What a Tory Government means for us.

Today is a sad day for most people who will be reading this, because unless you're a millionaire or someone who believes things written by millionaires, you will probably be planning how you will survive or escape the next 5 years in Britain. Before the election I made this half statement/half joke...

"If the Labour get in we'll have another baby, if the Tories get in we're moving to France."

but this is the longer more truthful statement: If Labour get in I feel like we can consider the 3rd child thing, currently the cost of child care is making it not really possible for me to work, it would just make our lives more complicated and wouldn't give us much more money. But, in September when Eric gets some free childcare, then I can work and even if it's still low paid it makes sense. So having another baby would add another 4 years until I get to that point again. Which is a bit too long, not just financially, for my own sanity too. I'm not saying I definitely would have had another baby if Labour had got in, but it would be a discussion I'd be willing to have. I met another mum today who felt the same.

I'm not saying I'll be moving to France tomorrow, but it's something we've talked about for a while (Dan is half French so we could get in there). I'd miss load of things and people and I think I'd be a bit lonely, but I'd be up for it because I like change, and sun, and it would be amazing for the kids to learn a new language, and I don't really want to be part of Tory Britain. But we're the lucky ones, we're not minted or anything, but we're quite good at saving and so I feel we have options. Some people are properly stuck here.

I tried to explain the election to Percy (age 5). I tried not to be biased, I tried not to say "goodies and baddies". We talked about the blue team and the red team and that Mummy and Daddy were voting for the red team. In the morning I told him the blue team won, he said, with the optimism only a 5 year old can have, "well maybe they'll change and start caring about hospitals and poor people". 

Under Labour I would definitely be in work. I started doing freelance art stuff in schools just at the end of labour. There was more then, I taught loads of different kinds of art as one off lessons - sculpture, mosaic, textiles etc. I sometimes taught drawing skills where I got the kids to draw a face and then I taught them step by step how to draw a face and get the proportions all right and then they compared the two. Obviously the second one was better, but a teacher once told me that their face drawing was then always better, even when I wasn't there to talk them through it and that even their general drawing skills for other things (not just faces) had improved just from me doing one lesson. For a few years I worked almost full time, then every year since 2014 it got worse. I used to just advertise to Liverpool and then I had to keep advertising further and further away to get anything. Then I had 2 months of no work while still paying £46 a day 2 days a week for nursery. So that had to end. If I had either free nursery or a well-funded school I could work, I don't need both but I need one. This is one of the reasons I do stand up. It fits around the school run.

It's pretty ironic that the Brexit vote was won from a lie on a bus, and that some people voted because they wanted to help the NHS, but then this vote was more like "do you want Brexit so much that you would sacrifice the NHS for it?" and people still went with that.

My Brexit bus prop made for my comedy night's spooky special

It would be disastrous to lose the NHS. A year ago I had cancer, I only knew about it because I went for a smear test. It was relatively easy to treat it was only 8mm, if I had not been for a smear test I wouldn't have known it was there until about a year later, when it would have grown into a difficult to treat bigger ball. If you had to pay for smear test I would't have gone. Not because I completely couldn't afford it, I just don't do that kind of thing, I didn't feel at any risk of getting it. I'm only 33 and I have no history or risk factors associated with it. I put off things that cost money, I went to the dentist when I was pregnant with Percy and then didn't go again till I was pregnant with Eric (it's free when you're pregnant). When my TV licence runs out I live without BBC for a few months and then eventually get it and watch everything I've missed on catch up. I'm just not the personality type to go for smears as often as I should but I know I would really put it off for a lot longer if I had to pay to go. Imagine if you had to pay for baby scans or anything where you'd probably be fine. People wouldn't go and most of them would be fine. But some of them wouldn't, some of them would have complications and some of them would die.

One positive about being in Liverpool is that almost everyone I would bump into feels like this, so when striking up a conversation with a stranger (which I did twice today) you're on safe ground. I love that we're the only place in Britain where you can't buy the sun newspaper, and maybe thats a factor in why Liverpool is a sea of red in a world of blue. Because we haven't seen lies and boobs for 20 years. I mean not from them anyway, I'm sure there are multiple places you can purchase lies and boobs.

