Kid Quotes of the Year

 What an absolutely ridiculous year 2020 has been, it's like 2020 looked at 2016 (the year all the celebrities died) and thought "I can do better". For the past few years I've been tweeting funny stuff my kids say and at the end of the year doing a round up of my favourite ones. This year more than any, we need a bit of humour. So here it is my 2020 kids quotes of the year, in chronological order:

Percy age 5-6

1) "Eric is too confident" - yes thats a 5 year old talking about a 2 year old.

(Photo by Lindy Rogers Photography)

2) "Mummy you have lines on your head just like Mr. Worry."

3) "Mummy I NEED to watch fireman sam so I can learn about fire safety."

4) "While you're running the bath it might be a good idea to tidy the landing" - he's referring to his mess I asked him to tidy 4 hours earlier.

5) "Mummy I don't really think I'm an omnivore because you force me to eat veg." - I'm sure the Triceratops feels the same.

6) "Mummy I love you from the ground to space, Daddy I love you from the ground to the top of a giraffe" - very sweet, but I did the maths on this and it turns out he loves me 20 thousand more times than he loves Daddy.

7) "Can Ice creams put out fire?" - I put this question on facebook and the general consensus was that if you had enough ice cream and could drop it on a fire it would help. My favourite ice cream question from Percy a few years ago was "Do ice creams don't like snow?"

8) "How big are God's ears? I think 11 houses long."

9) Me: It's 31 degrees out there that's mental.

Percy: Is it more mental than an egg that doesn't split properly?

Me: ?? (remembering back to a conversation weeks ago) Oh you mean a conjoined twin...er I guess 31 degrees is more common than conjoined twins.

10) Playing firemen:

"I put out a fire that was 100 meters big, it weighed 20 tonnes and it took all the water from the Atlantic and Pacific ocean to put it out."

11) Me: GO... TO... BED  

Percy: Mummy you're talking like a robot

12) "Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons?"

13) "If Adam and Eve were white why isn't everyone white?" 

14) "What does F...U curly C kicking K spell?" - it spells we're never taking you to this skate park again.

Percy's learnt to read and write this year. check out this short story he wrote this week:

Translation: Once upon a time there was a little boy who wanted to be a magician. He had practised and practised, he was getting better. Till one day something happy happened he was part of the magic circle. The end.

Eric age 2-3

1) "Mummy there's a fire in the lounge." - I went to look, it turns out he meant a fire place.

2) "I have 19 fingers" - he might need to work on his counting a bit.

3) Eric: "Its my baby's birthday" 

Me: "How old are they?" 

Eric: "40"

4) A game of Simon says with Eric:

"Simon says jump like a camel" 

"Simon says cuddle your hair."

5)"What is your nose stuck on with?"

6) "When I'm 91 I think I'll be grown up"

7) "Everyone in the world is my best friend"

This year I have to include a special category for Dan this year:

1) "Could a hamster use a tiny grain of rice as a tampon?"

2) Han: I'm so happy I've finished cleaning out the rabbit. (It was cold and wet outside.)

Dan: Well if I knew thats what made you happy I wouldn't have bothered learning where the clitoris was.

Merry Christmas.

P.s If you enjoyed this you can follow me on twitter where I tweet this stuff as it happens.

Or you can read the best quotes from previous years

2019

2018

2017

My Well 'Ard sister.

I have two sisters Jo and Sarah. This year Sarah got married in lockdown and got on TV and Jo had her first baby. I'm in serious danger of not making it on to my family's Christmas letter, it's a very really threat. A few years ago Jo didn't make it on because she'd just had an ordinary year doing her job as a doctor, saving lives... but that's not good enough. You need to get married, have a baby, move countries or get on TV to be sure to get on. I once had cancer and that didn't even make it on.

But back to Jo. Back in week 1 of lockdown, while everyone was making banana bread, they were making a baby. The 3 sisters had a WhatsApp call together and we all chatted for ages about how we were doing in lockdown before Jo shared the news... We were both very excited! I already have an adorable niece and nephew on Dan's side, but this is my first on this side and I know they've been thinking about it for a while, so I was very happy for her and her husband Elisha. It also brings me one step closer to my dream of being a smug parent of older children. Theres been a few family holidays when I've been up all night breastfeeding and they rock out of bed at 11am and say "lets got to the beach now" and they're ready in 5 mins but I have to pack snacks and water bottles and nappies and swim nappies, and a spare set of clothes and a bucket and a spade and armbands and then suntan lotion 2 squirming little people. And then my kid is at the beach just eating sand while Jo and Elisha are trying out surfing. I can't wait to go on a beach trip where we just shout "boys get your beach stuff!" Does that ever happen?

