Missing Nicola Bulley’s daughters attend clubs and go on sleepovers with pals to 'take their minds off'
INSKIP, LANCASHIRE: It appears people are trying to keep things as normal as possible for the two young daughters of Nicola Bulley after the latter's disappearance. Friends and close ones are reportedly making efforts to "retain a sense of routine" for the siblings. Thus, the friends of the nine and the six-year-old accompanied them to their usual Saturday morning clubs, which was followed up by a sleepover.
"It's to try to retain a sense of routine," said a friend, whose children attend the same school in St Michael's on Wyre, Lancashire as per the Daily Mail. "To take their minds off…," the woman is unable to complete her sentence as it seems to be impossible to describe the girls’ emotional state at the moment. Like any parent, their father Paul Ansell is also trying to keep things normal for his daughters. The 44-year-old picks up his girls at lunchtime from school while they run to him, flinging their arms around his neck. He is also making time for hanging out. The girls are reportedly also indulging time in playing sports.
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'We're not giving up'
Meanwhile, police helicopters, divers, dogs, and drones are exploring the area around River Wyre to discover a trace or the tiniest of clues left behind. And while things don't look as optimistic as one would hope for, Nicola Bulley's parents and the rest of her family and friends have not lost any hope. "We're not giving up," said Nancy Claeson, secretary of the village tennis club, as she pinned a 'Missing' poster to a road sign. "We're organizing volunteers into teams and dividing the 13-mile stretch of the Wyre going down to the Irish Sea into ten sections."
Claeson is hoping that the posters might catch the eye of motorists who may come forward with dashcam footage to help solve the 'ten-minute mystery'. However, so far no cameras have been able to trace Bulley's movements on January 27, between 9.20 am and 9.30 am when she disappeared while walking her dog. Joanna Ward, 57, has been searching for trails even at night using her iPhone torch, hoping to find something the police have missed. "We're trying our best, but it's so dark," she stated.
Not the first time tragedy has touched St Michael's
People from surrounding villages including Great Eccleston, Crossmoor, Inskip, and from further afield Kendal, Manchester, Preston, and Blackpool have also turned up to help look for clues, many with dogs. A dog walker remarked: "The bank has got more dangerous, steeper, in recent months. The river comes down from the Pennines and its shape changes." Pointing to a stile, she added, "See, it's too near to the edge of the water. She [Nicola] might have been trying to clamber over it and then fell back and toppled into the water."
Another individual cited that it is not the first time tragedy has touched St Michael's. There has reportedly been an explosion at an underground water pumping station in 1984 that killed a number of villagers. "They called St Michael's the village of tears at the time because we all knew someone affected by it," as per the Daily Mail. "If only there could be a happy ending this time around – for the sake of those two girls and their family."
