  (And I didn’t even mention the fact that both Lucinda and I celebrated our 40th birthdays!)  Hopefully after such a busy year you will find it in your hearts to forgive us if we hope for a quieter 2014.  Life will change to a new pattern in April when Lucinda returns to work but whatever else happens will be a surprise since the only other plan we have is to finally unpack all our boxes and settle into our new home.  I leave you with this toast to the coming year:

Here’s to the bright New Year
And a fond farewell to the old;
Here’s to the things that are yet to come
And to the memories that we hold.

Peace and Love

Baggie

PS If you are into your geeky stats then this page is for you (click here).  Also, I have updated a few things in the background which shouldn’t affect you, my dear readers, but you will notice a couple of new widgets in the sidebar to the right.  So in addition to seeing the last three update titles and the current favourites there is a form to subscribe to the website so that you will receive an e-mail whenever there is an update.

The Bagnall Family - Christmas Tree Decoration
The Bagnall Family – Christmas Tree Decoration

Christmas in our new home

Baggie

Christmas is over and I trust that the festive period has been good to you.  After a hectic year we were determined to make this a good Christmas.  The tenth Christmas that Lucinda and I have celebrated together and the first in our new home is reason enough for it to be a good Christmas.  Add to the mix that it was our first Christmas as a family of five and we were truly blessed.  The fact that Lucinda’s parents were cooking Christmas dinner and that neither Lucinda or I were working (we both work in industries where that is a possibility) added to the fact that this was a good year. The only black cloud on the horizon was the fact that I had to work on Boxing Day (there were 10 Premier League games scheduled), but that was a minor blip.

Football stops not for man nor beast and indeed the Christmas period is one of the most hectic periods for Premier League football and the remainder of the English Football League.  Hence the 10 days to a fortnight that many of you enjoy does not apply to me or my teams at IMG.  However, I was fortunate that I had both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off and the 27th December.  So a little semblance of normality could descend upon the Bagnall household for those days.

One of the Bagnall Christmas traditions is to create a Christmas bauble at Genevieve’s in Englefield Green.  This started when Éowyn was a baby with a simple handprint and each year since we have created a bauble with a hand print of each of the children.  This year though Éowyn asked if she could design her own, to which we agreed.  Not sure what we were going to get we let her loose with the paints.  We were very surprised when she decided that she would paint mommy.  It was brilliant, we were very proud of her.  However there was a pang of guilt in our first born and she conspired along with mommy to go back to Genevieve’s and make one of daddy as a surprise for me.  It was extremely thoughtful and again brilliantly executed.  These will now always have pride of place on our tree (there is a photo below).

Friday night is movie night in the Bagnall household and the girls take it in turns to choose a DVD to watch.  The Friday before Christmas we decided to invite Emma’s (our new neighbour and friend from NCT) kids over to give her a bit of a break and to repay her for the help she has given us over the last month or so.  Five children (and I) sat down to watch Arthur Christmas (very good by the way, thoroughly recommend it) for the last movie night of the year.  They were all very well behaved and it made us all feel Christmassy putting us in the mood for the yule.

The weather wasn’t exactly Christmassy, indeed the strong wind and heavy rains have spoilt many Christmasses around the country.  We got off lightly with the only damage a couple of fence panels that have blown down.  Fortunately the fence is our neighbour’s responsibility and so we will have a chat with them after the Christmas period about the repair – there is no rush.

Lucinda’s parents were cooking Christmas Dinner so we decided that we would do our first bit of entertaining in Bagnall manor by inviting the Cathrall Clan to our house for a pre-Christmas buffet on Christmas Eve.  Before our guests arrived we need to complete a little bit of shopping.  Not for that much food (Lucinda had completed the food shop a couple days previously, with only the perishables to be bought) but for a couple of last minute presents.  The most important being a Barbie Mariposa doll that Éowyn had asked Santa for a week or so ago but had only let her parents know the weekend before Christmas.  Obviously she had told the most important person but it would have been nice for us to be aware of what Santa needed to provide, hence a slight detour into Staines on Christmas Eve morning to ease Santa’s burden by picking up the reserved doll that was sold out across the area.

So with the final presents, spare lightbulbs, fresh bread and the Christmas Radio Times bought, it was time to prepare the meal.  Thankfully it was a minimum amount of cooking, just preparation.  It was good to test the entertainment potential of the house and it was the first time that Lucinda’s brother Steve and his family had visited.  The difference in size between our old house and our new home was ably demonstrated by the fact that it didn’t feel at all crowded with 8 adults and 7 children where it would have been standing room only in Stanwell Moor.