We had a nice online baby shower where we did a few games and a quiz about babies. Did you know the most babies born to one woman is 69? Yeah, 69 a position they should have tried. I also learnt only 5% of babies were born on their due date. Jo's baby was in that special 5%. She ended up getting induced last Saturday in the late morning and we were all taking bets on the time of arrival. Percy was the official winner with a guess of 5am but the baby didn't come out till a bit later than that at 8:35. I was up at 5:30 with the news she was fully dilated, we had a bit of WhatsApp chat.

 

Then she went for an instrumental delivery which sounded scary. I was a bit worried and praying everything would be ok. Thankfully it was all ok, he came out and is beautiful. Zachariah Edward Hastings welcome to the world.

Jo lost a lot of blood. 2.6 litres that's A LOT! Like way more than you can mop up with a tea towel. That's like a life time of periods in one go. They gave her a blood transfusion 12 hours later after she'd been fainting everywhere. I was there to support her every step of the way through her blood transfusion, by sending empathetic photos, like this one:

She had a terrible nights sleep that night, about an hour, ( and that was the second night of just an hours sleep) that is not ok! I recently talked about this on my podcast, but I become EVIL on less than 4 hours sleep. 

Because of Covid Elisha was only allowed in the the hospital for an hour a day, so she desperately needed some help and some sleep, but they wouldn't let her go because she needed either blood or what they were actually planning was an iron transfusion, but getting her more blood was not on the top of their to-do list. It was getting late and she was facing another terrible night (she'd already waited 36 hours since first loosing the blood) so decided to do a brave thing and discharge herself. She felt fine blood-wise, but knew she needed more sleep and help so she had to sign a thing to say she was leaving against medical advice even though she is an actual doctor.

Elisha was there ready to take on the role of Dad to a newborn, which is wearing the baby in a sling all night while playing computer games. I remember Dan doing a lot of that in the first few weeks. 

It's wasn't till week two when there was a time when the three of us were all asleep at the same time for an hour or 2. Sleep deprivation is the worst and probably the main reason we have decided against having another one.

Our family is now overrun with boys. I grew up in a household of 4 females to 1 male, I also had 5 female cousins and only one male, and both my parents only have sisters. But now our extended family on my side is 4 female to 7 male. I'm hoping for a granddaughter one day.

I can't wait to meet my new nephew. It's such a shame I cant just go round, my parents are going to go but we are Christmas bubbling with Dan's side this year. The last time I saw them in person was when I was doing a comedy gig in a pub in Leeds, just before they went into tier 3, and on the way back I thought "I recognise this road" and then I was less than a minute from her house so I knocked on for a doorstep chat which was a super lovely surprise.

Congratulations Family Hastings, I hope to cuddle you all again one day xx

Inside the Royal Mail

Hey. I got some lovely feedback about my last blog, which included some stuff about my new job as a Christmas temp at the Royal Mail, so I thought I'd share some more things I've discovered from inside of the Royal Mail, as if I was an undercover journalist.

I've done a few different jobs there now. I most often do tracked local parcels, but I have done letters which is easy- just sorting between first and second class, and the worst job which is the conveyor belt: someone empties out a bag of completely unsorted mail onto a conveyor belt and you have to sort it before it falls off the end into the letters trolley. It would be easy enough if it was just first and second class parcels but its not just that, it's also air mail, franked mail, A4 letters, first class tracked, second class tracked, first and second class bigger than a shoe box, and tracked bigger than a shoe box. It's so hard work and the guy putting stuff on is just going at the speed he can empty bags at, which is a pretty easy job. Here's some things I've discovered since starting this job:

1) They have a train that has a Christmas bow. I talked to the guy who drives it, he says after a couple of hours its an incredibly boring job because you don't get to talk to anyone. Yesterday as I was leaving the train (which apparently I shouldn't call a train because it's not) was going the same way as me and I really wanted to jump on.

