A new tiny person.

A brand new person arrived in the world on 5th May. I mean she was in the world before that, but she was packaged better, in the body of my sister Jo. I was hoping Jo would be crowning just as the king was being crowned (that would be fun) but she was 12 hours off. Her first baby was not straight forward and she lost a lot of blood. It was covid times and her husband wasn't allowed in the hospital and she ended up discharging herself because her care was so awful. This time it all went smoothly, she went in in the evening, had her at 10pm and went home at midnight. When I told my French friend, who has also just had a baby, this she couldn't believe it. My friend also had a simple birth, she went in on a Tuesday and chose to come out on the Friday, and then her visiting midwife told her off for not staying in longer.

Miriam Elspeth and Hannah Margaret

My sister lives in Bradford so I was very excited when I found out that this year Ryanair have started flying a new route, Perpignan to Leeds/Bradford. I once wrote a blog about how much I hated Ryanair, but I have now decided, due to this new route, to forgive them. I even made them an 'I forgive you' video on tiktok. I got very cheap flights, 40 euros return. I just flew with hand luggage so it was super easy. I missed out on holding my nephew who was born in covid times so it was super nice to hold my newborn niece. I can't believe babies exist, and everyone was a baby. I know I've done it twice but it's still amazing that a person grows inside another person and that they can squeeze out. She was very adorable and just wanted to be cuddling a person all day, and that was a lovely job mainly because the baby cuddler didn't have to do the other jobs. There were three adults so we did all do our fair share of baby cuddling and other jobs.

I think most people know this, but just in case you don't here's a public service announcement: If your friend has a baby and you visit them and just hold the baby when it's happy, you are not really helping. Your friend might be happy for the company, but she would be even more happy if you, got her shopping, did the washing up, held the baby while the parent sleeps, entertained an older child, cooked a meal, hang out her washing. I was only there 3 days but I tried to do some of these things. The most tiring job was entertaining big brother Zac who is 2. He is a very adorable little boy but he's also a savage (all 2 year olds are). He wakes up at 5:30am and he wants entertaining all day. Newborns and 2 year olds have opposite needs really, I don't know why it's so popular to have both at once. It's like owning a cute little house trained bunny and a wolf. In the long run it's a nice gap though, my kids have the same gap and most of the time they're best buddies.

I've really forgotten how difficult that stage is. I do remember it being difficult, Eric was born in May 2017 and I didn't get any nursery for Percy until September, and we were paying for that, so we did the minimum possible which was 1.5 days. They were cute, but it's so relentless trying to entertain a two year old when you haven't slept. You don't get any head space and you are constantly being touched. Baby groups were life savers though, I went to one my church ran and it meant Percy could go off and play with new toys and I could keep an eye on him while sitting down feeding Eric. It's kind of impossible to enjoy that bit when it's so relentless. Then you look back at photos of them and think "aww they were so cute, I miss that" but that's because you're not remembering the times when they thought 4:30am was an ok time to wake up and play, or they pooed in the bath.

But look how cute they were!

I think my sister and her husband are doing a great job though, Jo is super patient which really is an achievement given the circumstances. When I flew back I felt very grateful that my own kids were out of the baby bit, and although they have their moments they're pretty easy really. They had a great time when while I was away. We didn't realise that both school days I was away were actually holidays. In France there is no May half term but there are five random bank holidays, plus Wednesdays are off school anyway.  Dan couldn't really take the time off so very kindly my friend Flick took them out to the aquarium one day and a gallery the other day and then on the weekend Dan took them to see the Mario Movie, which they absolutely loved and didn't mind at all that it was in French.

In other news I passed my A2 french course! Last time I had to wait two months between finishing the A1 and starting the A2 but this time I started the B1 the next day which was great, although it's a bit annoying that it's on Wednesdays (as well as Fridays) because we have to pay for the kids to go to the school club.  This is the last course I can get for free, after that I will do some paid online evening classes and try and look for work. If I pass the B1 and jump through some other hoops, like have an interview, I can eventually get citizenship, which means we will all finally be EU members and we could move anywhere. Except why would we leave France when we've just spent so much time learning French.

I'm enjoying my lessons and I love meeting a random selection of refugees and immigrants. Last week I learnt how to play Rock, Paper, Scissors Ukrainian style. They chant a long rhyme before doing it which made it tricky because I went after they said 3 words, assuming they were counting, but what they were actually saying was "paper beats rock, rock beats scissors...etc" but guess what? they have a 4th thing! "The Well" as in what you get water from. The well beats the rock and scissors because they sink but paper beats well because it floats.

On Saturday I"m doing 8 minutes of stand up comedy in French!! If I never mention it again, it went badly, so don't ask me about it.

