Kid quotes of the year 2023

   It’s that exciting time of year again.

 The time where we reflect back on our hopes and dreams for the year? 

No it’s the time where I write down all the weird stuff my children have said. 

“Mummy how do you milk a ghost?” Was a classic from a previous year. Possibly the best question I’ve ever been asked. Often HMRC tweet “please tweet us with your general questions.” And sometimes like to pass on some of the general questions I’m having to answer “do tattoos last in heaven?” For example.

So anyways, let’s get on with it. 

Starting with Percy who turned 9 this year:

1) “I don’t know what it’s called….a woman willy?”

2) (When he was with me buying tights) “I guess M stands for Mario and L stands for Luigi” …it’s medium and Large you crazy boy.

3) “It’s a funny feeling in my willy but I like it!” (Percy describing being on the big swing)

4) “Well my mum’s got an art degree and she says it’s a crayon” ….day 1 of art school that.

5) Me: I really want to break a Guinness word record one day.

Percy: don’t worry mum if you don’t we’ll do most rubber ducks at a funeral.

6)  “Stop showing off Mummy you’re going to hurt yourself” ….but once you’ve mastered riding a bike all mum’s teach non handed bike riding right?

This year is the year they became properly bilingual so I’m probably missing some funny quotes out by not being fluent in french. I’ll work on getting some French ones in here next year but in the mean time here some quote from Eric who turned 6 this year.

1) “Hey see that black mark on the wall? That’s where I punched a fly to death”

2) (Dan had a rip in his shorts) “why don’t you poo yourself and let the poo fill the gaps?”

3) Eric: I think I’m going to go to Asia?

Me: oh really when?

Eric: when I’m 55. 

4) Me: what do you want to do today boys? 

Eric: get loads of money.

5) “Hey God, want a water fight? It’s time for one.” It’s safe to say Eric lost.

6) “If Jesus died in a waffle he could have just eaten his way out.” I guess that is a fact. Although the stone being rolled away does have more of a visual impact for Easter cards than just crumbs of a waffle.

7) “I’m playing the guitar with my willy”

8) Erics Joke: what do you call a statue made of sausages? …a pig.

And now for a few joint quotes:

1) Life plans:

Percy: I will marry a french woman because I want to live in France and if I married an English woman I would have to do the French paperwork for her.

Eric: I will marry an English man or woman and I will teach French in England.

2) unemployment advice:

Dan: I’ve lost my job so I will be looking for a new one.

Eric: Daddy what do you love to do?

Percy: It doesn’t matter what he loves to do Eric, he’s got to find a job so we don’t all perish!

3) Fun times

Eric: hit me with that pillow again!

Percy: where?

Eric: The tongue!

If you have enjoyed these you can see past ones by following these links:

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

And future ones as they happen by following @comedyhan on twitter.

3 Christmas Miracles

I thought I should write a quick follow up blog to the last one before the craziness of Christmas starts and I forget it all. Thanks for all the comments and messages after the last one, I really was overwhelmed by the response, some of it from people we hardly know. A lot of good things have happened since then and things are looking up. But before the good things happened things got worse…

First me and Dan both went to do some random work for some fellow brits we met recently, I went to do house painting and Dan went to do gardening. Dan returned for a second day, but on the way back he drove into a pot hole. He got a flat tyre but managed to change it on the side of the road and put the skinny space saver one on (apparently the French call it  galette, which is a savoury pancake) it was annoying. But these things happen, and Dan thought it would be easy enough to get it fixed. Except it wasn’t and it turned into a big complicated expensive thing, all the money we earned between us in those 3 random days of work went on fixing the car.

It wasn’t just a money issue though, the main stress was we are leaving for Barcelona tomorrow to get the plane to Liverpool. So it had to be fixed for that big journey, which we have already bought non-refundable car parking for. It wasn’t just a tyre that was flat the actual wheel was damaged. I don’t know a lot about cars but I imagined wheels are standard things you can just buy from anywhere. I’d say if a three year old can name the car part it’s not that specialist and should be available everywhere. But after a whole day of Dan driving round the city on the pancake tyre he still couldn’t find the kind of wheel we needed. We looked at ordering one, and it might have come in time for Barcelona but it might not have, and I didn’t want to deal with the uncertainty, so we were about to book the bus to Barcelona when we saw some guy selling the right kind of wheel second hand, so Dan managed to get over to him and buy two and fit them himself. That was the first Christmas Miracle.

The second Christmas miracle happened while he was fitting the wheel. He got an email saying he had an interview for a job with Bla bla car, (doing writing stuff not driving.) he’s now had that first interview and is through to the second round.