2) The funniest things I or a colleague have seen in the post so far are: a curry, a house ridding saddle, a hula hoop, a stool sample, a box of chickens feet, a vibrating box, a real Christmas tree in a pot and fresh flowers that said return to sender. I really want to know what that guy did to deserve that!

3) Someone lost a diamond from their ring on my first day. Imagine doing 5 weeks of being a Christmas temp and all the money you earned only paid for the diamond you lost on day 1. Typical 2020 luck.

4) If you try and sit down and rest in an empty york you are heavier than a parcel and your bum will fall in and your legs will stick out and your colleague will wheel you round laughing.

5) Some people are more likely than others to have post go missing. The way they sort the local mail is into different yorks (which are like big trollies) WA8 - Widnes for example has its own York, most postcodes do, but if you live in WA3 which is somewhere in Warrington you are the most likely not to get your post. Thats because WA3 (1-3) has a joint york with WA12 and WA3 (4-9) has it's own york and the Christmas casuals are not all told about this so most will sort some WA3s in the wrong place at some point.

6) The gap in the postcode matters. When sorting mail you don't normally look at the whole address, just the first part of the postcode, so if someone with a WA1 postcode doesn't leave a gap it might go into the WA12 york by accident.

7) I mentioned this on the first blog, but fragile post is treated no differently. If you wouldn't be comfortable dropping your post from a height of 2 meters don't post it. At some stages it has to be thrown and if it's thrown into an empty york it will fall 2 meters. Putting "this way up" is completely pointless.

8) Yorks are made to be exactly the right hight for an average man. Most men (and tall women) can easily push them around and see where they are going. Most women however have to pull them backwards while looking over their shoulder or push them sidewise, which takes twice as long and probably makes men think that women are just stupid. I've had a few men tell me I'm not pushing it right, I made one bend down to my eye line and try and push it themselves.

9) If you put random stamps on your mail it will probably go first class. When I post a parcel I go to the post office and they tell me how much to pay and print the sticker. When my parents used to post things when I was a kid they'd weigh their post and had a poster that told them how much the postage was and then they'd work out what stamps they needed. The truth is the people sorting don't weigh it and they don't know if you intended first or second class so they'll always give you the benefit of the doubt. Someone told me yesterday if it's got more than 1 stamp send it first class. Disclaimer - there may be another bit of sorting where someone works it out and charges you if you're wrong I don't know, all I know is in the initial sort it will go first class.

10) All mail to Santa goes first class even if it doesn't have a stamp. The official address is Santa's Grotto, Reindeerland, XM4 5HQ. But this is actually code for some place in Edinburgh. Sorry to ruin the dream. I worked on letters last week and I found one letter not in an envelope that said "dear Santa, I want snow and barbies"

11) So far I've not seen any post for me, but I have seen 2 for my street, and 2 for Hannah Joneses that aren't me. Even if I did see some for me and had ID on me to prove it I'm still not allowed to take it home.

12) Warrington Mail Centre plays 90s radio the whole time, and the great thing about having to wear a mask is that you can secretly sing along

13) On the last day, Christmas eve, all the Christmas temps get to come in fancy dress and we make all the yorks into a massive maze. At the centre of the maze is a massive pile of parcels. When you reach the centre you get to pick a parcel that you like the look of and open it, like a big secret Santa. I wish.

One thing I would like to know is: what happens to the post that is for the mail centre itself? Does that leave the mail centre in a van and go to the sorting office only to be brought back by a postman? That would be madness.

If you're waiting for some post all I can say is I wish you luck.

3 New Jobs

The blog before last I was writing about not having any work, but now I've managed to get 3 completely new jobs. Woohoo! My favourite of the 3 actually came from a friend/neighbour Sarah reading my blog and offering me work in her house as a painter/decorator. It's the best job because it's 5 minutes from my house, it's very flexible, so I can do it when Eric's in nursery or in evenings, and I sometimes get to have a chat with my friend as I'm leaving. An indoor legal chat with an adult who isn't Dan WHOOP! I love Dan an everything, but I need more people in my life than just him. You know when people use the phrase "he's my world" well... he's one on the individuals that I often see in my world - BUT I NEED MORE.

