England Diaries

 I went to England last week on my own, mainly to meet my new nephew and help out my sister Sarah, but I also squeezed in seeing as many extra people as possible plus did a bit of sort of work.

Day 1 -Travel successes and failures.

I was flying from Carcassonne to Manchester, in the afternoon and I was nervous. Not of actual flying, of a train being cancelled, missing a bus, my bad being the wrong size, forgetting something important, all that stuff. My main worry was there was 4 minutes between my train arriving at Carcassonne station and the airport bus leaving. And French trains have been pretty unreliable lately. But after getting on the train an old couple got on and started speaking English. When I heard they were also heading to the airport I immediately made a plan to share a taxi with them if we all missed the bus, and after that I felt a lot better. We made the bus and it was all fine. I chatted to another old lady in the security queue and she lent me a clear bag for my liquids which was very nice. And then a third old couple that I sat next to on the plane told me all about their son who is an expert on micro moths.

After a quick google I’ve discovered he’s written a book “Micro-moth field tips: a guild to finding the early stages in Lancashire and Cheshire.”

Pretty niche, if you want to find average sized moths in Yorkshire, this is not for you.

Then I saw someone I actually knew on the plane! And realised that if they drove to the airport, they would have driven right past my house.

My Dad came to collect me from the airport, and I had tea with him and mum. And then we sat down to do the most old person activity of all. Watching TV in real time. 

I also made a big error in booking my train tickets for the following day I put in an email address which was a mixture of two of my email addresses and that’s where my tickets got sent to. After loads of messing around in the app I had to phone up and they sorted it before telling me to “have a safe journey” I wanted to reply “well tell your team to drive the train safely then.”

Day 2- Scousers.

Today was a bonus day, I actually changed my flights to add in this day for sort of work. I’m currently making a colouring book of the 66 region of France for a Guy called Guy. He’s paying me to do all the designs which I’m very grateful for. When I finish this one I’m going to start a new one of the only other place I know well- Liverpool.  And then he will market them both, they will have quite different marketing strategies and then he’ll see if either of them work and decided where to go from there. So I added an extra day to my trip so that I could get some current photos of all the sights, I walked all day I was knackered.

It was so nice to be in the city though, I did a bit of shopping too because Perpignan is not great for clothes shopping. When stoped for a break and was reminded of how Scouse scousers are.  I wanted to order a cup of tea and the lady said “what’s yours love” and I’ve heard that loads of times but being away from Liverpool really makes you realise how Liverpool is like its own little land. Her question sent me into a existential quandary , What is mine? I own a house but I still have a mortgage, I have two children but do I really own them? Obviously didn’t say all that, I just said “ a tea please” 

I saw two people I knew while walking around town, only one of which knew me back. I saw Mona, my old neighbour carrying a massage chair on the docs, we had a brief chat but she was on her way somewhere. And then I saw the comedian Paul Smith, who is a massive comedian, can sell out arenas and stuff, and I’m not completely just a weird fan, we’ve gigged together once and had a good chat in a green room but that was probably about 3 or 4 years ago, so unsurprisingly he didn’t remember me. I just couldn’t stop myself saying “hi” when we were walking towards each other and he looked at me. He was very nice and asked me lots of things about myself but I did feel weird and apologetic for talking to him.

Day 3 Jo and Gin.

Today I was back at my parent’s house and had a visit from my sister Jo and baby Miri. Who was the first of 3 new cousins our boys have gained this year. She’s in a super tough life stage right now she’s about to start back at work, but neither of her kids are sleeping properly. There was this time about 6 years ago when we were all on holiday together they had no kids and we were in the two kids no sleep stage and they just got up at 10am packed a bag in 5 minutes and got to the beach to enjoy some body boarding. After 5 hours of interrupted sleep  we took a hour to pack nappies, snacks, baby swim stuff, changes of clothes just to watch our kids eat sand. And I said at the time “one day our kids will pack their own bags and they’ll have babies” and it’s pretty much that time now. Woohoo! I hope they get through this soon though, so we can all enjoy the beach and just life again.

