Rant-ander

I hope this isn't the last blog I write of 2018 because it would be a sad note to end on, but I've got a rant to get off my chest. SANTANDER you and your logo of a steaming baked potato are a disgrace.

There are some fun bits in this it's not all a complete rant, but here's some context behind what happened. I'm self employed and I usually get paid by cheque, it's not my favourite method of payment but for some reason mosts schools are a bit behind the times with that sort of thing. So I did two big projects this term this mural:

and this mosaic:

Then I went to pay in my cheques. I got the mosaic one first and paid that in.

The next day, I went to do the food shop and my card was declined, luckily I had enough cash. I checked my online banking. the cheque had been paid in and then gone out again which still left me with some money so, this didn't explain why I couldn't use my card. You'd think a bank would tell you before blocking your account a few days before Christmas. Oh wait they did let me know ... BY LETTER 3 DAYS LATER. Good one.

The next day I phoned the school. They didn't know why it didn't work because there was money in their account. So I went into the bank and had to prove this was a work thing by showing an invoice. They said "oh yes this happens. This time of year there's lots of alerts going on things," basically they just thought this was a bit suspicious. But they said they'd sort it and I just had to wait 48 hours and it would all be fine. I gave them the second cheque to pay in and they they'd put an alert to make sure that didn't happen again.

In the mean time as fate would have it, a twitter friend, middle class rapper @mc_hammersmith sent out this tweet: (warning: there are some swears)

It was pretty fun, I do love tweeting companies. It's a much better way to vent than being on hold to their complaints line and I do have a little soft spot for middle class rap. If you've known me since I was 10 then I'm sure you'd remember "Han and Fran", some of the best rappers to come out of the tiny village of Burton Green, Warwickshire in the mid 90's.

The next day I tweeted this and deliberately didn't tag them because I thought it would all be sorted out soon and I'm not a completely nasty twitter troll. 

Now that (spoiler alert) it is still far from sorted, I'm wondering if I should start a twitter campaign where I get different people to tweet Santander with photos of the backs of thing. If there's one thing I like about living in 2018 its that there are creative complaints options. My most creative was this box that I sent to move residential after they made us homeless in 2016.

So when the account was still not unblocked over 48 hours later I was pretty mad and went in again and was there for an hour. I won't bore you with all the details, but they are now saying that both cheques could be fraud and that I have to phone the schools and get them to phone their banks. (Which I can't do till January.) I can't get any money out, not even the original money that was in there and they can't give me any word on how long it might take. At least Mc Hammersmith had my back.

Whenever you tweet they ask you to email, which I did with all the info and I wasn't even offensive, to which they replied we can't really disscuss this over email we'll have to discuss it on the phone. But if you can't sort it out with me in the branch then I don't have much hope of them sorting it by phone.

Merry Christmas.

Beating Cancer and The Frog

Since my relatively quick and painless battle with cancer I have been pursuing being a real comedian. I have defined this, for now as "bothering to do to a gig when I might not know anyone and bothering to travel outside of Liverpool". 2 weeks in and I've done 4 gigs and it's going pretty well.

I'm in the weird position of having done comedy for years (about 6) but really sporadically and only to the audience of people who go to Mello Mello, and then later on people I've met though The Legion of Doom's monthly gig at Mello Mello. In 2016 I then did an hour long show about my school days called "best days of your life" which I loved and so the next year I wanted to do another, but Eric was only a few months old and still very reliant on my boobs for nourishment, so I had to wait another year. And I'm glad I did't it would have been way to stressful to do it with a tiny baby.

In the run up to that show "Job Done" which was all about parenting, I thought I'd get some performing experience in a few places and that's when I started thinking maybe I should do this FOR REAL. It was a deliberate decision to just do it for a fun hobby before, which felt right at the time. But then I had this feeling of 'what if I could become actually good?' Not saying I'm terrible, but I haven't put the hours in that you need to be the best. It was that or having a third child, and I think this is easier to get out of if you think you've made the wrong decision than a third child. I could do this for a year and then decide to have a 3rd child but you can't have a 3rd child for a year and then decide being a parent of 3 is not really for me.

So in that time when I was ill in bed recovering from having my lymph nodes removed, I booked in a load of gigs and the last 2 weeks has been the start of that. I normally would perform every few months, and 50% of the stuff I did was new. Now I'm trying to do the same 5-7 minute bit anywhere that will have me to improve it. this is how its gone so far:

12th Nov Hot water comedy club Liverpool: Pretty good, lovely audience, slightly stumbled over a tiny bit.

