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'.
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| age 4 |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| from Goliath the gerbil in the wonky teeth stage. |
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| To Kevin the rat and braces |
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| 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
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| 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.
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....
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| 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.
