Reunited

After Helen's wedding I had nothing else planned, just waiting for a email to tell me I could see my kids again. If you voted Brexit you are the reason for this, I hope you've learnt never to trust what you read on buses again. I think a better system for moving abroad, worldwide, would be an app where you put in something like, "I want to move to America for 6 months" and it matches you with an American who wants to move here for 6 months and you swap all you rights and your house and car and everything. Maybe even it should be like wife swap and you have to live with another partner with their kids and their rules. At least 50% of those couples will get back together and appreciate their original partner more, they're good enough odds, right?

So Monday and Tuesday were trying to sell my car days. I semi cleaned it and Dan put it on auto trader. I got a lot of interest but no one was really committing to actually coming to get get it. Eventually I spoke to someone who was keen on coming, they bargained me down loads, but I just needed it gone so I agreed to it. As he was on his way up from Birmingham another guy phoned who was local and offered me full price for it. It sucks to be a decent person sometimes. My friend Esther came to visit which was lovely and we went on the paddle boards for a bit. There was a brief moment when a swan did a dive bomb and I though it was going to attack her but it was fine, and we both managed not to fall in.

On Tuesday night I got the message that my visa had finally left London, and so I was waiting to see when it arrived in Manchester. The next day I got the email I'd been waiting over three weeks for. I COULD COLLECT IT! Unfortunately I had just sold my car my dad was away with my parents car and the travel advice was not to travel. That wasn't going to stop me. I borrowed a bike, cycled to a station, got the train (they were still running fine) and then got the tram to the passport place in Salford quays. Collecting my passport with the visa in it was very simple and quick, I was so happy to finally have it in my hands. The whole trip door to door took about 5 hours but it was worth it. When I got back to my parents I looked at flight options back and chose to get one on the Sunday, from Birmingham direct to Perpignan. Partly because my parents were driving down to the midlands anyway on the Saturday, but mainly so I could see my childhood best mate Bex for the day before flying back.

Thursday could have been a chilled out day enjoying the sun, but unfortunately I had received an email from our estate agents saying they wanted to charge me £355 for a deep clean on my old house. This is an empty house, no furniture, with a new kitchen so no oven to clean or whatever. If I had accepted the car guys offer, then the difference would have almost paid for it but I didn't, so I had a big day of cleaning ahead to avoid that bill.  Mum came to help and to be my taxi, and my friend Steve also came to help. It was hard work and I kept remembering little things we should clean or fix. Like the room that was my studio had a bit of a rubbish skirting board that stuck out and meant you couldn't close the door, our solution was never closing the door properly, but that's the kind of stuff you should fix when renting out a house. We stayed until 9pm cleaning with just a quick break to go to McDonald's for tea. It looked great in the end. 

You can see a virtual tour here: https://www.lewisfoylettings.co.uk/properties/woolton-liverpool-merseyside/12-lee-vale-road-woolton-L253RW-148

On Saturday I went to see my childhood friend Bex and family in Birmingham. It worked out well that my parents were driving to the midlands anyway and they could drop me at Bex's and then Bex could take me to Birmingham airport the next morning. Bex was one of the people I really wanted to see before moving but didn't manage to, so it was really great to see her and her husband and 3 adorable kids. 

When I was born we were next door neighbours. I have just a few memories from those days because I was only six when we moved, but nearly all my memories contain Bex. She used to tell me if you eat Rice Krispies up-side-down you'll be able to fly. Which I tried a lot while hanging by my legs from her climbing frame. Then one day we decided to run away. We packed a suitcase and gave the excuse that we were "pretending to run away." Then I fell over and we went back for a plaster and then couldn't really be bothered to run away again.

They moved out to a village and then 6 months later we moved to the same village, because Bex's Dad had found us a house on the same street. Then our games continued, we made dens in the woods and climbed trees and did challenges like "what is the smallest circle you can ride your bike in while closing your eyes." We had sleepovers and midnight feasts and played a lot of monopoly.

