End of an Era

I'm writing this on the M6 making my way back to Liverpool after saying goodbye to my childhood home and village for the last time. (Dan's driving by the way, just in case you're worried.)

In 1992 (when I was 6, my sister Jo was 3 and sister Sarah was yet to be conceived), we moved just a few miles from our previous house to what became our family house.

The house was built in 1908 the same year Vimto was invented. (But this is it in 1992)

 In 2010, five years after I left home my parents were watching the news. A new high speed railway was being announced and it looked like it would go really close to our village of Burton Green. My parents checked the map, it was going straight through their garden.

My Dad, being the kind of man he is, then read through all the legal documents, looked at the environmental issues and business case and decided it was a bad thing. HS2 action groups sprung up all over the country and then my Dad became the person who unified them all and was the media voice for the anti-HS2 cause. He was often on the news and several times interviews were filmed in our garden. One of those times it was filmed almost live, there was a 10 second delay. So I played the ukulele in the dinning room window and then went into the sitting room and watched me playing the ukulele on the almost live tv. A few years ago my Dad stepped down from that role, and now they are getting a pretty sweet deal for the sale of their house. Most people didn't by the way, but as we've all left home now it's not a bad time for them to claim the market value plus 10% and move to be nearer to us in a house on a river in Cheshire.

So this weekend was my Dad's 60th and the goodbye Burton Green weekend.

My first 6 years were spent in nearby Cannon Park on the edge of Coventry near to Warwick Uni where my Mum went and lazily didn't move far away from.

Me hoola-hooping outside the old house

We lived next door to Bex and her family. Bex was my best friend from 1986-2017 excluding 1999-2006 when she was too cool for me and then she went to Uni and we didn't see much of each other. 6 months before us her family had moved to Burton Green and then her Dad told my Dad he saw a house on their street that was for sale and hey presto we bought it. I think there was a lot of adult problems along the way, like a mean seller and rising damp, and wood worm but who cares about that? I was 6 and didn't have to worry about these things.

1992

2017

I did however have a bit of a shock when I had to start a new school. It was one of those idyllic village schools next to a farm where you did country dancing in the ruins of an old castle.

school

farm next door

My sister Jo performing a sword dance at kenilworth castle

There were 10 people in my year so we were taught with another year, and we had those old school folding desks. But if you're reading this and you've just moved to a nice area to be near the "good schools" you may as well not have bothered, because village schools are not all that if you're a newbie. Everyone in my class had been together since nursery and I felt like a weird outsider. That was the year I decided that I was never going to be in the 'in crowd' so I'd just have to embrace being the weird one. Is age 6 quite early for that? I remember one of the main issues was that in my old school we were taught to join our y's but in Burton Green you didn't join y's. I rebelliously joined my y's anyway in defiance. I also had severe dyslexia that wasn't diagnosed for another decade so that probably didn't help. Anyway don't worry I'm fine now it was all character building and now that I'm a stand up comedian I'm grateful for these experiences. Whoever heard of a stand up comedian that was popular and successful in school? My sisters both had much more positive experiences.

In primary school and most of secondary school I did love the village of Burton Green. At the end of our garden was the "railway line". It was a steep drop down to a pathway which used to be a railway line in the 40s and was now a mud track surrounded by trees on each side. Perfect for rope swings, tree climbing, den making, sneaking into other people gardens, etc etc. I remember by about year 4 I was allowed to pack a lunch for the day and just go out all day exploring the fields and woods that surrounded the area. That's probably the bit I will miss the most about Burton Green. But I have weirdly moved very near the Liverpool loop line, which is quite simliar except for the clientele which is a bit more scallies having splifs than horseriders.

2016

Other than that, all Burton Green had to offer was a Post Office that closed down a few years after we moved there, a pub, a village hall and a second hand clothes shop which has also closed. As an older teen it was an incredibly annoying place to live, especially when you can't drive and your mates live the other side of Coventry. A 2 hourly bus was all we had in the way of public transport. It seems like a lovely thing to live next to fields but fields really aren't all that compared to city parks.