I've read load of social media stuff of people's views, some funny some sad, all left wing. I really do wonder what Tory Facebook looks like. I mean I doubt people put stuff like "I just voted tory because I want poor people to die" but really what do they put? But the one that stands out to me is this one about what will happen if the tories get in....

"It will be like a terrible alternative ending to a Christmas Carol, where the ghosts don't have an impact on Scrooge and Tiny Tim dies. Except it's real."

The one tiny silver lining in the depressing blog post is that at least my parody song will still be relevant for another 5 years. This is the bridge to my independant women parody song.

"The patriarchy, makes it tough for mums like me,

We don't get a lot for free, with the Tories"

Merry Christmas

Chicken pox, Gas leaks, and Potty training

It's been a mad few weeks, beginning with a lovely trip to Cadbury world to see my good friend Bex and family, and then at the end of the day Bex messaged me to say her middle boy AJ had chicken pox. My boys had not had it yet so we were holding out in anticipation. 2 weeks passed and nothing happened and then we discovered Eric had it. In some ways I was relived, we needed to get it over with and now was as good a time as any. If I was still doing self employed stuff in the day, I would have been so stressed out. When you're paying for nursery and getting paid well per day but not working everyday something like this can end up costing you hundreds of pounds and you feel guilty for thinking about money when your kid is sick.

The first full day of spots went fine, I decided since we wouldn't be going out I might as well potty train him at the same time, which is actually going loads better than it did for Percy, he was a nightmare. Eric actually seemed fine in himself chicken pox wise, I kept Percy of school too because I was sure he'd get it in the next few days. I also personally think 5 days of school is a bit much for a 5 year old and that what they learn in school is not very varied... this is sort of a whole other blog post in itself, but in my opinion they learn too much phonics and maths and not enough of everything else in the world that there is to know.

Have you got a primary school aged kid? Ask them to name the colours in the rainbow. I once asked a whole class of year 4 or 5s, only one kid knew, he was Polish and had learnt it there. Another questions you can ask: "what is charcoal?" You might get the answer "its a tool from Minecraft" and I bet if your kid knows that blue and yellow makes green they've never actually been allowed to do it for themselves. If you ask them to mix a skin tone colour they will have absolutely no clue. It's one of the things I used to teach kids to do, back before there was no money for anything but maths and phonics. If you asked a specialist in humanities or other forms of arts I'm sure they would say the same kinds of things.

Anyway that was a huge digression, all I really wanted to say is that we all stayed home and invented chicken pox the board game, which was fun for a bit. But after Percy had 2 days off I phoned the school and they told me to send him in (even though he would probably spread chicken pox) but that's all I wanted: someone to blame.

Then just after Eric started getting better we had a new long burner thing put in. It replaced a ugly old fire that just made a noise and a smell.

I'm a tiny bit in love with that shade of green.

Unfortunately when they took the old one out they detected a gas leak under the floor boards. It couldn't be fixed without ripping them up, so they just re-piped the whole thing for quite a lot of money. It meant that for about 5 days we had no gas which meant no heating or cooking or hot water or showers. Except after 3 or 4 days I thought I'll just test the shower...and guess what it's electric! There was one day when Percy had a swimming lesson that I thought while me and Eric wait we might as well have a shower. Eric normally loves showers but this time because it came on when he was not prepared he hated it. I realised this whole thing looked bad, me with a screaming child who is skinny and still coved in chicken pox scabs trying to have a sneaky shower in a pool, because we had no heating and no way of cooking anything nutritious. We could have been out of a poverty documentary.

The day after that I went to pick up an electric heater after school pick up, and then I was going on to a gig in Nottingham which I needed to leave at 5pm for. There was no spare time in my schedule which is why Eric pooing himself in the car just after school pick up was REALLY ANNOYING! If it was in a nappy I could have changed it, but in pants is really hard to change in the car even if you have all the stuff, even though school is pretty close in rush hour it take a long time. This resulted in me eating burning hot microwaved lasagne while straightening my hair when fellow comedian Alex (a girl) came over.