16th Nov charity gig Blackburne house Liverpool: terrible! I went on first and the audience were not warmed up the best they could manage was a tiny titter. I'm not sure what I could have done differently.

18th Nov Comedy Store Manchester: so lovely, they have a dressing room with a leopard skin couch and mirrors with lights round them: I felt like a celebrity.

I was super nervous, this club is a big deal but I felt so good when it was done. See the video here.

19th Nov Frog and Bucket Manchester. if you're not familiar, every Monday night the Frog and Bucket runs a "beat the frog" competition. 3 members of the audience get cards and if all 3 hold them up you have to stop. If they don't then happy music comes on after 5 minutes and you've beaten the frog. Then you go through to a clap off- a pretty unfair way of deciding a winner, but I can't think of a better one.

It was a stressful drive there with my 8 year old sat nav that can't cope with any roads build since 2010. Luckily I'd brought my friend Rachel and she navigated me there. I arrived and was slightly disappointed that the acts just sat with the commoners: where's my mirror with the lights?! The set went so well, the audience were so lovely that I instantly relaxed and ad-libbed a bit. I can't believe I was actually saying the same stuff and on the night where the audience were silent. I came joint first with a guy called Micky Mckay. Maybe if I hadn't have asked my one friend to take a photo of me when she could have been clapping in the clap off I would have won. My prize is to spend more money on petrol and parking to come back in January and do 8 minutes uninterrupted. I'm looking forward to it really.

But more exciting than all of that I have (after much faffing with venues) booked in my own monthly comedy night! The "early risers comedy club" is aimed at parents or anyone who would appreciate a comedy night with a strict end time of 9:45. It's at Blackburne house on Hope street, every second Wednesday starting in January! Please like the Facebook page and invite others especially if you're in Liverpool.

Next gig is Hot water Liverpool 27th November, it's free but you have to book.

Thanks for reading, I promise my next blog will be a bit less up myself.

Bye Bye Cancer

It's 3 weeks since my operation and on Wednesday I went for my check up at the hospital. They had the results back from the bits of me they took out. They found: NO CANCER WHOOP WHOOP.
I was so happy and a bit emotional, I really do like being alive, and I really would be gutted if I had to have more operations and radiotherapy and all the stuff.

It does mean that this whole operation was completely pointless though, and I do miss my pelvic lymph node a bit. They're not completely pointless like the appendix. They help blood flow round the body and living without them means I have to do exercises to help the blood flow and I'm at risk of getting lymphedema or elephant leg as I like to call it. I made the mistake of googling it.

Eww. This is not even the worst picture there's way more disgusting ones.

I enjoyed a bit of time off, I had a week in bed and then 2 weeks where I had a couple of hours off each day. I didn't get through as much Netflix as I thought. I'm quite a doer so rest is difficult for me. In my rest time I also managed to book in several comedy gigs and start organising my monthly comedy night aimed at parents, did my tax return, made a bus birthday cake and party bags, and did some painting of the house. I did have some good naps too.

The Jelly king celebrating turning 4

We made 2 trips to Wilkos, 1 to B&Q and 1 to Taskers, before choosing the yellow on the bottom left which is actually a mixture of two paints.

This is for the new guest room now that Sarah has moved out

Everyone has been super amazing, one person paid for me to have a cleaner and the cleaner bought me chocolates! So many people bought me meals and I even had someone offer to stop well meaning people from bringing me food if it was needed. One person managed to get 4 car seats in their car to take percy and 3 under 2s out, and virtually everyone I know has texted me to ask how I was doing or prayed for me. My parents have been helping out on Mondays and Friday's even learning how to dance "the beam bag parade" in Percy and Eric's music and movement group. Dan as always has been super hardworking and been up early every day with the kids and taken over full control of the clothes wash and took Percy and friends out to mattel play for his birthday. Thank you! You are all heroes.

I was on a bit of a high driving back from the hospital (metaphorically) and then I passed a cyclist that had just collided with a non moving car. He just cycled straight into a back windscreen and smashed it. The car driver was already on the phone to the ambulance but I thought as I had just escaped cancer I should go and see if I could help. There was a lot of blood but the cyclist was conscious and sort of ok. I stayed and chatted with him for a while and gave him my kitkat and a bike lock I had so that he could lock up his bike and collect it later. In the car was two women and a baby who were all fine, but the baby did need a nappy change and luckily I had a nappy and wipes in the can too. I told the guy "that's your halloween costume sorted" it was probably too soon for that joke.

