"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.
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| 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"
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| Merry Christmas |
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