Then in secondary school we weren't that close. She was 18 months older than me but 2 school years ahead and was trying to be cool, and I was deliberately trying not to be cool because the cool people made me mad. She was into make up while I was still into buying stuff from joke shops. Then when she was in sixth form we became closer again. That was the phase we were into setting fire to things. I went to visit her in uni halls when I was 16 and I thought going to uni was the coolest thing ever.

Last time I saw them was between the lockdowns in 2020. You know that bit when we thought it was all fine, before it became actually worse than before. We had a little holiday together in my parents house (while they were away) and recreated a childhood photo.

I had so much fun doing this. Dan took the photo while poor Doug looked after our 5 boys.

 It was lovely to see Bex and Doug and hang out with the kids and then in the evening we stayed up drinking and playing a board game. They are big board game fans, and I'm a medium sized board game fan. I love playing board games but I don't have the patience to learn new ones much. But it's nice to be introduced to new ones when other people know how to play it. I didn't super love this one enough to buy it, sorry, but two games I've bought in the last two years that I do love are Splendor which Bex introduced me to last time I saw her, and Quacks of Quedlington, introduced to me by my bother-in-law Elisha who is the biggest board game fan I know.

I was a bit nervous to get the flight as I am a bad catcher of planes! But it was all fine and easy and hardly any queueing. I imagined arriving in Perpignan airport walking out into arrivals and the boys greeting me and hugging me and it would be this beautiful moment. What actually happened was not quite so lovely. I got to the passport check bit and I was under the impression that I needed to arrive without getting a stamp in my passport. That's what happened when Dan and the boys arrived with their french ID card, they don't even have to show their passport because an ID card is a bit like a passport and they don't get a stamp so they don't get a date they have to leave by. So I thought that's what happened with my visa. So I passed the guy my passport opened on the visa page just in case he missed it and he scanned it and then he stamped it. Then in my head I was thinking he might have just undone this whole 4 weeks I've spent away from my kids, so I asked him and he just replied "you are not an EU citizen" 😭 I voted remain! 

So I went to get my bag and Dan and the boys were behind an automatic door that kept opening so they saw me looking for my bag, I took a while to find it, and we went out and hugged but I was still worried about the stamp. I was thinking that Dan might need to go back in and punch that guy. I asked Dan and he said it's ok. The visa still works I don't have to leave. Phew! Then I could relax and just enjoying being back, no one has to punch anyone. Although I'm sure if you do punch the passport guy he would apologise immediately, and tip-x out the stamp. 

Back home Dan had cleaned the house and got flowers and balloons, the boys were very excited to show me a special thing they made for me:

Errr thanks kids. Then we went and jumped in the new massive paddling pool after a bit of playing as a four. I sent Dan away for some much needed alone time as he's had the kids constantly while trying to work. In this time we invented the paddling pool olympics. With brilliant games such as cup shoot, and nose ball, which is sort of like football but swap the ball for a ballon and swap your foot for your nose. We also tried to do synchronised paddling and relay races.

They were back at school yesterday but they only have 7 days of school until the long summer holidays. Percy has a particularly fun week this week. Today he's going sailing in the morning and then to the aquarium in the afternoon. They both have every Wednesday off. Then Percy has forest school on Friday which I'm going to be a helper parent on. They had school photos yesterday which were taken by a drone! It's fair to say that they are loving french life. 

Helen's Wedding Poem

At the weekend I went to the wedding of my good friend Helen, and yesterday I spent a lot of the day writing this poem:

Fire Poi

Helen is a lovely mate,

she taught me how to spin a plate,

and it was for me a total joy,

to learn to spin some fire poi,

the memory that might be best of all,

was of a polish festival,

where I enjoyed the chance to play,

with basket weaving and with clay,

the polish arts festival "Slot"

I even managed to get the chance,

to partake in medieval dance,

in return for this fun time,

I invited Helen to Palestine,

Helen was a total champ,

with Arab kids at summer camp,

next she moved to snowy Norway,

and she invited me to stay,

we weren't posh enough for skiing,

The example basket and our basket (on her head)

a two quid sledge is much more freeing,

on new years eve we stayed awake,

to build a fire on a frozen lake,

and we all lived to tell the tail,

although there's been some transport fails,

I don't want to lay the blame, 

but we really suck at catching planes.