The girls were excited as ever playing with their cousins and showing them their new home and their toys, and we let them stay up late to play.  We allowed them to open their presents from Uncle Steve and Auntie Zoe since they would not be at Lucinda’s parents on Christmas day.  So the pre-Christmas came to a close and after the girls had been put to bed and we had tidied up we eventually crept into bed at 00:30, fearing an early morning wake up call.  Fortunately the previous day’s excitement had obviously worn them out and they did not surface until 08:00.  Amélie was the first to wake (as usual) but had just come into our room without checking to see if Santa had been.  It was the encouragement from us and Amélie crashing about the room that had woke Éowyn up.

They were both unbelievably delighted that Santa had been and were jumping around the house and that was even before they opened their presents.  Imagine their faces when they realised that Santa not only had been but had brought them all the things that they had asked for, including the Barbie Mariposa Doll.  We had two very happy little girls and neither seemed too bothered that their brother didn’t seem to have a lot of presents to open.

As anyone with little children can testify, the packaging that modern toys are locked into requires a modicum of engineering knowledge and nerves of steel.  I was fully prepared this year with my trusted Leatherman on my belt (other multi-tool devices are available).  The knife, screwdriver and pliers were all useful at one stage or another to extricate various toys from razor sharp plastic, cable ties and a thicket of cardboard.

After persuading them to eat some breakfast and get dressed they played with their new toys (while Daddy built some of their other ones) until it was time to leave for Nanny and Granddad’s.  Nanny and Granddad were cooking Christmas Dinner for eleven: the Bagnalls, Lucinda’s brother Mike and his family and themselves.  After sating ourselves with traditional festive fare it was time for a third round of present opening.

After such an exciting day it was inevitable that the girls started to wane.  So after presents were opened and played with and the discarded wrapping paper readied for recycling all were herded into the car.  The journey between Lucinda’s parents and our home is less than 10 minutes but 2 of the 3 kids were asleep by the time we had pulled into the drive.  Only Éowyn managed to keep awake.

The following day is known as Boxing Day in the UK and is traditionally a big sporting day so as Head of Live Operations for the World’s largest independent sports production company I was to spend the day at work.  Lucinda and the kids were not to spend the day on their own.  Lucinda’s Auntie Sally and Uncle Bill had invited the family over for a Boxing Day buffet.  Unfortunately before I left for work I had to be ‘bad’ Daddy.

We have had an on-going battle with Éowyn sucking her thumb for comfort.  We have tried many things and none has yet worked and we are getting concerned that it is affecting her teeth so we have renewed our efforts to put a stop to it.  In the lead up to Christmas, we had threatened to call Santa and tell him, but after Christmas Éowyn thought that she could get away with it.  She was wrong.  She had promised me that she wouldn’t suck her thumb so to highlight the importance of a promise when she blatantly sucked her thumb on front of me, I told her that she had to give me something that was important to her.  She tried offering me chocolate or one of Amélie’s toys.  Clever, but not quite what I had in mind.  Eventually I got her to give me her favourite toy:  The Barbie Mariposa doll.  She was distraught and to be fair I felt really bad about taking it but if she is going to understand the importance of a promise and at the same time break a bad habit it had to be harsh and something that was important to her.

After five days she got the doll back (as she did not suck her thumb – even at night! – again).  She does know, however, that if she sucks her thumb again it will be 10 days of no thumb-sucking before it is returned; then the next time it will be 20 days and that will be her final chance.  After that she will lose her doll.  We have said that we will help her but she has to make the effort and that promises are important things.

It feels really bad to do that, especially at Christmas, but we have to break the habit and if we are to highlight the importance of a promise then when we promise to do something then we have to follow through too.  Doesn’t make one feel any better about taking your daughter’s favourite present off her.

With my work schedule leaving me with Friday 27th off it seemed an ideal opportunity to have a second (third) Christmas with Nanny Fran and Aunties Mary and Liz.  However, as that was my only day off I didn’t really want a round trip of 250 miles added to a hectic schedule.  Therefore Nanny Fran came down and took advantage of the bigger house and stayed overnight heading back Saturday afternoon.