In the evening I took myself and the best fun alcohol Tesco had to offer back to Liverpool to see my old school run chums. These were people I met at a church hall playgroup in 2017 and liked so much that I sent my kid to the school they were all going to. It wasn’t my nearest school, I didn’t read any ofstead reports, I abandoned my ideals of sending my kids to a C of E school all because they were fun people to drink gin with (not at the playgroup, although in lockdown we did start drinking mulled wine in the woods while looking after our kids)

It was really lovely to catch up with everyone, and hear everyone’s news. That night I stayed in the caravan in the garden of the house we were hanging out at. It was a bad decision, I should have gone with the sofa.

Day 4- Meeting Murphy

The day began in a caravan at 3am when I needed a wee but didn’t want to have to clean out my own wee from wherever wee goes when you wee in a caravan. So I went out in the cold and unlocked my friend’s side door trying not to let the cats out and wake the kids while I went to the loo in their house. Then I got back in the cold caravan and had barely any sleep before morning.

But this was the day I was finally going to do what I mainly went to England for, to meet my new nephew Murphy he’s only been in the outside world for 2 months and already has incredible hair. 

I wanted to be a helpful guest and do whatever my sister needed, but I also have an unquenchable desire to see every I’ve ever known when I come to England, so the day started with a kind of compromise of me inviting my friends round that Sarah knows a bit too and cooking for everyone. Katie and Mike have been friends of ours for a long time and it makes me sad that we moved away shortly after they moved just round the corner from us. Katie is a midwife and was the last person to see Sarah before she gave birth. I cooked hallomi burgers because hallomi is hard to get in France and I’m a very selfish host. It was lovely to see them and their 3 year old Jimmy who is very chatty and funny. And came out with phrases like “time for a spot of lunch I think” although babies are of course adorable and it was a privilege to meet Murphy, babies don’t make me broodie in the way that toddlers do. I miss having 2 and 3 year olds. When they’re just learning words and they pronounce stuff wrong but it’s adorable and they go through that phase of asking people if they have willies as a genuine question, and they are over the moon to see a pigeon in a park. That’s a fun stage of life. 

Day 5. Pancakes and playtime

I was on early morning Murphy duty from 6am which meant giving him a bottle of expressed milk so Sarah could catch up on a bit of sleep. Sarah managed to do really well/ was lucky and was able to breastfeed fairly easily and also got him bottle feeding early so that she has that option too. I stupidly listened to much to all the militant breast feeders about not introducing a bottle to early because of the dangers of NIPPLE CONFUSION and how a bottle is like crack to a baby, and once they try crack they won’t want to go back to plain old weed. But they didn’t tell me if your baby has spent its whole life happily smoking weed (breastfeeding) it will not even have the desire to try crack. (bottles) 

After Murphy had finished his crack he decided to dress as a member of the backstreet boys and went to church with Sarah and Luke.

Then I took another opportunity to see more people I miss and headed off to Zac and Jude’s house for a lovely pancake breakfast, I ate a lot and then we tried to catch up while also trying to play top trumps with their kids. 

Strawberry, raspberry, blueberry and cream egg on a pancake? Yes please. 

We watched a bit of the London marathon because in January Zac and Dan will be doing a half marathon in Morocco. It’s always a lot of fun hanging out with the Macs and I can’t wait for them to visit us in August. They were meant to come two years ago but the plans were ruined by chicken pox.

The rest of the day was spent with Murphy just hanging out playing with him cuddling him and giving him a bath.

Day 6. Going back in time.

I suggested going to the old playgroup where I met my friends mentioned on day 3, I hadn’t realised that it had become so popular and over subscribed, I messaged my friend who runs it to check times and she had agreed with the other leader that they would let me in as I’m an old friend and I used to help out there. I didn’t  know there was an issue with capacity so I  didn’t tell her that I had invited another friend Ruth (because of my massive desire to see as many people as possible) so we got in, but then my friend who had changed her plans to come and meet me, was denied access by the playgroup bouncers. So that was sad, I got to briefly talk to her but I felt bad. 

