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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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