And the third Christmas miracle was money related. I mentioned last time Dan did this trial job for an english speaking magazine, he did 3 days a week for a month about 96 hours. He should have got minimum wage plus commission but his boss has decided that 500€ is enough. After social security contributions it comes to 4.06€ per hour, less than half of minimum wage. I was up for fighting it but Dan just wants to move on. However we have been very blessed with some unexpected money from several different places, and we’ve both been offered some extra short term work in January. So even if Dan doesn’t get the new job, January will be ok, and we have a bit more of a buffer to feel more relaxed about doing some Christmassy things, like taking our kids out to a big Christmassy market/fun fair thing today. So overall we’re feeling very grateful.

November

Back in July I wrote a blog called “losing a job and finding a job” about Dan losing the job he had when we moved here and me finding a little job teaching English. (They were in no way equivalent, Dan’s was well paid full time and mine was 4 hours a week.)

Then the last blog I wrote was about Dan starting a three month trial working for an english speaking magazine, unfortunately the trial ended after just a month because she didn’t feel like it was working. He’s not sold enough advertising, but he’s never worked in sales before and he’s not been given any training, so it’s hardly surprising. She’s now refusing to pay him the full amount which is only minimum wage anyway and is asking him for an hourly breakdown of everything he did in November. What psycho can remember what they were doing at 2pm on 3rd November? It turns out he’s actually joining a big group of people who have all had a bad experience of working there. Not a fun club to be in.

We began the month of November so full of hope, it was still sunny - I was out roller skating with Eric just wearing a t-shirt. (And bottoms of course I’m not a flasher.) Imagine roller skating in JUST a t-shirt! 

I started another new mini job at a school in Prades (towards the mountains) just on a Tuesday morning. The school has the best views, one morning all the kids were out in the playground facing the mountain doing yoga, what a cool way to start the day.

Anyway I now have that job teaching English in a School, I teach 3 old ladies (which I really enjoy) and I teach at two different Wednesday English/fun clubs. There’s no school on Wednesdays so kids are free to go to extra circular stuff like sports clubs or English. So my work is going ok, with all the planning and doing TEFL it felt full time but in terms of hours I’m being paid for it’s not really. But it felt like we had turned a corner, I had work, Dan had this new trial job everything was going to be ok.

Except it wasn’t. Without wanting to over share too much, it’s not going well at all, we’re living off our rapidly disappearing savings and something needs to change. We still have received no help from the government because we haven’t quite been poor or French long enough. The irony is they have such a good and generous system for people who lose their jobs. It’s kind of too good, good enough for people to get a contract job and then not do it well and be looked after by the state at a cost to businesses. But if you’ve not been here long enough or you’re self-employed there’s no safety net.

This week a load more things have gone wrong too, I got my first ever speeding fine for doing 86km/h in an 80km/h zone and I have to get a point on my licence and pay a fine. We did something wrong on a form and now we don’t get free health care, and the car got a flat tyre today. It’s been a mad week.

I remember feeling a bit like this at Christmas time 2016. A different situation, we had jobs but no house, we had been living with a family since May after buying a house had gone badly wrong. I was heavily pregnant and Percy was 2 years old. We had found a different house to buy but it was taking forever and there were many stressful complications. It felt like we would never move. When I was clearing away my Christmas decorations from our bedroom in January 2017 I wrote myself a little note to find the next year. If I thought I was ever going to share this I would have written more neatly. 

In 2018 as I got out the decorations and pulled out the note that I had totally forgotten about, I cried! Maybe I need to do it again this year. (Except for the fact I didn’t bring any Christmas decorations stuff here it’s all in my parents loft) I hope next Christmas we can look back on this time and feel blessed with what we have. Apart from money right now we are very lucky. We live in this incredible place, our kids are so happy here, we’re making friends and meeting people. I don’t feel like we need a lot more to be happy and when things do start looking up for us I really want to embrace life, do fun things and live in the moment. I’ve been reflecting on our time here when Dan still had his job, and even though there were loads of amazing times, where I felt very grateful, I also often thought about what times would be like if we were still in England. I went through phases of missing my job or my friends or being a comedian when I should have been just enjoying the fact I was in the south of France, not having to work because Dan’s job allowed me to spend over a year just learning French and making art. I do need to work now and that’s ok, even if we didn’t need the money it wasn’t ever the long term plan for me to not work. But when we can I want to embrace everything that’s great about our lives because there really is a lot to be thankful for.

New Jobs

After losing his job in August Dan finally started a new job today. It’s been a tough time to be honest, last time he lost his job was the best job losing time he’d ever had. He was made redundant but given 3 months notice, he got a couple of month redundancy pay but managed to find a new job that started as soon as he finished the old one, he negotiated to get paid the maximum amount and the job meant we could move to France.  