Going to the playgroup was like going back in time, all the toys were the same, but almost all the mums I knew had moved on, their was only one mum that was there when I was there, but the childminders were still the same, and it was lovely to catch up with the leaders. It’s just a group run by my old local church so the leaders are volunteers it’s only a pound to go which covers snack, and stuff like paint.  These ladies have been working for years, decades even week in week out to make this amazing group that has supported generations of mums and the odd token dad, and they really need a medal or some kind of better appreciation than this blog post.

In the afternoon we wondered down Allerton high street with Murphy in the pram, looking at charity shops, I saw my old student house in the was for sale in the window of an estate agents. £400k for a student house with no garden! 

In the evening I got the train back to my parent’s house.

Day 7 - 10kg of random treats.

I had an afternoon flight back to Carcassonne, and I spent much of the morning deciding what to take, I came with only a tiny hand luggage bag and was going back with an extra 10k bag, so I could bring more things back, I had stocked up on tea bags cream eggs and Percy pigs (Percy has never tried them) I also bought they boys each a book Percy’s was about the environment because he’s really into saving the planet, before receiving the book he wanted to be an environmental scientist but now he has read about all the different job options he has decided he wants to be a re-wilding expert. It’s ironic that I tree had to be cut down to make that book. Eric cares a lot less about reading and the environment so I got him a book on how to draw ninjas.

Then I had to decide which random loft items could come back with me this time, it was between some high heeled shoes, a game of risk, a camping kettle, some rubber rings and a wetsuit. The rubber rings and camping kettle won. We’re hoping to try camping in July.

The rest of the morning I just hung out with my mum, we weighed up going on a cruise together from Barcelona next year verses just getting on a car ferry Barcelona to Rome and driving round the rest of the way back to Perpignan. 

Then she dropped me back at the airport and I made my long way home. Thanks for reading this long and possibly boring blog.

P.s at the end of my last blog I mentioned I love doors. It seems I’m not the only one, so at some point I will do some kind of global door art project but in the mean time feast your eye on this sexy pair from Liverpool…

What’s next?

One of my goals for the year 2024 was to live in the moment more. It was a goal because I felt like all the time that we were in France and Dan had a good job, I was enjoying a lot of life but I also was comparing my French life to my English life, and think, “well I would be doing this work project now or this comedy night now if I was still in England.” I kept thinking, “this thing would be easier in English, I would get to hang out with that person on their birthday etc.” And then when Dan lost his job things got really stressful and I regretted not just enjoying the great things about doing life here, when things were relatively unstressful. So I really wanted that as soon as Dan got a job that I just enjoyed life and lived in the moment and didn’t worry about little things.

And is there anything better in life than building a hole?

I really am trying to do that now, we’ve booked some French adventures to go on. In May we’re going to go west to the Atlantic coast to Biarritz and San Sebastián, and then in July we’re going to go to lake Geneva and several places on the way. We’re going to try camping which we haven’t done before unless you count campervanning. 

But it is a challenge to just enjoy the now and not think “what’s next?” We haven’t really made a conscious decision to stay in France, but we’ve come to the conclusion that it wouldn’t make sense to go back to England in the next couple of years and so by default I think we’ve chosen to stay. And I can’t see us being more likely to want to go back in a few years. Maybe I would, but I don’t think the boys would, they’re only going to get more and more integrated here. 

But if we are going to stay what’s the plan? We signed a 3 year rental contract and we’ve done almost two years already. We live in the tiniest village because this is the house that happened to be free when Dan came to look for houses.  But do we want to be in this village forever? Much as we love it (the school is great, there are some lovely views and they put on a great party every year) it’s not exactly the most happening place. I’d like to be able to walk to a boulongerie or get some public transport after 7pm for example. We’d love to buy a house here but where would we move to if we moved a little bit?