The girls were over excited as usual when their Bagnall relatives came down, mainly I think because they do not see them that often.  They were spoilt with presents once again and even seemed happy when they opened presents containing clothes.  However, they were more interested in Ezra’s presents.  Isn’t that the way it is always will be?

So with three very happy children and a new home built for entertaining Lucinda and I can happily say it was a very successful Christmas and we are looking forward to 2014.  I trust that you all had a great time over the yuletide and trust that you will all keep popping back for the latest updates in the Bagnall household.

Peace and Love

Baggie

Movie Night
With our Aunties
Cheeky smile
Amélie and her pressies
Éowyn and her pressies
What’s so funny
Opening presents
Christmas delight
Worn out
Help me Uncle Michael
Mommy and Ezra
At the Christmas table
Rock Starlet
Let me play you a song
Pass the stella!
My turn
Rock Star
Cousins
On Nanny’s lap
iPad distraction
Ezra
Mommy and Daddy Christmas Baubles
Star filtered Christmas Tree
The Bagnall Family – Christmas Tree Decoration
Daddy and his kids
Reindeer Feet
Daddy and Ezra

Bongo, bongo stylee

Baggie

After an early hat-trick of updates at the beginning of November this site has been a little quiet.  Three weeks into our new home I thought it was perhaps times to rectify this and give you a little insight to the life of the Bagnalls in the new Bagnall manor.

November was always going to be a busy month.  A wave of productions were due to relocate from Chiswick to our company’s new base at Stockley Park and a number of these involved Live Operations (and hence me and my team) including the Football League Show.  Therefore if there was one month I didn’t want to move home it was November.  Unfortunately fate conspired against me and so a busy month at work coincided with the move.  With no opportunity to take leave, the relocation of the family was done on days off and hence we are still mainly in boxes.

Although I, personally, have not had much time to settle into the new abode it does feel like home.  Again that is despite the fact that we still have dozens of unpacked boxes and the heating isn’t working.  Yes, the biggest problem that we have faced is the fact that the temperature has dropped close to freezing point over night and the heating has serious issues.  We have had heating engineers around who both have confirmed that the system is full of gunk and thus the hot water is not filling the radiators.  The good news is that the boiler works as does the pump, however that hot water is not reaching the radiators and thus downstairs, especially, is barely warmer than outside.  Unfortunately due the design of the hot water system it is not the easiest of systems to service and that design is part of the issue, there are lots of turns and u-bends where gunk can gather.  Fortunately phase one has begun and now the radiators take the chill out of the room (I wouldn’t say it is tropical but at least it is a step in the right direction) and hopefully the chemicals in the system carry on dissolving the gunk and allow the hot water to do its job.

Apart from the heating, we are as much in love with the house now as when we first looked round it. There are only a couple of minor annoyances that we hadn’t noticed when we looked round: a)  the kitchen light switch is located behind the door, so as you walk into the room, you have to then close the door before you can switch the light on.  Why do people do that?  It is so annoying, surely when you are designing a room you automatically place the light switch on the opposite wall to the door hinge so that you can open the door with one hand while simultaneously turning the light on with the other and b) the hot water tap in the downstairs shower room (hark at us – downstairs shower room!) opens clockwise and closes counterclockwise which is the opposite direction to every other tap in the house including the cold water tape on the same sink.  These are minor annoyances and the kitchen light switch will be changed when we manage to scrap enough spare cash together to redesign the kitchen.

The girls have settled in well too.  They do not notice the cold (something that we have to watch for as they wander downstairs with no dressing gown or slippers on).  They do not seem even to miss the old house, which is nice.  They have settled in quite quickly and both are happy to use the extra space that the house offers to run around and play hide and seek.  Their playroom is coming together and now we have just got to encourage them that their toys live in there (or in their bedroom) and are to be put away each night in the new boxes we have bought them.  Let’s see how that goes.

So while I have been busy at work, the girls have been busy at school.  Éowyn, especially has been excelling at school, she has begun to read and write and is brilliant at breaking words into their letter and then blending the sounds together.  It is great to sit with her and see how excited she is when she reads a sentence.  It is quite exciting for her parents too!  She also has a line in the Christmas play, but more of that in the December write up.  Needless to say there is plenty of practising  She knows it off by heart and now we are working on projection.  Éowyn wants to take it one stage further though and has started making up some actions to help emphasise the words, building her part up!  We have a little diva.  There is no truth in the rumours that her rider includes 23 orange smarties and a bunch of daffodils.

