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!!!

Scottie beams me aboard

Wow, this is a Blog! And I think its mine ... my Mama was a diary addict as a teenager, and having subsequently learned when she grew up that SO many people read her diary despite the Fort Knox security arrangements she applied to it, she figured the concept of 'blogging' would be appealing. Thanks to her gorgeous mate Big Mand for getting her into this whole blog thing which I suspect is going to become a BIG addiction! In fact, a good start to this blog would be to illustrate a two pronged new start that was very important to the life of the Bernard Bunch, which happened to coincide with a new life for Amanda too ; pregnancy! Ok, it wasn't my Mamas first pregnancy, but this one was even more special cos it was the beginning of MOI, little princess ABIGAIL!!!!! Now, lets see if I can find a piccie that illustrates this opening phase to what I suspect will be a long saga of blogging ... lucky me having a blog at such a young age!

Sorry Laurence, Mama has roped you into my blog now too, just for the sake of illustrating pregnancy, and she doesn't even look pregnant on that photo but I can't start a blog without including her mate Laurence too!!! Here's Laurence and me, under that large white shirt:

Right, now all of this is fine and cute, but wait to see what a bigger Abigail looked like from without! Why is it somepeople can get pregnant and just get big around the belly - for some reason, Abigail's Mum (and it was exactly the same for William and Nathan) got collosally huge from head to foot? Look, see for yourself!

Doesn't Big Brother Nathan look impressed by that humongous bulge! William didn't even want to get near it (although he did eventually when pressurised into accepting bribery in the form of a Darth Vador disguise ... the strangest things make people happy. There will no doubt be stories later about Capwoman - but let's not digress). Here's Big Bill and Big Nathe the day before they met me: (have to turn your head cos I haven't figured out yet how to turn pictures round - I'm a high tech princess me!). Just hours before they became Big Brothers to a little Princess! Right, that's enough for a first entry - but there will be many more! Now let's see if I can publish this thing ...