This time he was given only one month notice, and no redundancy pay, they weren’t clear about why they were getting rid of him and if he had a contract they couldn’t have got rid of him, but because he had to be self-employed in order to pay tax in France it was easy for them to get rid of him. And it’s been a really long time of looking for jobs. Looking for a job is a full time job. He’s not had much of a break, the kids have been off school a lot, and there’s been a lot of dull tasks that needed doing.

But he’s started a job today with P.O Life magazine, which is an English speaking magazine for the Pyrenees Orientales region not a magazine about the private life of red tellytubby. His main job is to sell advertising space to local companies that want to advertise to English speakers. But he also has to deliver the magazine all over the region. Which is what he’s doing today. He’s a glorified paper boy, and he loves it when I call him that. One of the coolest things about the job is that he gets an electric company car. At the moment he’s just working part-time, he gets minimum wage plus a commission for selling the advert space. Dan was a bit nervous because he hasn’t done selling before but he’s looking forward to the challenge and it’s a great opportunity to work in French as well as English and get to know all the local businesses. 

I’ve also got a bit of a new job. In September I started working in “The English House” which is a fun club for kids where they learn English through games and stories and crafts. It’s on a Wednesday because kids don’t go to school then. Then a few weeks ago I was given a new job in a school in a village towards the mountains. It’s just for Tuesday mornings but it could be the way into more schools work, because it’s with a company that sends teachers into several different schools. They give you all the lesson plans and workbooks and audio files and a billion flash cards and you go in and teach. It’s will be pretty intense because it’s just 5 half hour classes back to back, but all the lessons are not the same because they have to be adjusted for the age of the pupils, from age 2 to 11. 

Photos from my cycle commute to my Wednesday job.

I’m also still teaching this older lady who comes to the house every week, that’s pretty fun and chilled though. One week I taught her how to make pancakes. I’m still trying to catch up on the rules of English by doing a TEFL qualification, because I don’t know any pattens for anything I just know the answers, because it’s my first language.

I feel weird about being here at the moment, two blogs ago I was saying how settled I was and how I loved it but now I feel a bit odd. I think the fact we were just living off our savings for the past few months and we can’t really plan ahead hasn’t helped, but also it’s hard feeling like you will never have a genuine friendship with someone who isn’t an English speaker. Tomorrow is the last day of the two week October half term, that’s too long right? I’ve had the kids all day and they’re not particularly difficult, but it was raining for the first day in ages today so we stayed in all day and played board games and did crafts and they played computer games. And I was thinking, “what did I do before in the holidays?” And I realised I went to see a lot of people, I had play dates where the kids would go off and play together and the grown ups would all drink tea and gossip and I miss that. There’s not many people I do that with here, and I have to import my own tea.

I don’t want to make anyone feel bad for me, there are a lot worst things going on in the world than me missing tea and gossip, but I just wanted to be real. I don’t want to always chat on about how it’s 26 degrees and people are having a BBQ (that happened yesterday 1st Nov). Hopefully sledging fun will soon commence, but for now if you have tea and gossip opportunities don’t take them for granted. X 

Dan at the river yesterday

Nine

Yesterday was Percy’s birthday, and it was a great one! He’s had several less than ideal birthdays. He spent his first birthday in hospital with pneumonia, on his fourth birthday I was recovering from an operation and couldn’t come. Like everyone he had a lockdown birthday, and last year we had been in France just 6 months so he choose not to have a party with friends because he felt like he didn’t know anyone enough, and his French was obviously not as good as it is now. But this party was up there with his epic spaced themed 7th party, it was a laser quest party with a few school friends and a lot of sugar.

It’s the beginning of the two week half term here and my parents made pretty last minute plans to visit. They were asking me about coming in the spring, but we don’t really know our plans yet, everything has been very up in the air job wise, and we have other friends hopefully coming at Easter, so it turned out like October half term is actually perfect because we didn’t really have any plans, and the flights were very cheap. 

After making those plans though the language school that give me free French lessons called an information day. Unfortunately I couldn’t go because it was on a Wednesday, which is the day I teach English. But I heard from people who did go what the information was: a new course is starting tomorrow. Four days a week, starting tomorrow. I don’t want to complain about free lessons, but a little heads up would be nice. Anyway I’m going to what I can, and I’ve met a fresh group of refugees. 

I think when you leave a country you should be given hundreds of stickers with your flag on and a sticker book then you have to try and fill it with the stickers of others. As a Brit I would be quite rare in these lessons that are mainly filled with refuges, I’ve never met another. New stickers I could have collected (if this was a real policy) are Eritrean and Syrian, there’s also Moroccans and Ukrainians but I’ve already had loads of chance to collect their stickers. My rarest sticker would be a Thahitian a Tahitish? Someone from Tahiti.