Although it has been a busy month at work, there was one ‘dark weekend’ and my friend and colleague cleverly chose that weekend to get married.  John and Sara have lots of friends that have small children so their wedding was organised with children in mind and as a consequence my invite also included an invite for Éowyn, Amélie and Ezra.

John and Sara were married at St John’s the Evangelist in Blackheath and therefore the shortest (it turned out not to be the quickest route) was to drive through the centre of London.  It was a great opportunity to point out the Natural History Museum, Buckingham Place, The Houses of Parliament and the Tower of London.  There were colouring books and pencils to keep the children entertained during the ceremony and afterwards there was cake and bubbles.  Then it was on to the reception at Devonport Hotel at Greenwich.  This is where the beauty of the S-Max comes into its own.  One of my colleagues, Matt, was going to have difficulty getting from one venue to the other, so with our seven-seater beast we could offer him a lift.

Now, Éowyn and Amélie have started to make up their own language and phrases.  Bongo, bongo Stylee is one of them (it means something that is very good), others are more nonsensical.  One day going to school they were talking to each other in one of these made up languages so I started to join in and they thought it was one of the funniest things that they had ever heard.  So now they will ask me to talk in my made-up language.

So on the way to reception the girls requested that I spoke my made up language.  So I strung together a line of vowels and consonants into an amusing set of words and they started laughing.  Matt thought that he would join in and copied what I had done.  Amélie, however turned to him and said, ‘Matt, you’re not even funny!‘  Put into your place by a three year old, how we laughed!

Ezra, too can be amusing and seems to be a ladies man.  He is forever trying to catch the eye of the ladies and with his blue eyes and cheeky smile he tends to melt their hearts.  Sometimes he is not content with just a smile though.  In a restaurant a week or so ago, he had caught the eye of a couple of ladies and they were cooing over him.  However they turned away from him and begun talking to each other, Ezra was not happy.  He started calling out to them, getting more and more agitated.  When they turned to see what he was doing, he immediately stopped shouting and just looked at them and gave them a big blue-eyed smile!  He is going to break hearts if he continues like that!  His latest smile is even cuter as he screws his eyes up as he grins.  I will try and get a photo.

Unfortunately we have all been fighting a winter cold.  Éowyn was the first to succumb, although we were not convinced at first.  The Bagnalls are the kind of family that do not stop for a mere cold, so when Éowyn had a bit of a cough we gave her some cough syrup, wrapped her up warm and sent her to school.  We were surprised when Lucinda received a call on a Tuesday afternoon to say that Éowyn had vomited and would we collect her.  Lucinda asked her why she had vomited and Éowyn told a different story, namely that she had accompanied one of her friends to the toilet and (I quote Éowyn directly) ‘She did a smelly poo and it make me sick.‘  Therefore thinking that there was nothing in it, we sent her to school the next day.  School must have thought that we were bad parents and immediately called Lucinda to collect her again, saying that when a pupil had vomited they needed to be off school for 24 hours.

Thursday morning came and we sent her to school.  Her cough had got a little worse but nothing too much to worry about.  However at lunch Éowyn had a coughing fit while eating and once again vomited.  So the bad parents were called back and they requested that Éowyn stay at home the next day.  Thus Éowyn will not receive a 100% attendance certificate for the next half term.

So as we settle into our new home we haven’t had many visitors (we are still in boxes and it is a little cold) but the first of my friends to visit has one of the longest journeys.  Sanjiv, was over in England for a couple of weeks from his home in New Delhi (India for those of you with an F in geography) and we managed to meet up (for the first time in ages) and he came round to look at our new home and also to meet the family.  Éowyn was a baby the last time he met them, now we have Amélie and Ezra – how scary is that?  It was good to see him and it illustrates how we let life get in the way of living, years seem to pass so quickly and before you know it, friends’ children are going to university.  Surely I am not that old?  Although I have just ‘celebrated’ 18 years at IMG.  I can now employ people that were not born when I started at IMG in November 1995!

With those thoughts I will leave you and see you in December!

Peace and Love

Baggie

PS Apologies for the lack of decent photos, have been a little busy, I will try harder for the next update.

Cute smile for Zebra
Smile for Mommy!
Look at my teeth!
Smiler!
Cheeky boy
First meal in the new house
Bagnall manor
John and Sara cut the cake
Matt eats the cake!