I also enjoy a practical job where you can physically see a difference at the end of the day. I hate invisible jobs, admin jobs are my worst jobs. I was once offered an admin job and managed to persuade them to take me on as a cleaner instead. So far I've stripped all the wallpaper off, and began painting the walls and celling. I've still got painting the woodwork to go and then I can do the mural. It's a kids room and he wants gorillas and bananas painted on. Fun!

Job number 2 is supply teacher assistant for an agency. I've done this job before about 12 years ago, so I thought I'd give it a go. I did two nice enough days in a nice secondary school following round nice enough kids who need a bit of extra support. Then I did one awful half day in a not very nice school where I was the cover supervisor, which means it's just me in charge of the class. I got given a copy of the behavioural code of conduct at the beginning of the day but didn't have time to read it before kids started misbehaving. The school was also so badly laid out, across several different buildings, that it was really hard to find anything. I spent the whole first break looking for an adult toilet. In one of the lessons the real teacher was isolating but taught from home via video link and I was there for some real life crowd control. It was terrible and also really awkward that the teacher could see it was terrible. I sent one kid out but he refused to go, so I didn't really know what to do, the whole thing was awkward. At lunch I managed to find the staff room and then near the end of lunch I went to go and find out where my next lesson was only to be told I wasn't needed, which meant I could have gone before lunch and not spent lunchtime drinking awful tea with strangers. But then I couldn't immediately leave because my car was locked in a car park. A pretty annoying day all round.

Job number 3, I started on Monday night, is Christmas casual for the Royal Mail. I wanted to apply for a Postie job, because being a postie is like joining a gym except they pay you for exercising. I though it might be an alright job but when I looked the only thing going was working in the Warrington mail centre which is this absolutely massive building near Ikea. I'm doing 20 hours a week there until Christmas all 5pm till 10pm shifts. I arrived last night for my induction, I went to the wrong building twice. It turns out there are 3 massive Royal Mail buildings on that industrial estate and I've now been to all of them. I wasn't the only one, at least 50% of the others did too. Then we got a tour of the building, it's so vast! There are so many variables when it comes to post. First class, Second class, Tracked , Special delivery, letters, large letters, parcels, air mail and covid tests (they have a separate room for them). Machines can do a lot but they can't do all the jobs. I was put on parcels, which I was told by the manager was the best job there is. The people on parcels look down on the people who do letters although my team mate on parcels tells me he was on letters last year and it was way better because you get to sit down. 

So anyway I'm on Road 6 parcels. Britain is split into 8 "roads" so the people before me in the process split the parcels into one of 8 roads which are colour-coded. Road 6 is green and includes the postcodes BS, CH, LL, B, CA, GL, SY, WA, WV, ST and a few more. It's Wales, Bristol, The Wirral, Wolverhampton and a few others, so my job is to sort a mixed pile of Road 6 parcels into those separate postcodes. We have to do it by throwing, that was the first thing we learnt, there's no time for placing them into the right trollies and I quote "even if it says fragile still throw it". We met a manager who was incredible passionate about her job and can apparently sort parcels twice as fast as the average parcel thrower. When the trollies (called yorks) are full we wheel them over to by the doors so they can be loaded in the vans. The first hour or two its not very busy and you're wandering about trying to look busy and then by 7:30 it's crazy, and then just before 10 it should be all done and you wheel all the yorks to the doors, which means your little fort you were working in disappears and it's just one massive warehouse.  

You must leave your bag in the cloakroom, but they accept no responsibility for items lost or damaged in the cloakroom. the cloakroom is a clothes rail next to sign on a notice board that says "cloakroom". You get one unpaid 20 minute break but it's at least 3.5 minutes fast walk to the break room so thats 7 minutes of your unpaid break. I personally think if you're going to give someone 13 minutes to sit down and eat that should be paid. You are allowed to got to the toilet when you want to, but you have to be strategic about it. Theres no point using up your precious 13 minute break doing something you're allowed to do not on a break. After a 20 hour week I will get less money than I used to get for one day in a school in my before covid job. (It's a lot less responsibility and doesn't require admin outside of those times, but still.)