Percy's train picture we made into a pumpkin.

I don't know if Stage 1 cancer is bad enough to have a completely new perspective on life, you know those people who survive something massive and then go on to start a charity or climb everest. Yeah I didn't have bad enough cancer for that kind of thing, but I guess I am really grateful for the wonderful friends and family I have and we've almost booked a holiday for easter time. Driving in a Campervan from Nice to Barcelona. I cant wait.

The Operation

On Thursday I had my first...and hopefully last...operation. If you haven't heard why, check out my previous blog post "A Bit of Cancer"

So I'd been carrying on with everyday life looking after the kids on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays, doing a mosaic in Knutsford on Wednesdays and a mural in Manchester on Thursdays and planning my new comedy night in my spare time (more details to follow when things are more confirmed, but I'm super excited about it).

There's nothing you can really do to prepare for an operation other than not eat from 2am that morning. The night before I filled up on a big carvery and ice cream, before reading that I should avoid fatty food or over-eating. I was allowed my last drink at 6:30am and had to be in the women's hospital for 7:30am. Dan took me in but wasn't allowed to stay because there would be women "in various states of undress". So Dan had taken the day off work - the kids were in nursery and he was back home with his feet up by 8:15am. Jammy.

They told me I was last on the list and wouldn't be operated on until 2:30pm! But I had to stay within the hospital grounds just in case. I'm a creative, inventive person, but let me tell you there is not a lot of fun to be had within a women's hospital on your own when you're not even allowed to eat or drink. I spent a bit of time wandering around and guessing if women were fat or pregnant but was never brave enough to then ask them. So I mainly stuck to reading which I haven't done for a very long time.

I bought a new book because I knew I would have time for silent, still activities for once. "Undivided - by Vicky Beaching". Vicky is a Christian musician celebrity who once *claim to fame* rode my unicycle. I know right! In 2014 she came out as gay aged 35...probably not as a direct result of riding my unicycle. Anyway, she faced a lifetime of not feeling able to come out, and when she finally did she lost all her recording contracts and everything but despite that has remained positive about the church and now she's an ambassador for LGBT Christians. Very inspiring, very sad, and has probably tipped me over the edge from being borderline to more liberal in my Christian theology.

So as I was pondering these deep issues of religion and sexuality, I was called in to answer some pre-op questions. I thought the deep questioning of my inner self would end there. But no, along with questions like "do you have any crowns on your teeth?" I was asked "do you have difficulties being able to express your sexuality?" ....err....yeah probably, like how do you express being straight? I'm not exactly going to organise a straight pride, am I?

I was given some beautiful green stockings to put on along with a hospital gown and told to go commando but then wear a dressing gown. Given my operation was still a few hours away I chose not to go commando for all of that time.

Then the time came for me to go into another waiting room for 15 minutes before going to the anaesthetic room. Several medical staff said "the waiting is the worst part". I disagree - I'd say puking up green water was probably the worst part. It's pretty creepy knowing that you're about to be unconscious and have several people messing with your bits even if it is for good reasons. I had a loop excision which is where they chop away at your cervix, and keyhole surgery to remove the pelvic lymph nodes which is apparently quite tricky, and takes about 3 hours.

Just before I woke up I was dreaming of Paw Patrol, then I realised I was in the hospital, was thankful to be alive and asked for water which I then immediately puked up. They took me through to the ward as it was nearly the end of visiting hours and Dan had come in and waited to see me. It was nice to have him there but I was too out of it to have a real conversation. I had a catheter in which was totally weird because you don't feel yourself weeing at all it just sucks the wee out of your bladder so the bladder is never full. It was kind of nice to not have to get up and go to the loo but I was happy when they got rid of it and I could pee on my own terms again.

I survived!

I was in Bay 1 with 82-year-old Joyce and 75-year-old Val, later joined by Gill and Lorraine in their 50s. The first night I was awoken several times but slept ok in between because I still had sleepy drugs in me. In the morning I managed some toast and my good friend Katie who works at the Women's came to visit me before her shift which was lovely. After she left I got this really intense horrible pain - way worse than it had been earlier - I was told this was "wind pain", basically when they do the op they inflate you like a balloon so they can see all your bits better and then they can't do a completely thorough job of deflating you, you have to fart and burp it out over the next few days. Joyce loved a good old burp.