We left late but managed to get to the gig just in time, the venue was a room above a pub. We arrived to find a room full of male comedians, we said hi and one comedian told me everything he'd ever achieved in comedy. I find 5-10% of adults have not yet learned that saying everything you've achieved to someone you don't know well doesn't make them like you. (The way to make people like you is usually to ask about the other person and take a genuine interest.) I don't think these people are bad people, they just didn't learn that when they were like 15 or whatever. Like I never learned how to tie a tie or do long division.

The lady in charge of the night went down to get people from the pub, she managed to get a crowd of really weird drunk men. They heckled often and badly. I was headlining so I was nervous to do 20 minutes in front of them, no one could do well with this crowd. It was reminiscent of my days teaching kids that had been expelled. In the break they all left which was sort of great but also not so great because we had no audience. The lady in charge was talking about cancelling it and I was not sure where I would stand payment wise if they cancelled the gig. I needed the money to reimburse me for my petrol costs, so me and the girlfriend of another comedian went down to the pub to see if we could get a new audience. On the way down she asked me who I was here to support, I said myself.

We went up to everybody in the pub and invited them even to a couple who were clearly in the middle of an argument and the woman had been crying, whoops! We managed to get a nice group of older ladies and 3 lads - the show was back on. I did my set and loved it, the audience were great and it was just a lovely atmosphere. I felt happy that I'd done ok even though I sort of don't look like a comedian. It was probably the best time I've ever performed my parody song "dependant women"(since then I've done it 3 more times, all worse).

It was a nice road trip too. It's pretty intense talking to a comedian for 5 hours on one day, but sort of nice to have that time. It would take me 2 weeks to have 5 hours of meaningful conversation with my husband. Sad face.

I was about to write a paragraph listing my achievements in comedy last week, but I have to be careful after writing the paragraph about the 5-10%.

So all I will say is if you're free on 11th December and live near Liverpool, me and Dan are hosting a comedy competition/ slightly offensive nativity play/ craft fair. Its a great mix!

5 years of Percy Jones

Our lovely son Percy is turning 5 years old. I would say the time has flown by, that seems the sort of thing people say but I'm not sure thats true really. The time before we had him seems like a lifetime ago. He's changed from a tiny helpless baby into an school boy. But we've also changed, from clueless 28 year olds who live in a tiny house in studentville and know nothing about babies, to real grown ups in a grown up sized house with 2 kids.

It's crazy to think in another 5 years he'll be 10 and he might be as tall as me.

So this is a little letter to Percy: 5 thing I love about my 5 year old.

1) You are so kind. OK sometimes you're bad at sharing toys, but you often offer to share your sweets. The way you help Eric out with things he can't do is adorable. Yesterday you wanted to give him a big hug because you hadn't seen him for most of the day. You are the loveliest big brother Eric could ever have.

2) You do your own thing. I think peer pressure hasn't got to you yet and I hope it will remain that way for a long time. And yeah you like some stuff that a lot of kids your age like, Paw Patrol, playing train tracks, etc. but you will also make up your own games with cards or imaginary games or telling stories with puppets. You like to arrange your Duplo animals into pens of animals that won't eat each other. You've recently started liking break dancing, and you're future career ambition has gone from "building an ice church for the penguins" to break dance teacher.

3) You ask good questions. I mean not all of them are good actually some of them are annoying like just endless whys. But some are interesting like "when we die does are house die too?" and "do ice creams don't like snow?" or "why is jelly wibblely?". You're quite interested in God and life and death and actually I feel like I can explain anything to you and you're at the perfect age to understand it at face value it not be a big deal. Like "does X have 2 mummies?" yeah. oh right ok. The other day I explained the pill to you because you asked, and it's actually easy to say "mummy takes a tablet that means she won't have a baby in her tummy because we haven't decided if we want another baby yet".

4) You are a rule follower. This is a weird one because I'm totally not a rule follower, I once took my pat rat to a clarinet lesson with me. My rules for life are "better sorry than safe"and "only break one law at a time". Maybe you're rebelling against me, but you like rules. You once came out of school and the first thing you said was "I can't have anymore sugar today because I had cake for lunch".