Back in Liverpool for a bit,

She fell for a guy she thought was fit,

an artist and a literal clown,

she followed him to his home town.

Palestine

The week I passed my driving test,

I travelled down to the south west,

that's when Helen made me try,

something odd I don't know why,

for some reason I had to drive,

while trying to keep a fish alive,

the fish was in a big fish tank,

on her lap - she's such a crank,

there was an awful lot of splash,

but thankfully we didn't crash.

Back to that clown guy from before,

the frozen lake Norway

I'm sure you're egger to know more,

It didn't work out in the end,

but they remain the best of friends.

Don't worry I will soon be sending,

hints that there's a happy ending,

Graham arrived into her life,

and in the future she's his wife!

But before that had come to pass,

first dance

Graham showed that he had class,

by playing a song that truly shocks,

and singing along to the pub duke box,

"you and me baby ain't nothing but mammals,

so let's do it like they do on the discovery channel."

Spoiler alert it ended well,

their wedding dance was Tom Odell

everyone cried with tears of glee 

to see their dance "grow old with me"

a good first dance choice- well done,

Hen Ham Bug

 I'm relived it's not the mammal one,

and now they are a team of three,

with Graham's daughter Emily,

I want to give you all a hug

you are great "hen ham bug"

"Hen Ham bug" is the collective name they have for the three of them, and it was lovely to see Emily being such a big part in the wedding. There was a bit where the three of them all said vows to each other.

I traveled down to the wedding in a van with my good friend Josh and his partner Alex, me and Josh were student housemates and Helen and Josh together are pretty much responsible for me being a community artist. Josh does a load of impressive big scale arts projects that I'd love to tell you about but this blog isn't about him.

For this wedding Josh provided a small marquee, circus equipment and a giant piñata shaped like a cake. (Yes you may have guessed by now that he is the artist/clown from the poem.) The cake was filled with sweets and confetti. There was a no confetti rule in the venue but Josh was unaware of this, and Helen was unaware of the piñata being filled with confetti. This made for a manic search for a hoover afterwards.

The venue was a beautiful old barn that was really long, that was like a nice blank canvas they could do what they liked in. We arrived on the Thursday night and I stayed at Helen and Grahams house which was full of wedding stuff. They had hand made all these paper flowers from old books painted in copper and blue, and hung them with fake ivy and hessian around hula hoops. They had also painted a load of signs and they had made candelabras from copper pipping. 

One the Friday we set to work decorating the venue, I got to do monkey duty, climbing a ladder to hang the flower hoops from the old barn beams. It was a super hot day that day, a bit of a heat wave about 28 degrees, although nothing compared to Dan and the boys in France who bought a 3 meter by 2 meter paddling pool this weekend! Being up the ladder was tiring work but also the most fun job. Helen's family arrived and everyone worked hard to get the place looking great, we put the marquee up on the side of the barn and got some of the food stuff sorted.

On the day of the wedding the weather was unfortunately cold and wet, I think the hot weather on the day before made people dress more optimistically than they should. Helen and Graham had spent the night in a hotel and I was in their house with another girl called Hannah who I haven't seen for over a decade. She drove us over to the venue (which was a long way) we were having such an interesting intense chat about life that we missed the motorway junction and had to go a very long way round.

Me, Hannah, Cat, Helen, Will, Josh about 2006

Rach, Me, Helen, Hannah, Alex, Josh, Cat 2022

The structure of the day was different to most weddings. At most weddings couples pick a totally random time for a meal that they would never normally eat at like 4pm, and then the ceremony will be at 12 and no one will have eaten before then, so everyone will be hungry. But this wedding was the opposite, there was a constant stream of food! The day started with a buffet lunch which made it a lot more relaxed and no one noticed that me and Hannah weren't completely on time. They had two big long rows of tables and you could sit anywhere. Then we all moved our chairs to the front stage bit for the ceremony. They had already done the legal bit in a church before, so they could say what they wanted for this bit and they didn't have to go off and sign a register. Legal documents really have a way of bringing down the tone of a party. Right this minute I'm on hold to my car insurance to cancel it because I sold my car yesterday and to get them to send the no claim bonus through for our french insurer, if I was also hosting a party it would be a terrible one. but maybe we should always host parties every time we do a boring document just to make it less boring.