The consultant who did the operation came to tell me about how it went (she was the slightly unfriendly one from my previous blog). She told me she accidentally poked a hole in my womb but she said that my womb was very small, in a kind of accusing way like it was my fault, and she just wasn't expecting it to be that small when she was poking around. Anyway she stitched it up and also removed the pelvic lymph nodes which apparently didn't look cancery to the naked eye. I'll find out in a few weeks.

good job I don't wear bikinis anymore

my new belly button

The nurses were not especially friendly - one of them (when I was in a massive amount of pain) told me I was not the only one to have this operation and that there were women in their 80s having it, implying I should woman up. Women are pretty hard core, there were loads of older women having much bigger surgeries than me, like hysterectomies which take 18 weeks to recover from. But they just get on with it. Us Bay 1 babes looked after each other; we shared a few stories of our families. I was the only one who still had living parents, and I think half of them had lost a partner. Joyce's husband had died over 30 years ago aged 51. She was a lovely lady apart from being a bit racist in that weird way old people are. "That nurse was as black as the ace of spades" - what does that even mean?! But I feel I learnt a lot from them, although the only bit I can really remember is that "it costs £400 to cremate a dog". #funfact

This is not enough food for an adult right? bloody tories!! this is how much food I'd give to my 1 year old.

I stayed in a second night because I didn't feel ready to go home and have to walk up stairs and stuff. But on the Saturday morning they made it clear I'd over-stayed my welcome and even though I'd puked up a green coloured water that morning it was time for me to get out. Dan came to get me and that evening I was feeling a lot better. It was lovely to see the boys even if Percy was not that bothered because Dan had just put new batteries in the moving Brio train. I've been enjoying all the food people have generously made for us, we are very blessed to have amazing friends. I've now reached that lovely point where I'm sick enough to not feel guilty about not helping out but not too sick to watch Netflix. It the perfect amount of ill.

Job Done!

Last week was my big super fun but slightly stressful week. In general I loved it. I've been working on my show for months and I finally got to do it in front of real people instead of just doing it badly in front of Dan, or doing it in the car while commuting. People were super lovely, over 100 people came over the two nights and they were super friendly generous laughers.

My wonderful sister-in-law took these lovely professional photos from the first night. I mean her camera was worth 2000 packets of baby wipes (mummyshare joke) but she is also very talented, check out her stuff here.

I've decided, after about 6 ish years of dabbling in comedy, that I actually want to try at it now. It's a bit scary to say that because you can't really fail if you don't try. But it was a deliberate decision when I started that I wanted to do it only in Liverpool and not try to make money from it because I wanted it to stay fun and not complicate it in my head with work. After one night at hot water comedy club years and years ago, where my stuff went down ok but not brilliantly, I thought these are not "my people" I'll stick to my crowd, the slightly middle class drama graduates with arty ideas playing for free in dingy venues: they're my people. Not those rowdy mainstream commoners.

But with the fresh sense of freedom that comes from not having to breastfeed anymore, I thought I'd give hot water another try. I needed to practise bits for my show so I signed up to do 5 minutes. The crowd were scary and heckley and loud and I wondered what I was doing there: a mum on her own late at night without her husband or anyone she knew, who now speaks in the third person.
But I met a lovely Scottish comedienne and then it turns out 2 friends did turn up to watch and the loudest mouthiest women got thrown out, and my stuff went well and I loved it! It felt like much more of an achievement to make people that I don't know laugh. So then I decided to do it for real and actually try to be a real comedian even if that means gigging to people who hate me or driving out of my city. I signed up for another set at hot water, this time 15 mins. I can't say I smashed it but I didn't not smash it. I guess I cracked the glass a bit if this is the metaphor I'm still on. But I feel the areas which most need improving are the performance related things, like not saying "err" between ever sentence, and if you forget a bit not going back to it if you have moved on, because unless it's essential to the plot the audience don't know.

So my goals now are:
to improve my performing
to preform my show in another city
to gig at least once a week
to gig outside of Liverpool
to at least break even on petrol costs of gigging
to see a bit more live stuff, especially women,
(I went to see the scummy mummies in Manchester, they were ace)
to host my own night (I'm planning that at the mo: more details to follow)
to let touring comedians stay a couple of night in our spare room (when Sarah moves out)

I was really impressed when I got to the Everyman and the legend technician Kieron had set everything out and it looked amazing. I was stressing about it a bit but in the end I hardly had to do any set up which put me in a super happy chilled mood.