5) Your positivity. You're still young enough to be enthusiastic about little things. Sometimes you are not that impressed by quite impressive things, but I love that you are still excited by "cushion world" which is when I let you bring all the cushion and duvets downstairs so you can roll around on them.

80 days of Summer

Hey it's been a while, been a tad busy enduring the 80 day long holiday before Percy starts school properly full time. One more week left!  School holidays are meant to be 6 weeks long, but because our lovely government gives us 30 hours free childcare, but then doesn't actually pay the nurseries enough for that, they all cut corners like charge for food and just randomly finish two weeks before the actual end of term.

Percy "graduated" from nursery in July. Some people have been getting annoyed about that, mainly people who value their degrees, but as someone who just messed around with paint for a degree I don't really mind. I remember one time at uni when I got acrylic paint all over the floor and really made no any effort to clean it up. My tutor came over and said "I love what you've done with the floor". If only my mum was that supportive while I was growing up. Anyway, the point is both me and Percy have spent a few years mucking around with paint and deserve to be rewarded for that by wearing a silly hat.

We had our big holiday in April so that we could make the most of Eric getting a free plane ticket, so we didn't have big plans for the summer. It turned out to be pretty full of mini holidays in the end.

At the end of July we had an extended family holiday at my parents house aka the boat house. My middle sister Jo is now back from New Zealand so it was great to hang out with her. The weather was super hot so we did a lot of river swimming. At one moment a herd of cows tried to ruin our picnic - my bangolele was nearly trampled as I tried to prioritise rescuing my terrified youngest child. Luckily we all survived.

That week was still a busy week for comedy as I had a competition in York and a trial spot at the Frog and Bucket Manchester. Thankfully my family had the boys so me and Dan could go to York child free (it was also our 8 year anniversary). We had a lovely time wild swimming, I did my comedy and then we went out for a meal, which I've decided is a winning combination of lovely things. The Thursday we did a ladies road trip to the Frog and Bucket so I could do my set, which apart form the 1st minute where I was a bit flustered went pretty well.

At the beginning of August I went to Pembrokeshire, just me and the boys, to visit my lovely friend Hazel. Hazel is a legend. We've been friends since 2008 when we worked together at the Bluecoat gallery. She's just one of those people who it's really easy to be real with, and also have a laugh with. She's the only person I've ever done an improvised tribal dance (including a baby sacrifice) in a forest with. She's super positive about life even though she's gone through some really horrible stuff.

Percy and Hazel 2019

Percy and Hazel 2014

Pembrokeshire is a lovely place, it's like Cornwall and Devon without the traffic, I sort of don't want to tell you about it so I can keep it for myself. Because obviously this blog has the power to make Pembrokeshire the most popular place in Britain next year. It was a bit of a risk driving for 5 hours with just me and the boys twice in a week (dan had work) but I live by the motto "better sorry than safe" and overall it was worth it. Apart from the time I lost Eric in a farm park for half an hour, that bit wasn't fun. All the staff were radioing each other about it, eventually he was found playing in the fairground section. Embarrassingly I then lost Percy for about 10 mins because he wondered off from the bit he was told to stay in. I couldn't bring myself to tell the staff I had lost another child so I just had to keep searching till I found him. The best day was the Tenby day ... such a great beach, and the name of my form group when I was in year 10. (10B)

My Dad's birthday was a highlight of the summer, what do you get for someone who lives on a river and has a love of the middle east?

Near the beginning of the holidays I saw this meme:

Which made me think. Percy is starting school later than most kids, I could get a cheapish holiday in here. Next chance isn't until Percy is doing A-levels and Eric's doing GCSEs, if the world still exists then. If climate change hasn't killed us by then Center Parcs subtropical swimming paradise might have to be reamed "the pool" because the whole world with be subtropical. 

On the way we stopped in to see my friend Josh who lives in a horse box. It's not finished yet but how cool is this? He's a proper genius.