Bilingual and Cheeky

It was very cool to celebrate Eric's 6th birthday this week. I love a themed party and Mario was a very fun theme. I've come a long way in my Mario knowledge, since the days when I was asked to do a Mario mural for a neighbour, when I didn't have much of a clue about the characters. At that time I'd just found out I was going to be moving to France and I remember listening to learning French audio books while painting the mural, but now my knowledge of French and Mario has really improved. I've even played Mario Kart with Percy's French classmate, so I know all the Mario related French words.

Eric hasn't really ever had a big party. His 3rd birthday was in the height of lockdown, his 4th was still pretty locked down, for his 5th we had just moved here and knew no one, so it was about time we did something good. Percy had a big party for his 7th where we got a hall and a bouncy castle, so we looked into hiring a small bouncy castle for our garden here, but it was crazy expensive like more than double what we paid for Percy's party, for a much smaller castle. Some things are weirdly expensive here for no reason.  Another thing we used to do in Liverpool, but now can't afford to do, is get our car cleaned on the inside. We don't own a hoover because we don't own carpets so I wanted to get our car cleaned. I used to pay £12 a few times a year for the guys outside Dobbies (the garden centre) to give our car a mini valet. They made it great inside and outside, while I could go inside with the boys and get a free hot drink, because we got 2 a month with our Dobbies membership (which was maybe £12 a year). Anyway there was a similar looking business outside a big shopping centre, they wanted 60 euros just the clean the inside! 

Another thing you can't seem to buy here, but you could loads of places in England, is an inflated balloon. You can buy the foil balloons everywhere, but then you have to buy your own helium canister. We just wanted one balloon in the shape of a 6. Other random things that are hard to get here include: hummus, hash browns, black beans, halloumi, crisps in a bag that is just for one person, and a decent hot chocolate. 

We actually went to Spain at the weekend to see what is cheaper there and a lot of things were. We mainly went to buy me a new bike. I've had my lovely folding bike for 10 years now and I love it, but it's not a joy to ride anymore and I wanted the exact same thing but new. They don't sell it anywhere in France but they do sell it in the first major town in Spain - Figueres. I got the last one in the shop and I love it. 

She's called Rosa, (the girl's name we never used).

We also stocked up on cheaper meat, hummus and nice cheaper juices at a supermarket and this market...

But back to the party... After a lot of thought we didn't go for the crazy bouncy castle, we instead bought a second hand chocolate fountain for 8 euros, and made some home made Mario themed games. We made a Mario track in the shape of a figure of 8. Eric wanted "a figure of 6" because it was his 6th birthday and it was hard to explain why that would be difficult. He just invited 6 friends which was the right number to fill the house without it being too much. I did face painting and Dan was in charge of giving glow in the dark Mario temporary tattoos.  My decision to make the party bags from scratch using paper and glue only hours before the party was a bad one, but it turned out ok in the end.

We did two games: Pass the parcel and pin the moustache on Mario. The French kids had not heard of either of these. Before pass the parcel I tried to get the kids to sit in a circle on the sofa and chairs. This is where cheeky Eric thought he'd take a chance to make a joke out of my imperfect French. I wanted to say "sit on the sofa" but I actually said "sit in the sofa." He then thought it was hilarious to lift up a bit of the sofa bed where we store the duvet and try and get in there, saying in French, in front of all his mates, "what mum? you said sit IN the sofa Ha Ha Ha. " It was actually pretty funny.

He's so excited to be six, I always feel a bit sad every time he gets older in a way that I don't do with Percy. He's just a great age at the moment, very easy and agreeable, very affectionate and was so excited about the birthday party. I loved making all the decorations and doing the cake and stuff, I love a theme. I have no clue what I will do when they're teenagers and don't want decorations and a theme.

All Eric's toes used to fit on my finger.

After the success of Pin the Moustache on Mario, I was asked to make a Pin the ear on Charles thing for a coronation celebration we went to at my English friends house. I virtually never paint faces because they're hard! This actually turned out better than some times where I've tried to do a serious painting. Maybe I could go into business doing bespoke pin the x on y posters. 

Having a party soon? Want a random game? What's the most unusual one you can think of?

The best trifle I have ever tasted

The creepiest body for King Charles.

Ps My sister Jo has also had a baby... I'm going to visit her next week so she can have a blog dedicated to her after that.

Franceaversary

22nd April marked one year since we moved, potentially forever, to a city we'd only been to for one day in 2019. That trip was part of a two week camper van trip from Nice to Barcelona. At that point I had just had an operation 6 months earlier so we wanted to have some nice family time, and we wanted to make the most of the fact that Eric wasn't quite two years old and so was still free on flights. We'd never seen that bit of France before, and apart from the van being too small and Dan having to sleep in an "L" shape around Eric it was a pretty good trip. 