There was no formal time to sit down with speeches, we had canopies, then Pizza, then late night nachos and ice cream. Instead of a toast with Champaign, we had shots! There was a blackboard with a tally chart for what shot you wanted. A lot of people did not how to do a tally THE FITH LINE CROSSES THE OTHER 4 LINES if you can't remember that then you're too young or too drunk for more drinking. 

For music during the day it was sort of like a karaoke but in a good way. It was mainly their daughter Emily and a few of her friends singing and playing guitars but it was kind of unstructured and open to other people having a go.  Emily is really good at music even though she's apparently only been playing the guitar for 6 months. Later in the evening there was the first Dance and then the second and third and forth dance and then more dances. The DJ had cool lights and everyone got into it. I left at 10:30 because I'm a loser, but I still had to stay up till 1am because me and Hannah only had one key between us.

It was a beautiful day with some of my favourite people that I don't get to see a lot anymore, Thanks for having me Helen and Graham. 

Naked Cyclists and the Poo Removal Man.

 Hello, this is a blog about what I hope is the second half of my weird time in England waiting for a visa. Hopefully this week I will be back in the sunshine with the family.

I'm back for "10 to 15 working days or maybe more"- thanks for being specific french consulate. It's 3 weeks today since I left France, but because I don't think the day of the appointment counts, and because of the silly queen holidays I think today is only the 12th working day.

So I've been traveling around seeing people and working on getting my old house nice to rent out. I went to Bradford and Newcastle (see previous blog) and then I went canal boating with my parents.

My parents spent 5 weeks traveling less far than I did when I went to newcastle for 24 hours. If you can't decide whether you want to stay at home or go on holiday, canal boats are a great way of doing neither. For my parents this is a good compromise, my Dad loves sailing and adventure and my mum likes to stay at home and unnecessarily label things that don't need labelling. 

So I joined my parents for two days of their journey from Manchester to Runcorn, I got the train in and found them at a cool marina in New Islington which is pretty central. We went out for a meal on the first night and as we were eating, about 100 naked cyclist cycled past! I'm not sure if it was a protest or like just a fun activity, but I saw so many old people's bums.

The next day we were up early to go through the center of Manchester. There are so many cool and fast ways to travel down hill: skiing, slides, go carts, or if you're in a canal boat you can spend ages cranking open a underwater door in a lock, waiting for the water levels to be the same, then opening the lock to allow to boat in, before closing the lock. Then doing it all again 10 times until you've gone through the centre of Manchester slightly down hill.

The nice marina where we started

We went through some dodgy bits, there was this tunnel that is often a place people go to take drugs or partake in "lewd, obscene or sexual behaviour" This surprised me a bit because I thought that with the invention of dating apps people could arrange to have sex in nicer places, and didn't just have to wait around in tunnels anymore. 

We went right past the comedy store, which made me a bit sad. I was really lucky to do a gig there right at the beginning of my time of properly trying to be a comedian(2018)  and then I eventually got offered a paid 20 minute slot which I was excited about and then covid happened. 

The Comedy Store

Big respect to all my comedian friends for just continuing to put yourself out there, when progress seems very slow. You get the occasional moments of being like "this is the best thing in the world" but mainly it's just a lot of hard work and driving. For me I was working so hard that when covid hit I was pleased for a break and then I just never properly went back, and when the France opportunity came along I thought this is the next adventure for me. But there is a bit of me that is sad not to be doing it still. I like that the france thing it's a whole family thing not just me going out on my own at night. Although it's pretty ironic that I'm now here on my own.