Percy in the field behind my parents house 2016

You can't sit down in a field you can only walk round the edge. There aren't toilets or ice cream shops or skate parks in fields. I used to go the the memorial park in Coventry with my mates. I just had to walk 20 mins to a train station get a train, then get an overpriced park and ride bus which all in all took over an hour. Then I became good at cycling because I was rubbish at driving and my parents were stingy lift givers. I'd often do an 18 mile round trip just to see some mates. A decade after that cycle training I cycled to Kuwait ,so you know; everything happens for a reason.

I loved my local church, St. John's Westwood, where my parents met and also got married. Being your a-typical teenager I think my faith in some ways might have been strongest at that time. I think maybe I was rebelling against rebelling? Life is so crap when you're a teenager that I really needed God then. It was when things were going well more recently that I've found faith a bit more of a struggle. There was a while when my church youth group was the only thing I enjoyed in my week.

Once in a game of hide and seek I hid on a ledge just below that stained glass window.

My Dad had a BBQ for his 60th and invited the village people... not The Village People, you know, their nearby friends. I can't wait to be 60: mortgage paid off, kids all left home, no responsibility. I had to leave the party and go to bed early because I have to be up in the night to feed baby Eric.

Sandra and Eric

There were a couple there: Sandra and Paul who I've known since they moved to the village when I was about 10. I remember going round to theirs with Mum to welcome them. I went into their house and declared loudly "Wow your house is massive you must be really rich!" I then sat on their wooden chair that had vertical bars on the back and got both elbows stuck. At one point they were talking about sawing the chair up. Luckily butter worked. Sandra and Paul had 3 kids. The two girls were roughly the same age as my sisters and then there was a boy in the middle of them who I sort of made friends with because we were the odd ones out. So he was about 8 and I was about 12 and we used to dissect slugs together. Thats weird right? He also had a snake which I thought was very cool. And they had sheep and chickens goats and a dog.

Mum just loves snakes (at Sandra and Paul's 2001)

Back in the day (2001)

2017 Paul has a slightly different hat.

Sandra and Paul had us round on Sunday so Percy could see their animals. This is where country side comes into it's own. I don't need to pay £10 to go to a children's farm when my neighbour will give Percy a ride on a tractor from 1968 for free. Percy had a great time!

Farewell Burton Green. Sometimes I hated you, sometimes I loved you, but you shaped my childhood and I wouldn't change it. xx

House changes

There have been a few major changes in the Lee Vale house of dreams. When we moved in in February there were 3 of us, Dan, Percy and me, and the house was entirely magnolia. Now we have 2 extra people and 3 rooms less magnolia. Hooray. The first edition to the household was Baby Eric born in May, then we took in our semi-homeless friend Rachel for a bit but now we have our more permanent lodger My littlest sister Sarah.

I found these lovely photos to welcome sarah

Last time we lived together she was 10 and I was 19. This is the story of how she came into the world which I will take 90% of the credit for. When I was 8 I had 1 younger sister Jo, and I was desperate for a puppy. I asked all the time and, although Dad could have been persuaded, Mum could not. Around this time I realised that the amount of children you had was not entirey up to chance. That's when I stopped asking for a puppy and started asking for a baby sister. To my surpise it worked! One Saturday morning me and Jo were watching cartoons and mum and dad called us upstairs and said "we've got a surprise, guess what it is?" Jo said "are we having croissants for breakfast?" Dad then dropped a big hint "the surprise is in mummy's tummy" Then I went mental with "its a baby! it's a baby!" and Jo said "anyway what are we having for breakfast?"

Later on in the pregnancy me and Jo told dad we were praying for a girl and Dad said 'too late we've already prayed that its a boy'. But look who God loves best!