This photo was taken on our 1 random day in Perpignan in 2019.
I'm pointing at the mountain that we can now see from our window.

We were not really thinking about leaving back then, it's always been in the back of our minds, but we were pretty settled in Liverpool, my parents hadn't long moved up north, and remote working was less of an option. But we did really like all the places along that coast. It was pretty strange but exciting swapping a nice but entirely predicable life for a year where everything changed and really anything could have happened. And really I think in general things have turned out well. 

Some major things are harder: we have less money because we used our savings on the move and I am not currently working, we have less space in our house, although we've gained a second toilet and although our garden is smaller, we use it more because it hardly rains. We have fewer friends. They're some pretty major downsides. But I am the kind of person who likes change and there's been a lot of good change. 

We have made some new friends, not many, but we've met some cool people here. Among our old friends we're part of maybe 5-10% of people who would take the step to move country. No judgement on people who wouldn't choose to move, in some ways I wish I had no desire to move, it would be simpler, but among the community of other foreigners here, we are the very dull play it safe ones. I've met a few people that have moved multiple times within France or internationally, moving their kids schools each time. I know someone who first moved to Barcelona with a family then it didn't work out, so they moved to France and lived with their in laws, their husband couldn't find work here so got a job in London and the rest of the family will move back in the summer. I thought moving here was stressful but in comparison our lives are pretty easy. 

I've been getting to know some more Ukrainians. There's one on my course that told me the story of how she came here. Her city was very close to the Russian border and was the first placed to be bombed. She had an hour to pack her car and she focused on packing all the things her cats needed to survive. The day they left was her 19th birthday. She first travelled to a different city in Ukraine, but the roads were jam packed and a journey that should have taken 5 hours took 24 hours. They also struggled to get fuel as everyone else was buying it too. They were very cold in the car, it was February and they had to turn the car off when they weren't moving to preserve fuel. They then left to Romania and were sleeping in their car or on church floors. Eventually they came to France. Then for 3 months she moved back to a safer part of Ukraine to work and see her boyfriend. She remembers being on a bridge in a city and the very next day that bridge was bombed. 

In a weird set of coincidences I met another Ukrainian who lives in my village. When we arrived a year ago a Ukrainian family also arrived and were living with a French host family. The head teacher managed to find funding to put on some extra French lessons for Percy, the Ukrainian girl and a Portuguese girl. Then I started my A1 French classes in October and met some Ukrainians (who I didn't particularly talk to) but then, last week, I went to the boys end of term music concert and this woman (who I really recognised but I didn't know where from) started talking to me. At first it was awkward because I really didn't know who she was, but eventually I realised she was the Ukrainian from my old French class (I'm now in a different class in a different place). So she'd been in my village the whole time and our kids have been taught together and we had been in the same class but, have never met. We've exchanged numbers now and hopefully we'll hang out a bit, but we can only communicate in bad French currently. We sat down together to chat after the concert, and her daughter and Dan acted as our translators, translating our bad French to good French and then sometimes her daughter translated back to Ukrainian. 

On our Franceaversary weekend we travelled down to Barcelona to meet my parents, who flew there. On a plane, unfortunately they can't actually fly if, they could I probably would have mentioned it back when I started this blog in 2009. 

Anyway, I love Barcelona it's probably my favourite city but I am from Coventry, so the bar is low. I've discovered I really would like to live in a major city. I discovered this too late in life though and Dan is not a big fan of big places, plus having outside space and fields to walk in is nice too. But it was great being in Barcelona for a few days. We did some fun touristy things and I got to do my first comedy set for a year! 

It was a very lovely comedy night with a perfect audience in a very aesthetically pleasing basement. 

I talked to all the other acts who were all very friendly and from all over the place. I met a Mexican who did a gap year in Leeds, and I told him that's the wrong way round. I met a British comedian based in London who knew a load of my comedy friends from the north and it was just really cool to be in that environment and make those connections again. I just am a bit sad that I can't do it very often. 

I was a bit hesitant in the first half of my set, trying to remember it as it was 100% new material, but I relaxed into the second half and I think I have at least one good new bit. In England I could then do this set again, 10 times in different places improving it and tweaking it, but it would be pretty impossible to do that here. At the end of May I'll be performing IN FRENCH! I've no idea how that will go. It's very hard to learn it and I won't be able to do any ad hoc bits unless I need to say "J'ai douze ans" or "ou est la bibliotec" that kind of stuff. It could be a disaster, but then it might be great material for an English show that I might do one day about all the disastrous things I did when I lived in France.

My next blog will be about Eric's birthday and then I might possibly write a serious blog, I'm not sure I'm still thinking about it.