I've really enjoyed meeting people, most people have been made redundant from a previous job due to Covid. On our team there's a 17 year old boy who does college 9am -4:30 and then drives directly there to start a 5 hour shift. He passed his driving test in September crashed in October and all the money he will earn from this job will go to paying back that debt. Then there's a woman in her 30's who was made redundant from being a radio presenter, and a woman in her late 40s whose husband left her in January, the pandemic began and then she got made redundant from her job as a travel agent. That is one bad year! I hope 2021 will be a better year for her! I've also met a furloughed cabin crew member and a mum who hasn't worked for a few years because she has an autistic 4 year old, and in her own words "has decided to do something for herself." Wow, the bar is so low when it comes to mum's doing something for themselves. I guess if spa breaks are off this year being a parcel thrower is the next best thing.

P.S If you haven't yet heard of films podcast you really should. My personal favourite funniest episodes are Titanic, Gladiator and Batman. Here's the link to it in 3 different places

Spotify Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts

and Instagram

Six

 "When I was one I had just begun,

when I was two I was nearly new,

when I was three I was barely me,

when I was four I was not much more.

when I was five I was just alive,

But now I'm 6 I'm clever as clever,

 I think I'll stay six forever and ever" 

- AA Mille

Last week Percy turned six, he hasn't had a lot of luck with birthdays, he's only really had two normal ones.

When he was One he had pnemonia and was in alder hey hospital.

When he was Two we were sort of homeless (that was still quite a nice birthday, but it is weird to put on a party in someone else house.)

When he was Three we had a lovey pirate party in our current house.

When he was Four I had cancer and was recovering from an op so Dan took Percy and a few friends to a soft play.

When he was Five it was great, he took two friends to Gulliver's World and had a Toy Story cake.

But now he's Six it's a global pandemic, I hope zoom parties won't last forever and ever.

In a few more months everyone will have had a Covid affected birthday. Eric's birthday is in May and he also had a zoom party for his 3rd. I really wan't to give him another one. Imagine 50% of your birthdays being zoom parties, I bet he can hardly remember what normal birthday parties are. Do you think we'll ever blow candles out again? You're basically just spitting germs onto a cake that you share with all your friends.

But back to Percy's big day. Over the last month the restrictions got tighter and tighter until we realised we wouldn't be able to see anyone on Percy's birthday. We still managed to go to the zoo which I thought might have been shut down as a circuit breaker thing. You're not really meant to travel outside of your region but I don't think it's actually illegal.

I wanted to make the zoom party as fun as possible so I made party packs which I gave out beforehand. They had party hats and party bags and stuff to to play games with.

So for example a game that worked well was charades. Everyone had an envelope with the same 8 films listed on different bits of paper. We all had 2 minutes to choose one and decide how to act it out while everyone was muted and then we came back together and one by one acted out that film and people held up to their screen which film they thought it was out of the 8. Pass the parcel worked less well, and ended with me saying "ok everyone just open your present."

We had a lot of fun, and it went on longer than I had planned. This meant that Percys Godparents came to the door with a gift while we were still on the call, so we had to quickly sing happy birthday so we could cut the cake and give it to Katie and Mike who were stood outside in the cold. Everyone on zoom had cake in their party bags to eat too. The best thing about a zoom party is at the end you just say bye press a button and everyone disappears, no one stays chatting for another half an hour or forgets their coat or can't find their shoes, its amazing.

This years cake was a lion. Percy is very into animals at the moment mainly because he's really into the show Andy's Safari Adventure (and all the other Andy shows) it's like David Attenborough for kids. This was actually one of the easiest and yummyiest cakes I've made.

One the Saturday we went to Chester zoo, the day started well. We all said which animals we wanted to see most, Percy's favourite animal has been giraffes for a long time. The boys were running around very excited. 

But two hours in they were difficult to motivate. The weather was bad and we had to queue outside for half an hour to get into monsoon forest, which was a tropical climate indoor bit with orangutang and gibbons that were my favourite. We made the mistake of leaving the giraffes till last and by that time it was really raining, Percy had a hole in his welly and had wet socks, we got completely lost, Eric had fallen asleep on Dan's shoulder and then Percy completely gave up on the idea of looking for giraffes and just wanted to go home. 

We probably only saw a quarter of what there is to see at Chester zoo. Luckily he cheered up a bit in the car once he was dry.