Once we got out of Manchester it was a lot more how I imagine canal boating to be, lovely villages and fields of cows. No more watching my mum awkwardly step over a sleeping homeless person to do a lock. We stoped at Streford marina to fill up with fuel and empty the poo tank. You pay an old guy £15 to suck it out the boat with a big see-through hose so you can see it all. Eww. While he was doing that I cheeky asked him if this was the job he dreamed of doing when he was a child. He told me he has achieved his all his life goals. He is really into playing the flute and he managed to buy the best flute there is for 19 thousand pounds. I asked if he was in an orchestra, and he said no he just plays it on his canal boat in the evenings. It just goes to show you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover. I always think of the flute as in instrument played by 12 year old girls (sorry) but now I will think of it as an instrument played by an old man who pumps out people's poo in the day. He seemed genuinely happy with his life so good on him. I was once told that I look more like a dancer than a comedian and I'm still trying to work out if that was a complement.

Originally I was going to join my parents for 4 days but I had a lot if extra work to do on my old house so I cut it short to two days, but then when my sister Jo and her husband said they were planning a kid free trip to alton towers on one of those days I decided if I worked really hard for one day I could squeeze in an alton towers trip, sorry parents, but canal boating is like the slowest ride ever and I need more excitement than that. 

Last time I went I was 18 and Oblivion was the newest coolest ride. It's a roller coaster with one massive drop where you art stuck at the top for a bit tilting over the edge and then do a fast vertical drop into a hole in the ground. Last time I went, we queued for hours to go on that for about 1 minute, but now that ride is old and not that bigger deal. So we got there first and there was no queue at all for it, we actually could have stayed on and gone round twice. I've never been on a normal not peek times day before, it was so good! We didn't wait more than 20 minutes for anything and we went on all the big ones. I really like this one called Rita because it's different to a lot of roller coasters, most start by slowly going up and then have a drop, but this starts by going really really fast- 0-60 in 2.5 seconds.  I also liked this one called 13 because it was a surprise, you go round and it's just like a normal roller coaster, and then you think it's ended and then you drop down a level so you're underground and then go backwards in the dark. If you haven't been on it I've just ruined that surprise for you.

Jo and Elisha next to Nemisis, my favourite ride from the early 00's 

My next days were working on the house which was boring an annoying, the builders hadn't done anything for two weeks and all this time we're paying the mortgage and council tax on an empty house. and I had one random day of work teaching drawing skills in a primary school which I actually really enjoyed. That evening I went out drinking with my school run chums in a caravan in my friend Steve's garden. It was the best combination of going to the pub and camping where we all had a good time and then I slept over, but unlike real camping I had the key to get in the house and use a real toilet in the morning. 

Next blog I will write about Helen's wedding I was going to write about it now but, it deserves it's own blog.

Solo Parenting

 A lot has happened since I last wrote, between us, me and Dan have been to 5 countries! We are in the middle of a strange month where apart from a day and a half, me and Dan will not be seeing each other and the kids will just have one parent at a time. If there's mistakes in this blog it's because Dan isn't here to proofread it, apologies.

Dan's company is based in the Czech Republic and although he works online and wasn't being forced to go there, we decided he should take the opportunity to go on an expenses paid work trip there. The timing and the travel there were pretty annoying though. This all happened just before I had to go back to the UK to get my visa, and at the same time Dan's parents came for a visit. He had to go to Burno which is the second biggest Czech city after Prague. We spent a long time researching how he would get there. It sort of seems like it would be easier now, that there's no sea between us and the rest of Europe, but even though the distance from Liverpool to Burno is the same as the distance from Perpignan to Burno flights would have been easier from the uk. The best he could do was a train from Saint feilu d'amont (our village) to Perpignan, then a train to Barcelona, then a taxi from the station to the airport, then a plane from Barcelona to Vienna (Austria) then a bus from the airport to the train station, an then a train the Burno. because of all the extra waiting around in between traveling, the total journey time was 15 hours it would have took 17 hours to drive.

So I had a week without Dan, beginning with my first drive without him, just driving the mile back from our local train station, it felt weird but it was fine I managed to avoid driving into a ditch which is my main fear on those little roads. Two days later I decided to go for a much more ambitious drive to the big shop, to get in some supplies before Dan's parents arrived. I was pretty terrified but the reward of having a bit of kid free time in the clothes shop next to the big supermarket was enough to motivate me. The big shop is 3 villages west. We're sort of near a big main road between the mountains and the sea. So everywhere you can go easily is east of west rather than north or south. So the drive is very simple to navigate but terrifying to do for the first time on your own.