That was a huge tangent. Back to Percy, as a nine year old he is very smart, thinks deeply, he’s started trying to make word based puns, sometimes bilingual ones, loves to follow rules and sometimes struggles with his rebellious mum. He recently said “stop showing off mum, you’re going to hurt yourself.” (I was showing him the essential life skill of riding a bike with no hands.) He loves Lego, quite complex board games, but not losing them, Mario, reading and saving the world. They’re his top hobbies.

He’s constantly trying to think of ways to save the planet after seeing first hand the forest fires that happen here in the summer and the flooding that has happened at my parents house in Cheshire. While my parents were here their street was flooding again, no where near as bad as last time but enough that they needed to be in contact with their neighbours to be updated on the situation. Percy asked me “could you get a boat of water from there and take it here because we need water and they have too much.” I’m guessing it wouldn’t be cost effective, but someone should look into to that. It’s definitely a better idea than when Trump asked scientists to look into injecting bleach to cure Covid.

He did laser quest for his birthday. We had a little room for party food, he could go and play at this big playground place and then he had two 15 minute slots in the laser place. I went too but trying to help my team who had mainly never done it before, in the dark in French was a challenge. Especially because I was talking to my own kids and Dan and one other kid in English, but everyone else in French. It’s lovely to see Percy with his French friends here, they seem a really kind bunch of kids.

His requested cake: caramel and chocolate. 

We did a few nice trips with my parents too. We went to the hot springs where we’ve been a few times. It’s an outdoor pool that’s the temperature of a bath. I don’t know why all pools aren’t that temperature. Except for on a boiling hot day, it’s amazing. We also tried out the Velotrain which was so fun, and in a really beautiful location. Unfortunately Dan and Eric were a bit ill and had to stay behind. And then we all got ill. I think we’re over the worst now.

Next time I will write about jobs because me and Dan both have new ones.

Last minute edit: turns out we’re not over the worst of it, Eric’s just been sick all over the sofa.

Weird Weekends

Recently I did a cleaning job. Because now, that Dan is unemployed, I do random stuff for money. If you have any random jobs either of us can do let me know. If you're reading this and you live outside of my region of France, I can't be your cleaner, but what about your virtual cleaner? 

I'll set up a regular zoom meeting, let's say twice a week, and I'll watch you clean. It's the best of both worlds because you won't have me snooping round your stuff or accidentally using your toothbrush to clean the toilet, you can get the house cleaned the way you want without being distracted, if you start scrolling on your phone I'll give you a gentle reminder to carry on cleaning, with an encouraging word. If you want to be entertained I'll tell you jokes, if you want to rant I'll listen to you. I'd be performing the job of counsellor, comedian, motivational speaker and cleaner all for the price of a regular cleaner. I started off writing this as a joke but now I think it actually could be a great service. I'd do it for £12 an hour, the price of a regular cleaner. What a bargain.

But back to my french cleaning job. A friend of a friend looks after an incredible holiday house that can sleep 25 people. 

I wish I was on holiday here!

It was change over day and a load of messy young people were leaving and 25 new people were arriving, so the whole place needed a big clean and all the sheets needed changing. I messaged the lady to say I was up for it and I invited along my German friend who is also looking for work. She sent us the address and we both turned up early in the morning and were confused to see it was just an ordinary house. We went in and there were about seven women sat around smoking and drinking coffee. Then our boss explained we were going to the house now. The slight confusion about what was going on due to my poor French, and the fact that I was not expecting to be going to a different address, which was in the middle of nowhere, led me turn to my friend and whisper "do you think we're being trafficked?" But actually due to the lack of space in the other car we had to drive ourselves, which meant Marie had to drive me as Dan had just dropped me off and so I didn't have a car. Halfway there Marie wished we were being trafficked, because a silver lining to being trafficked is you're not ruining your own car. 

The "road" we were driving on got less and less road like. The tarmac stopped and we were just on a bumpy dirt track winding round and round with no houses or other people in sight. Their car was built for these kinds of roads but poor Marie's car, was not and I'm sure she was heavily questioning her friendship with the person who got her into this situation.

The house

We eventually reached the house and all the girls ran in straight away and began tearing sheets off beds. We stood in a daze trying to be helpful but no one was explaining the system to us, they were so stressed about the limited amount of time we had that they didn't take the time to tell us how to be useful. Eventually we caught on to the system and what goes where and started folding towels and sheet for some guys to take away. Lots of the French cleaners were smoking while changing bed sheets which I found a little weird. I got paired with a woman to do the coolest bedroom in the whole place, right at the top of the house. The system for bathrooms was clean everything with vinegar spray, then wash it off with water and then dry it with another cloth? Is this normal? 