This week we have stolen my parents house something, we often do when they go off on their canal boat. Because Dan is working from home all the time now he can just work from Cheshire and it's a bit of a change of scene to see a river out of the window, even if it is a rainy cold day. 

Well done to the parents who have nearly survived half term in lockdown 2. Its so hard in bad weather, missing you all. xx

Fatima and Me

My last 2 blogs were super positive about life, having recently reached the magical stage of free nursery hours. I had so many hopes and plans and I had a brilliant first day off where I did a long cycle and another day off where I went out for brunch with my good friend Katie. But in between those days has not been great. I've mainly spent them working on lots of things that haven't resulted in actually earning money. 

Being self-employed means I am often going to meetings and planning projects, or spending time on advertising or emailing, and not all of that results in actual paid work in schools. The majority of the time it does, so I don't mind if sometimes I go to a meeting to pitch my ideas, or even design a mural and in the end the school doesn't want anything. That's just self-employed life and that's why my day rate is quite high, because there is a lot of work that happens outside of a days work. I won't bore you with all the details, but the last few weeks have all been filled with planning, emailing, spending ages on designs for several different school and a cafe, that have all resulted in absolutely no work, even though some of it looked like it would be certain to go ahead.

So I thought it's time to Rethink Reskill Reboot, as the government would like me to. Except that the things I have thought about reskilling in are things you can't teach on zoom. Like plastering for example I've though about learning that. And I need money now, I've got no time to re-train, so I've signed up to a teaching assistant supply agency. A lot of people are off sick at the moment so I thought there might be some work going there. I've also signed up to be a modern day Santa's elf. (Christmas temp work at a Royal Mail sorting office.) This has resulted in me having 3 DBS checks this month. I paid £23 for one a while ago when I thought the big mural project was very likely to go ahead. Then when I joined the school supply agency they told me if I only paid £23 than thats just a basic DBS and would be no good to me, if I wanted to work in schools I had to pay £50 for an enhanced one. At the same time Royal Mail did me another basic one, because there was no box to tick for "I already have a basic one". I now also have to pay £13 for the update service, so that I continually have a DBS forever. But that's no big deal, to quote a worker from the agency "it's less than £1 a month." I was so angry about all this work I'd lost and money I'd spent on DBS checks, I went out and committed loads of crimes, to make my money back.

While I'm over here grieving the loss of what was once a great career, my 5 year old son has endless enthusiasm and confidence about his future job prospects. He came out of school one day saying something like this:

"Mummy when I'm bigger I'm going to save the world. I've got a 3 step plan. Step 1: save the animals. Step 2: plant some trees and Step 3: clean up the oceans." 

He thinks that no one has bothered trying these things before and that he single handedly can do it and fix the world. Of course I've told him theres no money in saving the world and he should retrain in cyber.

Which brings us on to Fatima. A lot has been said already about this dream crushing government campaign, but the best thing about pissing off a load of creatives is all the wonderful memes that have come out of this. Here are a few faves:

I just feel like I can't help being creative, it's how my brain works. It would be great if I had a passion for economics like my Dad and just learned to move money around in a way that creates more magical money and end up retired early in a lovely riverside house. But we can't all be magical money movers can we? You need someone to design and make the lovely riverside houses.

My neighbours left an old broken globe on the street at the weekend, and I knocked on to ask if I could have it. 

I could have just repaired it but we don't have much room for it so I've decided to make it into a lamp shade and a small side table. I just can't help myself when I see something beautiful, and I've stopped the globe going in landfill and I've stopped myself from buying a side table. I was always a maker, it's what makes me happy, and I haven't made physical stuff for ages because I spent the last 2 years making comedy, but now the comedy scene is not what it was and all my work has been canceled, making art again is keeping me sane. And I'd rather take a minimum wage day job that pays the bills and doesn't take up too much brain space so I have the time to create, than retrain in a "proper career" that I have to give my all to, just so that I can have the money to pay for all the extra childcare I'd need and afford to buy new side tables off Amazon.

In other making news me and Dan are making a podcast. It's called "I wouldn't watch". We take it in turns to force each other to watch film we love but our spouse wouldn't watch. So far I've made Dan watch Titantic and Moulin Rouge and he's made me watch The Matrix and I'll soon be watching Gladiator. After watching then have a big chat about the film and some of the themes of the film, surprising facts, silly stories and we do a credit shout out to a minor character with a silly title. Once we've got those 4 done we'll start releasing them weekly. I hope you will enjoy it!