It totally was worth it though, I got 2 nice tops and a pair of shorts from the fun clothes shop and even managed to ask to keep the hangers in Mench (mime and french) and I got a load of food.

Later on that week Dan's parents came to visit, it was a badly timed trip where they hardly saw their own son, but it was great to have them,  because even though Dan's mum is from the opposite end of France, they have still traveled round this area lots and know some cool places. The kids actually had a few days off school when they were there too because ascension day, means two days off school in France, plus Wednesdays are off anyway, so it was a two day week all thanks to Jesus. I bet it took him less time to go back to heaven than it takes to go from Perpignan to Burno.

The first full day they were there was the only coat day I've had since moving to France. It was grey and a bit rainy just like England. They decided we should go on this yellow train up a mountain. My french mother in law bought the tickets, and although I was trying to listen in for language practise neither me or my father in law picked up that the train options were: go up the mountain for a hour and they stay all day somewhere where there isn't loads to do or have 4 minutes to change train and come back again. So we were a little disappointed to just be on a train for two hours, but on the way back we switched to the outdoor bit of the train which although cold actually was like ridding a roller coaster through beautiful scenery. On a nicer day it would be incredible.

They also took us to hot springs, which was like an outdoor pool that was bath temperature, it would have been a bit weird on a hot day but it was the perfect cold day activity. I'm going to go back for my birthday in January when the pool will be surrounded by snow. I hate having a winter birthday, I'm just not a winter person, the last two summer I've put on a weekend festival in my garden and people always ask "what's it for?" what are you celebrating? and it's not celebrating anything, I guess I'm just a big party animal trapped in the body of a mum of two with a winter birthday married to an introvert. 

But maybe from now on I can do snow based activities on my birthday. Did you hear my business idea "wizzney land?" I feel like I must have written about it before. It's snow fun for people who can't be bothered to learn to ski or think they're not posh enough, and want to just mess around on tires and sledges while learning nothing.

That was a tangent...So anyway the next day we went to a mountain/hill you can drive up and see the view over everywhere! you can see our local mountain our village and all the villages near, and you can see right out to the sea. It's very windy but spectacular. There was actually a bit more snow on our mountain, from the previous cold day but by lunch time it had gone again. When we arrived in April there was a good amount of snow still but by the day I left there were just tiny lines of snow like cracks. I wonder what month the snow will come back again.

For a long weekend we went to a holiday park 5 minutes walk from the sea. It was like a little mobile home with a really good pool with water slides and palm trees. It was a strange feeling being kind of on holiday, but also being half an hour from my house, and then Dan not being there and feeling stressed about going back to England to get the visa very soon after that. I tried to relax the best I could but it was quite odd. One evening after the kids were in bed I went out to the beach to explore, they had the festival of islands on, with music and stalls from Tahiti and those kinds of places. They had a big stage with a screen and projected onto it was a beautiful image of a white sandy beach. But that screen was blocking the almost as good beach of Argeles. I don't know if anyone else found it ironic. Part of the festival was  cooking a whole pig under the sand somehow. I don't know how but it involved hot coals and a lot of foil.

The beach they covered up behind a picture of another beach

We collected Dan from the main train station just before midnight on the Saturday so we had Sunday together at the holiday park, before I headed back to England late on Monday night.

I got the plane very late on Monday night, back from Barcelona at the same time as Dan's parents. The plane was delayed by a bit more than an hour which was annoying given that there was already such a long wait before boarding. but coming back and hearing some of the news stories about flights being cancelled, I feel so lucky to have got back at all. My visa appointment was the next morning and if I'd have missed that it would have been a disaster. I wouldn't be able to get another appointment until about august and by that time some of our documents would have expired. and I can't just come back in august because Dan can't take august off work to look after the kids. He can only do it now because they're in school and even then he has to take Wednesdays off work. 