This is before the clean.

Anyway the reason I started this blog was to talk about what happened at lunch, which would NEVER happen in England. We'd worked really hard and still had lots to do and a limited time before the new people were arriving, but at 12:30 the boss declared it to be lunch time. I'd brought a little packed lunch, but she set the table with proper plates and cutlery and got a huge bowel of rice/bean salad and baguettes with different meats and cheeses. For dessert there were pastries and macaroons. But, the best part was everyone had a glass of rosé, some people even had a few glasses! Can you imagine that happening on a cleaning day in the UK? We all said, "cheers" and I declared that, "j'adore les francaise!" We sat round the table and hung out like friends for a full hour and then we were straight back to running around working super hard again. We only just finished in time.

Lunch time.

Here's a link if you want to see it on air bnb. 

This weekend was a lot more fun. My artist friend Flick had us round for a delicious pie and we went to the Saint-Cyprien festival where we saw people doing county dancing on stilts. I thought this was a very cool group of people and maybe the kind of thing I could try, until I saw what ladies in this group had to do.

The stilt dancing men

The men posing with the women

It was really lame dancing without stilts, and I've done lame country dancing without stilts before. Now that I've seen dancing on stilts I don't want to see any dancing not on stilts. I think it would look cool in all generals particular tap dancing and break dancing. We missed the pyramid people this year but this is from last year:

We ended Saturday with a try out for roller skating club. September is try out month for all the clubs in the south of France, last year Percy did basketball and Eric did rugby. This year Eric wants to change and has been considering football, boxing or roller skating. I like my kids to feel empowered to make their own life decisions and not be influenced by my own prejudices, but I have to admit that I did say, "Eric I'll punch you in the face and if you enjoy it, you can do boxing." It turns out boxing is full up anyway, and he did a football trial and didn't love it so he's probably going to join roller skating club and so am I!

I loved roller skating as a kid, I went to a roller disco every Friday aged 10 and it was the coolest place to be ever! Then for my 36th birthday, the last one in England, I also went to a roller disco and had the best time! Then I got some second had roller skates a few months ago and I've been out on them a few times, theres a few nice outdoor places, but a completely smooth sports hall is the absolute best. So I signed up and went to my first adult class last Monday.

my first skates

My 36th Birthday.

They have classes 4 nights a week plus the kids groups are on Saturdays. You start going on a Monday and they teach you some skills and then give you a skate licence and then you can go on the other nights as well, two of which are roller hockey based ones. What I think they're missing though (and if I ever get in there with the organisers I'll say this) is the Disco element. The place I went to for my birthday was all music based - they had a night where you could learn disco dancing on skates and they had a R&B night. It was like clubbing except without all annoying people.

All their weekday clubs start at 9:30pm how mad is that? But for the French that's "after tea time" luckily its only in my next door village. Last year I attempted to join a choir but wimped out, partly because I was unable to make small talk and I just found it sad in the break when I could see everyone making friends. But this year I was really proud of my small talk. I was chatting to this other mum there and she actually told me to use "tu" not "vous" which is like her basically asking to be my bestie. So I was super happy and I hope this group will help me improve my french, get to know people and be great exercise and if I get better at skating that's a lovely side bonus.

Halfway

“Woooah we’re halfway there-er wooooah oh living in a prayer-er.”

We’re almost halfway though our original 3 year trial of living in the south of France, (and maybe halfway though my time on this planet too) and at this point in time we more than ever really want to stay longer term. Both in France and just general being alive. Which is great because a year ago I was quite unsure (about the France bit). I was very aware of everything I’d left behind family members, a really nice Ikea hammock, and the beginnings of a career in comedy but the kids and Dan were very happy to stay maybe forever. I realised that I could be in a situation where I wanted to leave and they wanted to stay and that there’s no good solution to that. If we came back but the boys didn’t want to, or didn’t enjoy school back in England, I would feel awful. But then I can’t imagine me just being a frustrated extrovert comedian living in a tiny village in France forever.

So I’m glad I feel different now, some of the things that have changed are making some better connections here. I met a few nice people on my French course, but also I really appreciate my mad artist friend Flick. This week we were in an exhibition together so we went to the private view, and then afterwards went for a quick dip in the sea as it was going dark and then listened to the playlist of Flick six year old daughter on the way back in the car. If you haven’t heard the song from the Mario movie where Bowser is singing to Princess Peach you really should. The evening was the perfect mix of culture and silliness. So friends like that and also being in an incredibly beautiful place where you can wear shorts for 5 months of the year really help. 

Me and Flick in the neon corner. Her work is on the left and mine is on the right.

Some more of my art inspired by Port Vendres

The post art show swim.

