NATHAN Gordon Raymond Bernard

Ok, now I’m starting to really get into this! I am now going to tell you all about my brothers and things they got up to before I turned up! Now I will make a confession, I think my two brothers are just FANTASTIC! I swear, no little girl in the whole wide world has brothers as doting as mine! This is Nathan, he was born in 2001 so he is nearly six, and really looking forward to this forthcoming chronological step! Nathan is a poised little boy with a great sense of humor – he likes to dance with me whilst I’m in my little trotter, we do waltzes, boogie woogies and the occasional tango. He wiggles my arms in all directions and I giggle furiously cos this is tremendous entertainment! This is my big brother Nathan when he was about my age eating chips – do you think we look alike? Most people say we look very alike and that we could be clones, but I’m not sure I really agree with that – I am a far more delicate little build!!! Nathan is the sportier of my two brothers, he loves running and in fact recently won the School Cross – he came first out of the three local schools! Pretty cool dood eh? He also loves football and Papa thinks he’s got lots of potential to rival with Zidane and Beckham … but his football activities are limited to the garden and the local gymnasium at the moment, next year he wants to join the local football team, so we shall see! Can’t wait to watch him running across the pitch, my heroic brother! This is Nathan the first time he went skiing, in these pictures with his Godfather Laurent (who incidentally has just given me a little cousin called Lena! As Mama is her Godmother, I suspect we will be hearing LOTS about her on this blog in the future cos she is CRAZY about Lena!). At the risk of repeating myself (at nearly 10 months, my vocabulary is still a tad limited) : ISN’T MY BROTHER NATHAN A COOL DOOD???!!! And here are a couple more pix of my brother Nathan when he was just a little bit older than me. Isn’t my Papa a good looking geezer! My Mama loves him SOOOO much, and Papa loves Mama lots and lots too but I think she gets on his nerves sometimes when she nags … she says my Papa is an airhead but I think he is the BEST Papa in the whole world! And my brother Nathan is as good natured as my Papa, always happy, always giggling, often getting into mischief with his older brother, a really happy jolly bouncy little boy – in fact, I think this is the only PHOTO ever of my brother sulking! What a face on him!!! Gotta dash cos its time for bottle of milk and nappy change, but I will be back soon with a new episode about my other brother BIG BILL!!!! A bientot!!

Early days

An illustration of what the Bernard Bunch has been up to recently: my household has been invaded by gastro-enteritus. Even my mama got it but is too vain to publish its ramifications! My poor brother Nathan, and poor old Papa suffering up there in thos photos! And whilst they were all doing what they had to to fight the nasty virus, I was doing my Teletubbies Po imitation! Look!!! Don't I look absolutely gorgeous with my first ever poney tail??? Here I am, diligently doing my physiotherapy with good old Claude Hopper. Look at me giving Claude a bit of Welsh rugby training, get a load of those those muscles! (and Claude's are not bad either). I love Claude to bits and pieces, although I did cry a bit when Claude and I started physiotheraping together (and if I may say so, I am not a crybaby normally). Claude has been brilliant at coaxing me into confidence and now I really enjoy my twice-weekly stint with my personal physiotherapist (and to be perfectly honest, I think Mama does too). Thanks a little bit to Claudes dexterity (but mostly to my hard work and talent of course) I am starting to do a wobbly sit! Just like one of those weeblemen Mama had when she was a kid (now THAT was a LOOOOOONG long time ago). In this new sitting position I feel like a whole new world now awaits my discovery!!!!!
Thank you Claude for putting up with my off-the-wall Mama, for looking understanding sometimes when physiotherapy puzzles me and most of all for loving my Mamas little princess the way you do. Oh, and I suppose I kind of admire the way you continue to support French Rugby too! I promise I will get my Mama to get you those tickets to Twickenham one day Claude Hopper!

Now, an even more important person in my life is ..... Fairy Godmother Helen! Helen, my Mamas fellow 'Mother-of-three' buddy who listens to Mama ranting and raving about ... nappies, baking, ironing... and other stuff she has promised Mama she will never tell anyone. In fact the only thing Helen can be faulted for is being Scottish ... but she is very understanding about my Welshness, and most important of all I just love My Godmother to bits. Look at my knowing grin here as I sit on Godmothers knee, mocking all the grown-ups for failing to behave in a grown-up fashion. Helen is truly gorgeous, and my Mama and her get on like a house on fire, mostly I think because they can't understand each other. Oh, and they are both married to a Philippe, and both Philippe's are addicted to sport, which engenders hours of worrying if they will ever roll back home when they go out picking up pizzas or watching badmington. Here's a few more of the snaps which have been validated by my godmother for publication: Thank you Helen! You know your God-daughter loves you heaps and heaps!

And to finish this chapter off, a couple of happy family encounters : my Big Brother William dresses up as a pirate for Carnival, and my Great Auntie Thea comes to visit us in Corbas! It was so very lovely to see you Aunty Thea, the boys love you to BITS AND PIECES and Nathan is still complaining that you aren't sitting with him at the kitchen table reading his vast quantities of Quoti magazines whilst you and Mama delicately sip some nice local, erm, merchandise!

Hello! I'm Princess Abigail!!!

Boy, were the Bernard Bunch waiting for this! Mama always, always knew that I would come into their life, even after Papa and Mama had firmly decided that my two gorgeous elder brothers was offspring enough! I was just out there, waiting for them to hurry up and decide to build a body for me to live in ... and then out of the blue, in August 2005, they discovered that I had landed! At the time in the form of a second blue line on the pregnancy test, confirmation that Scottie had indeed beamed me aboard the Bernard Starboard Entreprise! Total elation ... a rhum or two, a momentary panic that they couldn't afford this, let alone manage three kids, then the realization that "Oh my goodness, Number Three is among us! For Mama and Papa this was a (vaguely semi-planned) surprise but such a totally wonderful happy one. At last, they knew our family was complete!
And before they knew it : there I was: All 2.8 miniature kilos of me, plonked into my Mama's arms wrapped in hospital paper ... so her first view of me was from profile and shecan SO clearly remember being astonished at what an irresistably gorgeous little upturned nose I had - oh, and also the question: how in the world had a loud-mouth never-keep-still Mama created such a cool calm collected and poised little girl? In a word : this was bliss, this was happiness, and according to my family, I AM perfection personified!

Mamas' editorial note : Thank you little Abigail for bringing so much happiness into our lives, you are such a little princess!!!