I got to bed at my parents house in cheshire around 2:30 AM and set several alarms so as not to miss the appointment. I still have my car here, but my parents aren't here they on their canal boat traveling on the Leeds Liverpool canal. I got to the appointment which was really horrible, the stress of knowing that if I had forgotten something or done something wrong I would not be able to see Dan and the boys for months was horrible. I parked somewhere I might get finned for because in the grand scheme of things a parking fine is not important. There were severals things they did not like about my application. Firstly it was on cream paper not white paper and that was not acceptable to them. Secondly my photos were wrong and need to be taken again. but it got sorted the lady said it would work and then sent me to get my finger prints taken.

The next few days I was back in Liverpool trying to get my old house nice and all painted white for the new tenants. An estate agent have taken over the house and are putting in a new kitchen. So I've been painting for a few days and I've been lucky enough to go and visit a local friends every lunch time and tea time including my old rabbit Lola, still going strong after nearly 9 years!

I've had a bit of a falling out with the estate agents, they were pretty rude and unprofessional to me and it was stressful to try and resolve it. It's semi resolved now but I am a bit worried they will do the equivalent of a waiter spitting in some soup, like leave a dead fish behind some plasterboard or something. Does this happen? Do all professions have an equivalent thing they do when they're annoyed? I did once talk about putting a secret rude message on a mural that you could only see under an ultra violet light.

At the weekend I organised a bit of a get together with two families I know from the school run at my parents river house. 80% of the children didn't fall in the river. That's good isn't it? I just checked and you only need to get 70% to get a first class degree. So I'm sure all the parents were pleased with my first class play date. The oldest child 10 year old Rosie, wanted to try out kayaking but wasn't very confident in the kayak, she had never done it before and didn't know how to use the paddle. I should have given her an on land lesson first but instead I offered to go in with her. I was sort of squatting down behind her because there wasn't quite room for both of us, and this actually worked fine and wasn't a terrible idea. 

We went down the river a tiny bit and then a canal boat came past, it was going pretty fast for the world's slowest boat. This made some waves which we copped with ok, we faced them head on and we were fine. We tuned round to head back and then suddenly- I don't know how, I was in the water. and then she was in the water which was a much bigger deal because she was already panicked just about being in a boat. This is the first time I've ever unintentionally fallen in that river. I was wearing full clothes and shoes and a non waterproof watch. Thankfully we both had life jackets on but Rosie was trapped under the boat, her head went full under, she swallowed a mouthful of river water and shouted "I'm going to die!" 

I managed to pull the boat off her and push her towards the edge, we were only meters away from my parent's neighbours decking so we just climbed out there and she went to go and get changed. I then needed to rescue the boat and paddle which were floating away so I just jumped back in and swam them back to our decking.

The day ofter that I did a little job painting a mural of a pokemon on a kids wall, in between painting my own house. that was a pretty full on day but now I'm off on my UK tour, last night I visited my sister Jo in Bradford. We went to a very quircky cafe today where she ate ice cream in a yorkshire pudding with chocolate gravy. It actually tastes kind of like eating an eclair. 

Then I went to Gateshead to visit my good friend Lydia and her family. It was her mission to convert me to the north east, and she did a good job, they do have much better beaches than the northwest, and they took me surfing! 

I loved surfing, I'd love to get into it but our bit of sea (the med) is not wavey enough. It was an off and on British sunny day, Lydia offered me suncream, Ha I thought I don't need suncream I've just spent a month in the south of France, your northern sun can't touch me....

The tour continues with 2 days on the canal boat with my parents a trip to alton towers and a visit to Wiltshire for a wedding. (and a few days of work) and then I really hope I can go back to France and seeing Dan and the boys. Poor Dan has had virtually no contact with any adult humans. He's definitely owed a very big lie in when I'm back. Obviously I'm missing them and missing the sun (I did not bring enough warm clothes here) but I'm trying to make the most of all the things I was missing about England, like roads I can drive on easily, British TV, better milk, baked beans and hallomi. 

Thanks for reading this far!

P.s If anyone wants to buy a 2007 Toyota Auris off me for £1000 let me know.