I’ve also realised that some of the things I was sad to leave behind don’t really exist in the same way anymore. If we moved back to England and I tried to start doing my art job again I’d have to start again from scratch. I was doing quite a lot of work in my kids school and when I left I recommended some other artists, I can’t just come back and take that back. The same with comedy, I can’t just pick up where I left off I’d have to work my way up again. The boys couldn’t just go back to their old school, their places have been filled. Even my school run friendship circle has moved on a bit with some kids changing schools this year. The tenants in our house are decorating it to their style, who knows if I’d like it. Of course all my family members still exist and it is sad that I’m missing birthdays and babies being born. But going back wouldn’t be the easy option anymore.

We’ve had a busy summer of visitors after returning from seeing 52 friends and family members over a two week period in the uk. We had a few more visitors, no one actually slept over so it was not too much but we had some friends from the school run stay in a holiday park by the coast, this week we had our old friends Lydia’s and Tom stay, they were a few days in the mountains and a few days by the sea, and we got to see them in both locations. Then in between those visitors we had Dan’s parents stay. They timed their trip around seeing a rugby match, Wigan Warriors played our local team the Catalan Dragons. Eric, who has played rugby this year, proudly wore his Catalan Dragons top, while his grandpa wore the Wigan Warriors top. It wasn’t the first rugby match I’ve seen, but it was the first one I’ve seen in France and it was a lot more fun than British ones. The actual rugby was the same, men fighting over a ball for longer than is necessary. But what I enjoyed about this match was, there was a barbecue and wooden games outside the stadium beforehand. I got to sit down, the weather was good, I got a bit of French practise and I got to make a sarcastic TikTok while watching. (See it here) 

We also went to stay at a holiday park for the weekend, that had a great pool with a few really good water slides. Unfortunately that weekend was the only weekend of rain all summer. We really need rain, the rivers are drying up and there was a bad forest fire in August but that weekend was pretty annoying. Luckily as it’s only 40 minutes away we just kept our wrist bands on any then snuck back in on a day we weren’t there. Usually I really have to justify rule breaking very hard to Percy (my 8 year old) but he totally thought it was fair, “Ok mum, we’ll go once, but only because of the rain.” He’s my moral compass for everything these days.

This week the boys were back in school after 2 months of holiday, which is at least a month more than it needs to be. Eric is finally starting “proper school” he’s now in the same building as Percy and will begin to learn reading and writing this year. Even though it’s two years since he started in reception in England. Percy who would only be in year 4 in the uk, is now in the oldest class of primary school, this is because his October birthday means he’s skipped a year and is now one of the youngest in his year, and because his school is small he’s taught with the kids above him anyway. So in two years time he’ll be going to secondary school here, unless we move back and then he’d only be in year 6.

First day back 

I also started my new job this week teaching kids English in a Wednesday club. So they don’t go to school on Wednesday but a lot of kids do activities or sports. So I teach two groups of 5-8 year olds, through games and crafts and fun. I had to become French self employed to do this and the French have a very annoying system of you become self employed for one thing and stick to it, you can’t do a bit of everything. So now that I’m self employed as an English teacher I’m looking for more work in that area. I already started doing 1 to 1 conversation practice with a friend of a friend but I’m going to try and do more and get a TEFL qualification too. Dan says I can get round the rules though by doing any job and speaking English at the same time, e.g. do an art workshop for a school, say a few words of English, it’s an English lesson. Do a cleaning job for someone, chat to myself in English it’s an English lesson. Babysit for a kid sing “the wheels on the bus.” It’s an English lesson. Maybe I should run that idea past my moral compass Percy.

Dan continues to job hunt, he’s applied for a lot of things and not heard much back, but he has got a few bits of freelance writing stuff to do for a few of our contacts, so it might be possible for him to focus on getting more and bigger clients and to do that instead of finding a full time salaried job. We’ll see. Now that we’re all on board with staying here I really hope we can make it work financially. Much as we miss our friends I don’t want to go back to the grey land!

Bonne nuit mes amis

P.S My next blog will be about the cleaning job in an almost château that I did today plus a roller skating club I might join. and after that I need to blog about gingers! I’ve got some exciting updates on the ginger bet that quite a few people got in on in 2013. Only 5 years left!

Holidays are weird now

In 2022 we swapped our normal life in Britain with the kind of place we normally go to on holiday and moved to sunny Perpignan on the Mediterranean coast, but since then we have been confused as to what to do with our holidays. Packing for a summer holiday in Britain is strange.  I actually had to go emergency shopping for trousers for Percy, he’d only been wearing shorts for months and I realised while packing he hardly had any decent warm clothes. It was weird packing coats that we don’t wear at all for about 6 months of the year here.