This is Dan giving Rose a Hi 5 in that well known hand print Scene.

Shout out to all my creative friends, working hard, living their dream, we need you! xx

My first week of freedom

If you read my last blog you'll know I was VERY excited that I had finally got to the point where both kids got some form of free education, and so I had my first full day off in a very long time. I've wanted to explore the loop line, which is a cycle path by ours, since we moved here over 3 years ago. I go on it all the time but I've never been all the way up it as far as you can go. So I decided this would be a good thing to do with my first day off.

I was feeling giddy with excitement as I set off without any kids in tow.

This bit in West Derby is as far as I usually go.

Norris Green.

The loop line, or "the rala" as scousers call it, claims on signs that it goes to Southport but in reality you can only cycle as far as Aintree. I knew that in theory before I set off, but I came to know it in practice too. I thought seeing as I was going to Aintree I'd go to the retail park there. They have a Hobbycraft and I needed a tube of white paint. There are some lovely bits of the loop line but also some horrible bits, like two really long unlit tunnels that it would be super easy to be attacked in, and some bits with a lot of tiny flies and a bit of a swamp. I also passed about 70 school children on a walk.

I could see on my phone that I was getting near Aintree, but there should be a sign saying "end of the line, if you continue you'll just be stuck in a wood." I carried on thinking it would get better again, when all the time it was getting worse, to the point where I had to get off and walk my bike and I couldn't have turned it around because the path was too narrow. I went past Aintree racecourse

and the track got like this.

I could see the blue blob that was me on my map was nearly at a main road so I just kept trekking on through the mud. Until eventually I came out by a canal.

Then I cycled along the tow path to the retail park and treated myself to a drink in the M&S cafe because I'm pretty much retired now.

Luckily I took some trousers to wear over these muddy legs.

On the way back I managed to get on at a different point so that I didn't have to go through the mud again. Half way home a man cycling towards me said "watch out there's a knobhead" but then he quickly cycled off without telling me what kind of knobhead to expect. I was just coming up to the big creepy tunnel too, so I really needed to know if it was the kind of knobhead that would just shout a comment to you, or like the kind of knobhead that might stab you. I was more than happy to take an alternative route to avoid a stabby knobhead in a creepy tunnel, but since I didn't know I thought I'd give the knobhead the benefit of the doubt and carry on. He was sitting by the entrance to the tunnel and I properly stared at him to try and discern what kind of knobhead he was, but he didn't do anything.  

I had a bit of time to relax before I went to collect the boys. Percy was very excited and ran out of school saying "It was great! I didn't learn anything!" I was a little apprehensive because I've heard Year 1 is a lot harder work than Reception and they don't let them play much anymore, so I was half glad he didn't learn anything. On his time table he has 1 hour 45 of English and Phonics a day, but only one hour a week dedicated to art, music, PSHE and RE. I know I'm biased but that sucks. Over lock down he's learnt embroidery, and music production and break dancing as well as phonics and maths. So I was really excited when he came out of school on Friday saying he did "land art" and then it turned out that's just something he did at lunch time. He arranged a load of yellow leaves to look like a sunflower.

Eric has mainly enjoyed his nursery too, he was very excited to go. I spent my other 2 days off doing accounts and admin and then working on a mural in someone garden that I started in the summer. Next week I have a meeting about doing some artwork in Percy's school. I really hope it happens before things all get shut down again. 

The Monday rule change seems a bit random. We can now see other couples because we're only a family of four, but once my sister has her baby I won't technically be able to she her if her husband is there. And I can't go on a play date with another parent with two kids if either of us have partners working from home. Luckily everyone's bringing their family parties forward to this weekend because Covid can't strike till Monday.

Lockdown One was a fun novelty, a change in routine, a chance to bake bread from scratch and get on with some DIY, but really we don't need another lockdown for at least a decade now. Ughh. At least I had my one and probably only day off.

First day of freedom

Tomorrow I will have my first child free day in a long time. It's not just a one off day, it's 3 child free days a week for hopefully ever. I love my kids and everything, but imagine the things I will be able to do! I'll be able to poo ON MY OWN. I'll be able to think. I'll be able to sit on a sofa without someone sitting on top of me. I can make a lunch without having to make 2 extra lunches, I can listen to the news on the radio without having to translate it into the language a 5 year old understands and answer questions on it. I will be able to hear the glorious sound of silence!

