10 Years

My last blog post was about all the exciting things that were happening in July. Now that it's August I can update you on them.

My Interview: I didn't get the job doing art workshops with the Brain Charity. I think I gave a good interview, the feedback was that my art workshop idea was perfect, my answers were all good but evaluation is a big part of their projects because it's funded by Children In Need and so they have to show a lot of positive outcomes to get funding and I was not experienced in evaluation because in my job I work for myself and I am almost never asked to evaluate my projects afterwards in a formal way. It's a bit of a shame but so much has happened since that I entirely forgot that I even had an interview, it's only that I looked back at my previous blog.

On the same day as the interview I was asked to provide art workshops for a lunch time holiday club. Marcus Rashford's school dinner campaign means there's money to provide children who would normally get free school meals with a lunch box of food and some fun things to do. So every Thursday I go to this beautiful community garden surrounded by less than beautiful high rise flats and help the kids to make mosaics of butterflies, which will eventually go up on the fences.

Dan's game show: He didn't win any money. He had a great day and met one of his idols Lee Mack. Out of 100 people 6 won £1000 and one won £10, 000. He did fairly well though, he was in the top 25% of contestants.

Jonesfest: ended last night and was absolutely epic I'll write a whole blog post on it very soon. But to be chronological I first need to write about our 10 year anniversary holiday...

It's been a decade of a lot of change. At the beginning of our marriage we were 25 and we bought a very small house in a very dodgy area of Liverpool. Dan worked in Southport in a job he didn't like and communted by motorbike so was out the house for 12 hours a day. I had just been made redundant from a company that got me to go into school and delivering art projects and so was trying to make a go of doing that without the company and sales team that I was used to. Skip forward 10 years and we have 2 boys and a rabbit, a bigger house with a garden. we've been on a big two month cycling adventure, I became a comedian, and also have managed to do the art workshop thing off and on for 10 years. Dan has a much more local job. It's not all been great; I had cancer and we were sort of homeless for 9 months and Dan will be redundant by next month, but we are very grateful to be in the position we are in.

I've been looking forward to this holiday for about 3 years. I love to celebrate things and I knew I wanted to do something to mark 10 years since this beautiful day.

Photos by Daniel Charles Photography

I remember being dumped with the grandparents on my parents 10 year anniversary when my Dad took my Mum on a surprise trip to Paris. I was about 7 and all I really remember was one morning not being able to find my knickers and being old enough to be embarrassed to go down stairs naked and ask for help, but not old enough to think about a different solution like putting a dressing gown on. I'm sure my grandparents did loads of lovely stuff with me, but that is my only memory.

Anyway I managed to exchange that slightly embarrassing moment where I was abandoned by my parents, for 5 nights of free childcare from my parents! Totally worth it. Originally we were thinking of going to Portugal but in the end, because of the uncertainties, we decided to stick with Britain and I'm glad we did. It was less stressful and we were lucky with the weather.

We stayed in a nice hotel, in a tiny place called Lamphey near Penbroke in South Wales. Being in a hotel meant we had literally no jobs to do. The biggest chore I did all week was rinse out my swimsuit after a swim. Given that every evening after the kids are in bed we do half an hour to an hour of tidying the house this was amazing! In the run up to these days away we we so incredibly busy. I was having less than a hour of free time in 24 hours, sometimes getting up at 6 to do stuff before the kids got up and going to bed really late. It was not sustainable but I kept telling myself the more I got done the more I could relax and enjoy the holiday, which I really did.

The first day was really hot, we dropped the kids off at my parents early in the morning and made the big drive down just stoping in McDonalds for breakfast. I went to Pembrokshire once 2 years ago to visit my friend Hazel who lived there. It was the school holidays and Dan had to work but I was free all summer so I took the boys down for 5 days, an it was amazing - apart from the bit where I lost 2 year old Eric in a farm park for half a hour: that was the worst bit. But the best bit was Tenby beach, such a beautiful fun beach with an island you can swim out to. Except last time I was there my friend was at work and so it was just me and the boys and I couldn't swim out the the island. 

So this time I came prepared. We parked up after our long journey purposely left all our valuables in the car and headed down for a swim. The water was so clear, I found it refreshing on a hot day (Dan said it was too cold) we swam out towards the island to find you can actually swim into a cave and right out the other side of the little island! 

Other highlights were cycling to a castle, doing an inflatable obstacle course and jumping off a cliff into the sea.

We had a big chat about what things are important to us in life and realised we really are quite compatible! We both want more nature particularly beaches in our life, we both value journeying and adventure, not doing what everyone else does, we both want time for creativity (we are creative in very opposite ways but we highly value creating things). Lastly I value having friends round for meals and parties and inclusion of as many people as possible, whereas Dan values rest and quiet time. 

Dan has just kindly supported me in putting on a 3 day festival in our house and garden where I invited everyone I knew. So if you know Dan maybe don't drop round in the next few days while he recovers.

Heres to the next 10.