At Center Parcs we let the kids do one extra paid activity, they chose roller tots. Turns out tot's can't skate (I'd say 5 should be the minimum age for trying skating.)

cute pic but Eric gave up after 10 mins

Dan paid extra for a gym pass and went every day. I flicked through the list of things you could do and didn't especially fancy any of them so for my luxury activity I choose to buy a box of 12 Krispy Kremes and have a supper long lie in one morning. Kind of the opposite of the gym. I'm happy with my life choices though, apart from when I chose to share the doughnuts.

So Percy started school last week. It was a weird week of only 2 hours a day in the afternoon. WHY?? He used to do nursery 8am till 4:30 three days a week. He can cope with school. Next week he is doing mornings and lunch times. It's not that annoying for me as I don't really work but it's super annoying for working parents who have had to take all their annual leave to cover this. So far he thinks school is "brilliant" but he did say a funny thing about his teacher, which I shouldn't write on the internet. I have mixed feeling about schools. I find them a bit one size fits all and I didn't quite fit, but thats a whole blog post in itself. I'm excited for him to start properly I hope he continues to love it, I hope they don't squash his creativity, I hope I still have a good few years of cuddles from him left.

Love you Percy x

One Crazy Night

I was half way though writing a blog about the summer holidays, but then some crazy stuff happened last night and so I'm going to allow the stuff to do a blog queue jump.

You probably know because I do mention it a lot that I have started running a monthly comedy night called Early Risers Comedy Club. It' aimed at parents or anyone that appreciates a strict end time of 9:45pm. It started in January and it's been going ok, some have been amazing, the pirate one was my favourite so far. The comedy musical duo Jollyboat headlined and they did a fab job.

 Catherine Burgis was also on that one, and she is a genius. I'll be honest last months was not great the acts were good, but you get what you pay for with a £12 mic and my Mcing was not the best. But it was bad enough for me to really want to make the next one better. I promised the crowd to get a better sound system, and I got in a guest Mc to give myself a bit of a break.

I was really excited and confident about this months, I was confident in the acts and MC, we had been listed in a echo article, I'd advertised a few places online, acts had invited people to support them, I knew people were going to turn up. The show starts at 8, timings are very tight to end at 9:45 so we have to start on time. Each month we do a theme this month was summer holidays so I had in my car, buckets and spades, a wind break, a rubber ring and a giant hammock on a frame that I had to unscrew into 3 pieces to fit it in the car. I also had, as I do every time the giant paper mashe gro-clock for the goodbye song. So I arrived at the venue at 6:45pm to set up, only to see a sign on the door saying the bistro is closes at 4pm for all of August. I don't want to completely slate the venue because they have been good to us, but they could have let us know!

I went into mad Hannah mode, the building was still open, but just closing, I pleaded for them to let us us the foyer or anywhere, they said "No." Even when I said "but we have a comedian coming from THE SOUTH" our headline act came all the way from Gilford to do this night! I was not going to cancel, so I started running like a mad woman into every cafe asking to use the space. The downpoor and my lack of coat made me look even more crazy. One cafe said they would if they hadn't got live music on, another said they have the football on. I met up with Tom the guest MC, he had a more calm laid back approach to me, he suggested a restaurant called Grilla (not Gorilla as I thought.) We went in, they phoned the manager and he said yes! whoop whoop the night was saved.

Luckily Tom had brought his sound equipment so he set up while I stayed at the old venue and re-directed people. I got on social media and made a sign for the door. The real lesson is always carry a pencil, paper, blue tac and a plastic wallet with you. I didn't need that stuff for this particular night but luckily it was just in the bag from a previous month.

Steph Pictches = Legend

Jess and Martin a lovely couple that I've only known a few months, turned up to help out as they do every month now, Martin makes the posters, videos the night, and this month provided lighting....and he told me that my top was on inside out. Jess sells the tickets and has previously been the have a go hero doing 3 minutes of comedy for the first time ever. I stayed till 8 and then rushed off to see a beautiful room full of people ready to see comedy. Tom did an fantastic job of crowd work, and the 5 acts were genuinely all brilliant, in their own unique ways. The audience were wonderful. It was hard not to run over and we had to cut some bits short, but we did it. I loved doing the competition, this months question was "where the most unusual place you've been on holiday?" The winners were a couple who honeymooned in Chernobyl!