Percy starting Year 1 today (Eric starts nursery tomorrow)

He came home from school saying "It was a great day! We didn't learn anything!"

I remember way back in the dawn of time, (2015) thinking this baby will never sleep through the night, and that I will never get freedom until he's in school and by then I'll probably have another one, but finally I have reached the sacred time of free nursery hours!

It's not like I've completely not worked since having kids. I went back 2 days a week after having Percy and that was ok for a while, and then I managed to find some other projects after Eric (I do art projects in schools). I had a good few months of work which meant I was able to pay for nursery, but then those projects came to an end and nothing else came along, so unfortunately I had to take him out of the nursery that he'd just settled into. From them on I just did comedy and airbnb for money, because that fits around looking after a toddler in the day.

It feels like a whole new world of limitless opportunities are opening up to me. (Within the hours of 9am-3pm 3 days a week in Liverpool, so still pretty limiting really.) But going from no free time to this much free time is pretty good. I'm going to split my free time into 3 categories: fun, stuff for money and house stuff.

Fun

I think this time is the time where everything gets levelled out. If you compare the effort me and Dan have put into parenting so far we've both worked hard. I've done more hours because he's earned more money, but if you count up all the extra night time hours I put in because I was breastfeeding, I think thats an average of 1.5 hours per night. 

If you include the time it takes to get back to sleep again I think 1.5 hours is a conservative estimate and thats for for 1.5 years per child. So 3 years x 1.50 hours is 1642 hours. Theres about 5 hours in a school day which means I can have 328 days off before I should start feeling bad that I'm having too much fun. So lets say I have one school day of "me time" a week there are approx 190 days in a school year, so one day a week term time is only 38 days per year. So thats 8.6 years till I've made up for breastfeeding in the night time. Which is pretty much until they're both in secondary school.

So how should I fill my 1642 hours of fun? Please let me know some things I can do! I thought about having a whole day of napping, it would be quite a challenge. I might have to then do some intense exercise when the kids are home so that I can still sleep in the evening. I would really like to cycle up the Loop Line (a cycle track right by my house) as far north as I can go. The loop line claims it goes to Southport but actually only goes to Aintree. I'd love to wild swim somewhere, but not sure where is near. I would love to spend a whole day painting. Really a whole day doing anything would be nice. I feel like I so rarely have time away from the kids that when I do I have this mad list in my head of things I should be doing. It's easier without them and it's hard to relax because it's the only time I have to do anything. 

Suff for money

I've written a list of 14 self-employed things I can try to do to make money, I'm hoping some of them will pay off. There's a project that was all agreed for June that should be going ahead this term, and I finally managed to blag a meeting with the school Percy goes to, because the head teacher phoned me about something else and while she was on the phone I managed to get her to agree to meet me. I've got a little mural to finish in someone's garden and hopefully I can get more mural work. And then there's all the comedy stuff I could start doing again. And if all this stuff doesn't work, then I could look for a real job.

Hoping to make a bigger version of this in schools sometime soon.

House Stuff

Since buying our house 3 and a half years ago I've been gradually ridding it of all the magnolia. I like almost every colour in the world except magnolia, it's just such a nothing colour that can't even be bothered to be white. Our whole house was textured wallpaper painted magnolia, with a beige carpet. But I love our house. It's a good size, a nice size garden and it's 15 mins walk to Woolton village which is super posh. But, because it's also 5 minutes walk to belle vale shopping centre, which is a bit of a dive, it made the house affordable (£132,000).

One good thing about the house is that under that horrible wallpaper is decent plaster, so if you can be bothered with the time consuming job of removing it you can make it nice without spending much money. I already decorated all the bedrooms, the bathrooms and the lounge. But now I'm trying to do the dining room. It's going to be duck egg and coral (Dan has no idea what colour either of those colours are). I'm going to try and do wood paneling on the bottom section too. Here's what I've done so far...

The space bedroom

The tropical lounge

The air bnb room

Our room

Right I need to jump in to that bed now, I can't stay up late tonight I need lots of energy for my big day off. Night. x