That awkward moment when I tried to breastfeed a snake

I'm probably meant to be making the "oooh" sound here like my sister

What a guy! I did originally try to get the baby boy costume but then this second hand girl one was £10 cheaper.

2 years ago Dan dressed as the Suez Canal for my show about my school days. so this was a step up really: at least he's human.

On the first night my intro to the Bonjela song didn't go exactly to plan. 

*picks on random audience member*

H: Have you got kids? how many have you got?

Woman: 3

H: And can I ask you a personal question? How many times have you been in love?

W: Errr 3

H: Are those 3 children a result of the 3 different times?

W: Yes!!

H: Oh! (awkwardness) well err that's fine I'm happy for you. next question, how many times have you been up in the night with a teething baby?

W: Approximately 245423385 times.

H: And how many songs are there about being in love? and how many songs are there about being up all night with a screaming baby? None! so I've written one cue song:

If you haven't seen it yet, heres 6 minutes of show highlights: click on me!

That is almost the end, other than to say thanks for the overwhelming responses to last months blog (synopsis: I may or may not have cancer). Everyone has been super amazing about offering every kind of help. People are lovely. My operation is next week on 11th Oct so unless the worst listed side effect "death" comes into play, I'll be sitting around watching Netflix and skiving off parenting for most of October.

Love Ya. x

A Bit of Cancer

No blogs in the whole of August and then 2 blogs in two days... I've got a bit of news... I've got a bit of cancer... but don't worry or anything it's only stage one i.e. THE BEST KIND, and it's probably all been removed already so maybe I don't have cancer. So my big "news" is I may or may not have cancer, just like everyone else in the world. Here's the story from the beginning:

In February I was due a smear test. I ignored it for a month or two, life is busy and it's the kind of thing you need to arrange childcare for and it's just not that fun. At the same time I also received a letter telling me to take my car into the garage to get the airbag replaced because it was not safe. I ignored that letter too. Then I spent a bit of time pondering which would be more likely to kill me, not getting a potential faulty airbag replaced, or not going for a smear test. Both were very unlikely and logistically difficult to arrange with kids.

A month or two later I went to the Drs for something, I can't remember what, and the Dr asked if I was up to date on my smear. She told me they do evening appointments or that they could hold a baby while they did it, so I was like "oh go on then" and booked an appointment.

I had an evening appointment while Dan took both kids to Percy's football class. It felt like a mini holiday cycling in via the loopline and sitting in a waiting room on my own. I cycled back wondering whether I was more likely to die as a result of a bike accident or a cervix related problem. I don't know why I was so cocky about the health of my cervix, but it seems to be a common misconception that people that are only having sex with one person will be fine health wise in every way.

So I was a bit surprised when the results came back as "abnormal cells". This meant I had to have a procedure called a loop excision which is a bit like a smear test but more choppy. This was scheduled for when I was on holiday in Llandudno with my extended family which meant I had to tell them all. I felt that telling them in a jokey way over family whatsapp would be the most appropriate way to do this:

So half way through our holiday in Llandudno me and Dan drove back to Liverpool to deliver a new fridge to our tenant, take an old fridge to the tip, and have the "abnormal cells" removed from my cervix. Fun.

A few weeks later I got two letters from the hospital saying I had two appointments on two consecutive days to have a chat with a nurse followed by a consultant. I phoned up to ask about it because it's sort of annoying to try and arrange childcare two days in a row and it's also sort of annoying to talk about your cervix in the presence of a very questioning 3 year old. So they ended up telling me the first info from the nurse on the phone: they had found cancer in my cervix. It was probably already removed but they wanted to do another procedure which I'd have to chat to the consultant about.

So the next week, the day before our holiday, I went for the consultant chat. I wasn't too concerned, it was annoying that it wasn't all sorted yet, but hopefully one more loop excision would fix it. Then the Dr told me they'd have to do the loop excision and removed the lymph nodes which is key hole surgery under a general anaesthetic. I asked if I could still work the day after and she pretty much laughed at me and said it was a 4-6 week recovery time. Then I went into full on self employed defensive mode of "I can't do this I'm self employed don't you know, self employed people work even if they are nearly dead and nursery is £46 per day". I got a bit annoyed. Then she got a bit patronising and explained how it was very serious and then told me a list of horrible side effects, one of which was death. She said the operation would be in about 4 weeks. I counted forward, this would put the operation on roughly the 27th September the date of my comedy show. Then I went into full on drama queen mode (don't judge me, everyone deals with bad news differently). I said "I cannot do it until after the 27th I AM A COMEDIAN, I HAVE BOOKED A THEATRE DON'T YOU KNOW?!" Granted it's only the basement of a theatre but still.