The unsung hero of the night was Daniel Jones. He stayed in and did all the washing up and put the kids to bed, so that I could go out and live the dream.

The night has given me a taste for what the night could be, I made a nice profit too which I will be investing in a new microphone. I'm now so excited for next time, hopefully we'll be in that venue again. We have SAM AVERY headlining. The guy who does sell out tours! 11th Sept. Hope to see you there.

Early Risers Facebook Page

Early Risers Twitter Page

My New Thing

Last week I started a new thing and it got me thinking about all the little phases I've been through, and there have been a lot. Some lasted a few months, some lasted years, a few I've made money off but most I haven't. So before I reveal my new thing, here's my life in phases and hobbies:

Primary School:

Gymnastics I loved it. It was so much better than ballet which I was awful at. I once did 1000 cartwheels in a day for no reason.

Building dens in the woods and disused railway line where we lived. (And then finding the dens of other kids and destroying them)

Keeping pet snails

Roller skating- there was a time in year 5 or 6 when I went to a roller disco every Friday. I wish that was my life now.

Tigers- I don't know why, but my room was covered in posters of tigers and I used to wear a green-peace tiger t-shirt.

Drawing and junk modelling it's not really a phase if it lasts your whole life but it's probably the first thing that I though 'this is my thing'.

age 4

age 9

Rap. I was one half of the the legendary rap duo Han and Fran, probably the best rap duo to come out of the village of Burton green, Warwickshire in 1996.

Mad Science I'm definitely not a scientist by nature, but I briefly had a chemistry set and tried mixing everything together with some pencil sharpenings thrown in for good measure. Nothing happened.

Drama when I was 10 I started drama lessons. I had to quit gymnastics to do this which I was sad about but, I really loved drama lessons. In an alternative universe where I didn't get shy age 15 I think I could have done something performingy at uni.

loved being in "blitz" this when I was 13.

Secondary School
Rodents I had a Gerbil called Goliath (although a stupid girl at school told people I had a hamster called Jesus) and then a rat called Kevin and then 2 rats called Boris and Basil. The state of my teeth help me to date these pictures.

from Goliath the gerbil in the wonky teeth stage.

To Kevin the rat and braces

to Boris, Basil and straight teeth.

Adidas I'm not proud of it. I blame sporty spice and Rachel Davenport.

Recording things on my dictaphone. It was my dad's old one that came with tiny cassette tapes I used to record interviews with people. I was like a youtuber of the late 90s, except the only way I could get people to hear it was by playing it to them on my dictaphone. I've still got some of the tapes.

Stick insects They're fun for about month.

Harmonica

Goliath the gerbil was a big fan of harmonica music

Surfbrands by year 10 I wouldn't be seen dead in Adidas, it was all about Quicksilver and Converse. But my mum once delivered me an ultimatum: either I could have Converse shoes and the cheapest trainers for PE or decent PE trainers and no Converse. I choose Converse and all the PE options that are barefoot, like dance. I could have a been a sporting hero if my mum hadn't been so stingy.

The unicycle I got it for my 16th birthday before they were cool. Still love it although I wish it was more socially acceptable because its the same speed as Percy's cycling. We could do it together.

Batik I loved batik at school, I would have loved a batik pot but they are expensive so I made my own from a metal sweetie tin with a candle underneath it, and I used to just do it with a paint brush onto paper. Later on I read in a library book that Africans use starch to make batik, so then I experimented with that and was asked to demonstrate it to my class. I would have been a geek except for some reason Art along with PE and woodwork is one of the subjects you can't be a geek at.

Uni

Palestinians Just before I went to Uni I went to Palestine for a few months and volunteered. I spent the next few years following what was going on there, getting angry about it, planning to go back and maybe live there, and making most of my fine art degree stuff about it. I still love the Middle East.

Learning Arabic I tried so hard but it's an incredibly difficult language to learn. If only I'd put that much effort into learning French I would actually be able to speak some French.