We flew from Carcassonne to Manchester and when we walked out of the airport in Manchester Percy said, “I accidentally stepped in a puddle because I forgot what they were.” It was so grey and cold. Me and Dan just can’t cope with the grey. It’s like living in an abusive relationship. Once you know there’s better and that becomes the norm you don’t know how people put up with the grey.

What do you think is the optimum amount of friends and family to see in a two week trip? We saw 52 people which was about 30 people too many for introvert Dan. Even for me it was a bit much but I wanted to make the most of our time there. There’s actually one more couple I wanted to see but forgot to message, I’m not going to name them though because what if there’s another couple that I also forgot and I’ve still forgotten them, I’d like them to think they were the couple I forgot. The problem with publicly saying you’ve seen 52 people is it’s pretty offensive if you didn’t make the cut. 

We planned the visit around seeing our families, but also borrowing my parents house for a while when they weren’t there and borrowing Sarah (my sister’s) house when she was away too. That way we could invite people over, and see some more friends. It’s hard to imagine losing touch with our families but I feel like if we didn’t see friends for a while we could easily loose touch.

So we did a lot, we had a day at the crocky trail, which is like a big outdoor adventure playground thing where we invited other families, we had a secret house party in my sisters house. Shushhhh. It might have ended with three drunk people in a bath together (with clothes on) but I kept my promise to not snort drugs off her cat so she can’t be mad. 

We also hired a tiny girl’s car (Fiat 500) for a day and drove to see my sister Jo and family in her brand new house. Last time I saw her was when I flew over for a few days to meet my new niece Miri (short for Miriam) who was a tiny newborn in May and now is the build of a tiny sumo wrestler.

This is either her arm or a croissant 

 We had lots of fun with big brother Zac too, he is two and finds Dan putting his hand through a cat flap and wiggling it at him absolutely hilarious, even on the one hundredth time. My sister was alarmed to discover she had accidentally named her kids after the 2008 film “Zac and Miri make a Porno” we all told her don’t worry no one will remember that film, it wasn’t a big hit everyone has forgotten it. So if you know her, make sure you don’t mention that greatest hit film of the late naughties. 

Miri is the first of three new cousins the boys will be getting within a year. Dan’s sister Rebekah is due in December and my other sister Sarah is due in February! It’s super exciting but I am also sad I’m not closer to see all these babies more.

I saw 5 out of my 6 bridesmaids in the last month, and it was very nearly 6. I saw both my sisters of course, my friend Ruth visited with her super cute little boy who I’ve only met once before. My uni friend Rachel visited us in France the week before we returned to England and I got to see my lovely oldest friend Bex and her 3 boys. They stayed with us at my parents house and so we had five boys in total and all of them loved messing about in kayaks and paddle boards on the river at the back of the house. Her boys seemed a bit more fearless than ours, they straight away asked to be in a kayak on their own, something which we had never really thought to offer our boys. They were also not afraid to fall in and did so several times and the eldest even said that was the best bit of his day!

We played a hilarious game of cards against humanity with our good friends Zac and Jude. We laughed so hard! If you don’t know the game you have some scenario type cards e.g:

The school trip was completely ruined by…………

Or  ………… is how I want to die. 

Or white people love …………

And then the other cards have answers such as:

Camel toe,

Daddy issues

Bum Cancer

Squirrels eating pizza,

A dinosaur shooting laser beams.

It can be a bit offensive but with the right people it can be amazing. But what made it extra funny was that we had forgotten the scenario cards, so after finding a few on Google we started making up our own ones, that were specific for us and the fact that we’d all been in a slightly culty church together once. 

I might write a blog about my cult days one day, I’m not sure. I wish it was more universally relatable because I could definitely write an hour of stand up about some weird stuff that went on. 

Look how funny it is….

On the last day I went on a pilgrimage to the big Asda. And it was actually quite an emotional journey. Even though I spent the last 5 years of our time in Liverpool on the outskirts, this bit of Liverpool between Penny Lane and Smithdown Asda must have the most memories. I felt like almost every street was somewhere I’d lived or had a friend that lived there. Every day when I was a student I cycled down it. As I went past the little Tesco i remembered the time me and a friend I bought dried parsley and Rizzla papers at to see if it was possible to smoke it. There was the coffee shop that Dan was once in thinking about whether he should ask me out, while I went past on the bus at that exact moment and did the weirdest “surprised to see you awkward stare” at him from the top deck. There was the little scouse old man pub “the willow bank” that on a Sunday nights was filled with Christian’s in their 20s in a very weird cultural clash. The first time I ever went there an Australian man thought a great conversation starter with a stranger would be just him shouting “Oi Ginny” (the ginger girl in Harry Potter) at me. 6 years later he was best man at my wedding. 