Me and Sarah back in the day

I was a lovely sister for 2 or 3 years: I played with Sarah, I dressed her up, I took her into school for my speaking and listening talk on babies. Then I was a moody teenager for a bit and then I left home and then she was a moody teenager....but now we're good friends and have a lot in common. except that everything I can do Sarah can do better and a lot more naturally, she's one of those really annoying people who's academic, musical, athletic and creative. I was really only good at art and I wasn't even that good at that, I got a 'B' at GCSE and an A at A-level. Whereas Sarah got an A* at GCSE but didn't do it at A-level as 'it won't lead to a job' but still continues to make money out of being an artist. I did however discover recently her one downfall. She can't do magic eye books! I know right, what a loser. That's literally my only comeback to her massive catalog of achievements.

Jokes aside it's been lovely having Sarah in the house...so far.

The other big house change is the death of the shower cupboard, R.I.P, a ridiculous shower that forced you to get naked on the landing. Goodbye wall that turned out to be a supporting wall, hello a toilet with a sink next to it. And a thing that makes it ok that you removed a supporting wall. I was in B&Q looking at paint for the new toilet I thought I'd go for pale blue, that seems safe, but with an impatient toddler and an baby I didn't have a lot of time to pick the exact shade I was imagining so I ended up with electric blue. It's sooo blue. I had to put extra yellow things in to distract from the blue, I like it now though. Every colour is superior to magnolia.

view from the loo

We've also had a major addition to our garden.

Tada!

When the boys were born they were each given £100 from their great grandpa. We could have opened up a savings account but seeing as there's Trump, brexit, global warming etc. £200 in 18 years time seems a bit pointless. So we blew it all on this. And yes I do have the same attitude towards a pension. Dan has one though and when we got married he vowed to share everything with me. It's only fair because most of his power tools are actually mine.

3 months

Eric is 3 months... it's flown by.

And looking more and more like his big brother every day.

Percy at 3 months

Percy got a bit jealous of the attention Eric was getting and tried to get in on his photo shoot

3 months is a pretty easy stage, comparatively. In general Eric sleeps well from about 10:30pm till 8am, normally with one get up at 3am, occasionally he sleeps through. He can't yet roll so he stays were he's put. He sleeps for about 1/3 of the daytime too, he's actually a lot simpler to look after than Percy. Which is why I was over the moon when Dan's sister and her husband offered to take Percy to the safari park on Monday. Great, I thought, most of the day just me and Eric. I'll get some quality time with him, when he's feeding I can watch Netflix instead of reading Percy stories and when he sleeps I will be free!! So they came at 10am and Percy was really excited, the first hour and a half me and Eric just hung out in a way that it's hard to do when you have a demanding toddler. Then I thought he might be ready for a sleep now if I took him for a walk in the pram. So I took a little walk down to the shopping centre to buy some brackets (exciting I know). Eric fell asleep easily, but when I got home I couldn't get the pram into the house without waking him up. So I had lunch we did a bit more hanging out and feeding and then he started to get really cranky because he was so tired. I managed to feed him to sleep and carefully laid him down in the cot where he slept peacefully for just long enough for me to get in my studio and get my paints out before he woke up. 

The problem was, I couldn't leave the house because I was waiting for a delivery which was coming between 12:20 and 2:20. I tried pushing the pram round and round the back garden but that didn't send him off. I tried carrying him in various different positions and feeding him. He was getting super cranky and nothing would make him chill out. At 2:53 the delivery came and then I did a last resort sleeping method, going for a drive. 1 minute later he was asleep and I carried him in in the car seat. That very second I got a text from Dan's sister Beth "just on the way back be there in 10 minutes" Noooooo! The crying emoji did not fully express my emotions.

Thankfully Percy had fallen asleep in the car too and I managed to carry him in and lay him down on the sofa and have a wonderful hour off.

Today I remembered the book we read to Percy to prepare him for having a little brother. 

I think they meant to say "When the baby sleeps mummy puts Paw Patrol on so she can have some flipping time to herself!!"

If you're on twitter and don't mind hearing more about my child, I sometimes tweet stuff Percy says 

Here's a few examples:

Thanks for reading, next time I'll be writing about our new lodger and what happens when you get distracted in B & Q while buying paint. Bye xx