Dan still my number one hobby.

Poi

Fire Poi That new year 2007 when we were all spinning fire in the park at 3am was boss.

Post uni
Blog writing In 2008 I suddenly realised that I didn't hate writing I just hated spelling and academic writing. If only school wasn't designed to kill off creativity I might have realised this sooner.

Ukulele I've always wanted to be musical but never wanted to put in the hard work. I did clarinet in school but I never got to the fun point where you can play fun songs with fun people. There's a lot of boring scales you have to learn before you can have fun, especially as the clarinet is in the stupidest key of B flat, i.e. not compatible with any instrument. Whereas the uke is in the key of fun times, where you can get to fun after about half an hour of chord learning.

Batik again In 2010 I had a real job, and could finally afford my own batik pot. Love a bit of batik. This has a bit of machine embroidery on it too. Sewing was another one of those things (like music and writing) that was hard work and boring at school, and then became fun when I wasn't being taught it for an exam.

Mosaic I learned mosaic the high risk way: pretending I totally knew how to do it, getting a job doing a big one for a school, watching youtube tutorials and hoping for the best.

Stone sculpting Can you have any more fun for £1.50 than buying a thermolite breeze block and sculpting it? I doubt it.

Comedy it all started in 2011 when a poetry night was cancelled and I went to a comedy night instead. Now I run my own comedy night and have done 2 hour long shows.

Silly videos When we didn't have a tv or kids, me and Dan would sometimes make fun videos. I'm really proud of the one we made taking the mic out of video art. And then we got into stop frame animation, which was always fun for half an hour and then very time consuming.

Interior design Since getting our current house 2 years ago I've been slowly ridding us of the demon of magnolia. I've done most of the rooms now. Next on the list is the dining room it will be duck egg and coral. Dan has no idea what that means.

Cartoon diary When Eric was a baby and I couldn't get out and do comedy gigs, I expressed my comedy/creativity through cartoons of real life parenting stories. They were fun for a while but did take a long time to do and once I was off breastfeeding and had the option to leave the house in the evenings, I couldn't really be bothered to do them anymore.

So based on all these previous things what do you think my new thing will be?

drumroll....

Excuse the fact I'm in bed.

This week I bought a banjolele. Its mum was a ukelele and it's dad was a banjo. I learnt a bit of ukulele a few years back, but I want to learn to play well enough so that I can play comedy songs without having to bring my sister along. Her and Dan did a good job of providing the music and the giant baby for my song about teething "Bonjela" which is to the tune of Rhianna's Umbrella but it would be nice if I could play it myself. So I'm going to give it a go.

Van Life

We're back from our slightly unconventional and risky holiday! We survived!

As most people will know we're not a normal couple in many ways, normal people don't quit jobs to cycle to Kuwait for fun. Normal people don't attempt to laminate ham, but in recent years we have become a bit more regular: jobs, mortgages children, bla bla bla. It's now over 3 years since I laminated ham. So we were never going to go on a conventional package holiday; staying in the sun in a nice hotel with not a lot to organise ... that actually sounds lovely. But why do that when you can stay in 6 different forms of accommodation, including a noisy stag night kind of a hostel, and a cold van with a 1 year old and a 4 year old?

We chose April as the time for a holiday because Eric will be 2 in May and your second birthday marks the end of free flights. Also we didn't realise the south of France/north of Spain is actually not that hot in April.

We chose to go between Nice and Barcelona because basically we just looked at a map and thought that looks nice. It was probably a subliminal message from seeing the name "Nice." But theres some good places on the way like St Tropez, Marseille, a nice little town called Gruissan and Perpignan. (I remember how to spell that by thinking of a granddaughter asking her grandmother who is a pig farmer "when you make sausages how many sausages PER PIG NAN?")

The View from Colline de chateaux in Nice, there's 337 steps the lift was broken so Dan carried the pram all the way!