I passed the medical center where we took Percy to when he was a baby with pneumonia and they got him an ambulance to hospital. And then I arrived at the jewel of Smithdown road itself: the big Asda. So many memories, from my student days of trying to carry a whole weeks shop on the handlebars of my bicycle to the birthday treasure hunt I did when one of the challenges was to buy the cheapest possible thing from Asda. We found a sprout that was half the size of an average sprout that was priced at 1p!  Then there were the days of mindlessness wondering round with Percy in the pram because he was pretty happy in a pram and it was something to do. And then my most recent significant Asda memory was being in the early stages of labour with Eric, sitting in the Asda cafe with a friend thinking I hope I can drive home before this all kicks off.

I walked back a different way, through a parked called “the mystery”. They should probably rename it “Google it” as there’s no mystery left in the world anymore. I’ve got some nice memories in that park too but not as many as I have in Sefton park (I’ve sledged, I’ve unicycled, and I’ve smoked parsley there) or Greenbank park (the location of me and Dan’s first kiss, and where the police once told us off for playing with fire, and then they actually watched and enjoyed our fire circus tricks).

I do miss Liverpool, when people in France ask me where I’m from I like to say Liverpool. And then if they’re British I have to explain that I didn’t grow up there so that’s why I don’t have the accent, but I’ve lived all my adult life there and it would feel weird not to say Liverpool. I have no emotional connection or desire to ever see Coventry again, they only bit I would have felt connected to was the woods I used to play in as a kid and they have now been destroyed by HS2. But I think Liverpool will always have a little place in my heart. Big up people with purple bins. You are boss.

Losing a job and finding a job.

It's been a very strange week job wise. In September 2021 Dan got a new job, a remote job for a company in the Czech Republic which allowed us all to move to France. On Tuesday they made him redundant with 4 weeks notice. This was one of our biggest potential worries about moving, because I've left my job (obviously because it was in England) and my ability to earn money is a lot more limited here, due to the fact I'm language disabled. That's the new official PC term for the fact that I don't speak good French. 

So far we've survived ok on just Dan's income, which has meant I could focus on learning French, and I have learnt a fair bit of French. My favourite word is "talkie walkie" that's French for "walkie talkie." It was a bit of a shock for him to be made redundant, and I feel like they could have given him more notice. 

When he started the job he was employed (rather than self-employed) because the company had an office in London, but when we moved he had to become self-employed because they didn't have an office in France. It was a bit of a faff to set up and he had to pay someone to do it because it's a bit complicated if you don't understand the system. It was all going well and we felt really lucky that he had such flexible work, but the problem with being self-employed is that it's very easy for people to get rid of you, in a way that they can't really do if you're employed. So this week they just told him, "we're not really using you to your full potential, so we're going to get rid of you" and then the next day they said a different reason like "it's just not really working and we're going to take on someone else and give them a slightly different role," which was a further blow.

There's loads of people in his company that love him and some are very angry with the fact this has happened, like the lady Dan manages who has said he is the best boss ever and she doesn't really want to do that job without him. And the person who originally gave Dan the job said some incredibly nice things about him too.

It is a shame and it is a bit worrying because we don't have as many safety nets as we previously have had, but this is at least the third time Dan has either been made redundant or chose to leave a job with nothing lining up, and every time, eventually, it's worked out for the best, so lets see what happens. If you have any ideas let us know.

Meanwhile I had an interview last week for a job teaching English in a sort of fun club. It's just for Wednesdays because kids don't go to school on Wednesdays. The kids learn English though crafts and games and cooking, it's all really creative. Yesterday I had to go back to show a lesson plan and talk though my activity ideas and I got the job! So I'm happy about that. It will in some ways be similar to the work I used to do in schools - apart from the English bit. I was told I was the least qualified in teaching English, but that's not actually the thing they were looking for the the most. It was pretty weird getting the job the day after Dan lost his job. If Dan still had his job this extra money would be like bonus money for holidays and stuff, but now I'm already trying to think of ways to get more hours. If I can sign up some kids from my village for example I might be able to do more work.

I told the kids today that after our holiday to England Daddy will be looking for a new job. Eric said, "what does Daddy love to do?" and Percy said, "it doesn't matter what he loves to do, he needs to get a job so that we don't all perish!" That's pretty much what the people at the job centre said to me when I told them I had an Art Degree. 

In other news, we got a free meal at our village Bastille day celebrations... 

The boys made sunglasses cases using the sewing machine and I think they would do ok in a sweatshop, if we were about to perish. (If you want to see a video of them doing it it's on my art instagram @artisthannahjones)

I did some photo embroidery too.

And we're looking forward to hosting the lovely Rachel Goodsall next week.

Today's parenting was greatly improved by this beautiful sea.