She put on my notes "would prefer after the 27th". She then quickly introduced me to a person with people skills as consultants do not have time to be nice. I had to quickly rush off because it was time for Eric's nursery settling in session, but the nice people skills nurse phoned me in the evening to chat through the practical arrangements and ask me how I was doing emotionally.

Then I went camping for 5 nights and mainly forgot about it. I've started experimenting with telling people and it's a bit weird, it you phrase the lead up wrongly people think you're about to announce a pregnancy.
So I'd rather tell you like this so people know and then I'm happy to chat to people if you want. But the main news practically is that I will be probably in bed for most of October. I need to arrange a load of childcare and Dan will need a bit of help because, although he is totally capable of cooking no one is capable of cooking while looking after a 3 year old and a 1 year old. Also if you wanna come over and keep me company that might be nice. I'm hoping to get through a lot of Netflix and podcasts and maybe even books in this time, so any recommendations send them my way.

Hopefully after this op the thing most likely to kill me will go back to being those faulty airbags.

Thanks for reading. x

The Best Wedding Ever

This evening was a dull evening of hours of unpacking and clothes washing (tues) ... but it was all worth it because we've just come back from our first ever family holiday as a four, and the joint best wedding I've ever been to, joint with my own wedding.

So I'll start at the beginning: when I was about 11 a new vicar and family moved to my church. As children of the church we were forced to make friends with their children. I remember being at the Holt family house with my friend Bex ready to meet and welcome the Findley family. They had one 14 year old boy (yuk- obvs we wouldn't be friends wth him) and then a 12 year old and a 10 year old. I was in between the ages of Catherine and Ruth but as my friend Bex was older we decided between us that I would make friends with Ruth and she would make friends with Catherine.

I have many fond memories of our childhood, especially going riding on her horse. It wasn't actually her horse it just lived in the field behind her house and she had permission to use it. Another memory I have of her were when we had a competition to see who can fit though a croquet hoop. I was so middle class back then.
I remember that she had a really good rope swing. I teased her for having a southern accent (sorry) and we had clarinet lessons together until the teacher wanted to teach her separately because she was better than me. I really had little interest in the clarinet, that was obvious when I managed to smuggle my pet rat into my clarinet lesson. 

Ruth was good at asking me deep probing questions even when we were 12. Unfortunately she was very camera shy so I don't have any embarrassing childhood photos of her, but here's one from 2009.

We've not been that much in touch since I left home, but for a while both of our parents still lived in the same hometown, so we would normally see each other at christmas and whatever. Unfortunately both sets of parents have left now so we never naturally bump into each other. She was a bridesmaid for me in 2011 

 We both share the same terrible middle name, and Percy was born on her birthday.

Ruth meets tiny Percy

Anyway the wedding was incredible; it was a two day camping wedding in Ruth's minted uncle's garden. Ruth's uncle Paul seemed to be one of those rare types of people who is massively rich and also incredibly nice and fun. 

We hired a motorhome to go down in which was super fun and made a 2 day wedding into a 5 night camping adventure. 

So Day One of the wedding was a bbq, a pool for the kids, garden games, dancing in a marquee, a bonfire and fireworks.

Day Two of the wedding was the actual wedding, lunch on the lawn, 4 different kinds of cake, a sit down meal, a spot of stand up from me, speeches, and dancing.

Percy thought the wedding was the greatest thing ever because he was allowed to roam free and play with the other kids. It was nice to be out socialising without a babysitter in the evenings although we had to keep going back to the van to check on them every 20 mins.

It was so nice to catch up with the whole Findley family, I particularly enjoyed talking with James. I remember him as a low level goth (just the black hoodies not the makeup). He was 17 or 18 when I was 14 so I remember him being way too cool to talk to me but now we could have a lovely conversation as peers and parents.

I'd not met Andy (the groom) before but he seemed really nice (phew!). I would love to make the effort to see them again as a couple some time.

Love you Ruth x