We've always been fans on France, I love cheese and Dan came out of a French woman. He speaks excellent French on account of the French woman speaking to him in French as a baby. I don't speak French but I did once do an internship in mime, which others referred to as "the french exchange". When I do attempt to parle le Francaise I always make a bit of an idiot of myself, like the time I meant to say "I'm really happy for you" but I actually said "Je suis tres jolie" which means "I'm very pretty".

And this trip to France was no different. While buying a postcard instead of saying "do you have stamps?" I said "do you want stamps?" as if I was offering to pay for the postcard in stamps rather than money. I also accidentally said "bonjour" to a German couple in Spain and tried to pay with English money. 

After 2 days in Nice we went to pick up our Van. We have hired a motorhome once before which had a shower and kettle and built in hobs and stuff. This was not that. Technically it had a shower, if you don't mind getting naked in the street and pouring cold water on yourself. Most people mind that. Technically it had a toilet ... well it was kind of like a fancy potty that need emptying every 5 days. The potty didn't have it's own space so toilet time was family time, and if you were pooing everyone knew about it. You also couldn't flush the paper and so there was just a bag of paper you would like to flush attached to the tap of the sink.

Driving around in the day was great. As a vehicle it worked well, there was enough space when the beds were folded away and we managed to see some great beaches and interesting places. We used a company called Indie Campers their USP is that you can hire and drop off in most major European cities, so we just paid a bit extra to not do a round trip.

As a home the van was less fun. Cooking was on a one hob portable gas stove. We ate tinned ravioli twice and just for a treat one night, just to mix it up, we had fresh ravioli. Sleeping arrangements were bunk bed double beds. Eric has never slept in a bed, as opposed to a cot, before and hasn't yet learnt the skill of not falling out of bed. So the first night I slept with him on the bottom and Dan and Percy slept on top.
But when the beds are out there is really no space for 4 suitcases 2 car seats and a pram. So we had to not fully put the lower bed out. It's hard to explain but basically apart from the first night I slept with Percy in the top, Eric slept in the bottom and Dan slept in an "L" shape only half in the bottom bed. What a hero! It was cold at night in the van, so we had to boil a pan of hot water to make a hot water bottle for night time. While I was doing this I remembered that we had left our heating on at home. We were paying to heat a 4 bed house while freezing in a van. That package holiday didn't feel such a silly idea at that moment!

Obviously Percy didn't sleep right on the edge like this.

Dan and Eric

For two nights while we still had the van we visited Dan's aunty in Marseille. That was a real treat, not only did we get proper beds but she cooked us some amazing food, including lobster! All this while she herself was on a detox where she only drank homemade smoothies and the water left over from cooking vegetables!

Dan's auntie Beatrice

One of the best things about holidaying in France is having a croissant everyday for breakfast! But one year old Eric, having never left the country before was not very cultured. On waking up he would whine "honey hoops, honey hoops " so we gave in and bought some honey hoops. For some of the holiday Percy has been going though a slightly annoying "I'm bored" phase. I gave him a bit of a talking to about how lucky he was to be experiencing a different culture etc ... in that annoying patronising way mums talk to their 4 year olds. I asked him to give me an example of how things were different in France and he said that (without any sarcasm, because he hasn't learnt that yet) "French honey hoops taste slightly different to our honey hoops."

Our trip ended in the lovely city of Barcelona, I really liked it there.

It's a major city with a beach so theres loads to do, but the stand out bit for me was our local park. I've never seen a park this good. It has a tropical boating lake, some very cool plants, a statue of a mammoth, a fountain and a really cool play bit that we called "the nursery". It was like a playground with toys, and a couple of members of staff keeping control and even an indoor bit with jigsaws and blocks and stuff, all free! We hired a family bike to cycle round it.

I want to buy a bike like this and travel round the country on it for our next holiday.

Our holiday ended with a very early morning flight, we had a taxi booked for 4:15am. We thought getting up at 3:50am (2:50 english time!) would be enough to get up and dressed. Everything was packed and organised the night before, but at 4:15am I was running down the 5 flights of stairs like a maniac with a toddler under one arm and a ball and coat under the other. getting my own back on all the stag parties in the hostel with the screams from Eric.

We made it. I'm ready for a break now though.