We could go to a slightly more populated village with a few more shops, if we went east we’d be nearer to the city centre and nearer to the sea. Or we could go west if we wanted to be more in the mountains nearer to the ski slopes and generally cheaper prices.

We know people in every direction so whenever we consider somewhere it’s sad to think who you will be further away from. Ideally we don’t want the kids to have to move schools again but Percy only has a year and a bit left of primary school, so if we were going to make a bit of a move next summer would be a good time. It will still be a big deal and it would be sad if Eric had to move, but I guess it would be sadder to live in this tiny village for the rest of our lives just because we couldn’t be bothered to make a change.

Village life on 14th July

It’s hard to make a decision for the future too, like trying to think of where the boys would be happy to live as teenagers. I loved living in a village as a kid, I was free to explore the fields and woods and make my own adventures, but then when I was a teenager who kept failing driving tests I hated living there. The most out there option would be to move to Toulouse. This was a much more likely option when it seemed that Dan was going to have to commute there two days a week at his own expense, but now that he doesn’t have to do that, we don’t have to, but……would it be cool? Dan would like to be in the office more he said it’s hard to follow French conversations online sometimes. And I would like to move to a bigger place. It’s also better connected to other cities and would be easier to fly to England from. But it is very far from the sea, and I don’t know if I can be bothered to start completely from scratch again in a city where I don’t know anyone.

Toulouse 2022

It’s like I’ve been dating Perpignan for 2 years and it’s not perfect but I’ve got a special little place in my heart for it and I just don’t want the hassle of getting with a new city. Yeah a new city is a good laugh at first and there’s new exciting places to discover, but then you realise you’re going to all the same places, and some stuff about it irritates you and then you think back to leaving Perpignan, all because of it’s size, and it’s a bit smelly in places, but does size really matter that much? It was good to you, it was there for you it picked up the pieces after a 16 year relationship with Liverpool. You start scrolling back to photos on your phone of you in Perpignan, were you happy then? Will you ever be truly happy? Or should you stop thinking that geographical locations will truly fulfil you. 

Wow that started as a joke comment and got deep really quick.

Other things to consider are: what I should do for work? My options are very limited here due to my lack of French. When Dan lost his job I threw myself into anything that might earn me money without really thinking much about what I wanted to do. So I now have a series of little English teaching gigs and some work designing a colouring book. I enjoy elements of the teaching, I like most of the people I teach and I like it when I can make teaching fun and creative. I didn’t like it when someone asked me what a past participle was. But I’ve googled it and good news I think we can live without them.

Instead of singing along with Natalie Imbruglia “you’re a little late I’m already TORN” you’d say “you’re a little late I’m already TORE” it’s only one letter different.

The Disney film/musical would be called “Froze.”

The Liam Neeson film would be called “Took”.

I know it all sounds a bit weird but I think we could get used to it. Maybe I’ll do a past participle detox for a month and see if I think I could live long term without them. It’s definitely easier than trying to learn them.

I’m really enjoying the colouring book digital drawing. It felt very much like I was cheating on real art for a bit but I’ve got used to it now.

A page from my colouring book

So my options to explore, work-wise, are more teaching opportunities, I am trying to get a new group of adults who want to learn through fun at the moment but so far there’s been no interest. I could try and get more schools work or online work. Or I could try doing more stuff with my paintings or with digital drawing, like do some designs for t-shirts and start an Etsy shop. But I really don’t want to be the stereotypical wife that does a bit of craft on the side and earns some kind of lame lady pocket money.  

I’ve got an idea for an art project about doors. This is not really something I’d try and make money out of it’s just something I’m into at the moment, there’s some really nice doors in our region they’re aDOORable. And I’m thinking about trying to get photos of doors from all over the world and put make them into linoprints. Have you seen any good doors recently? Can you send me a pic? Especially if you live in a country that isn’t France or England. I’d love to have a good collection of photos of doors of the world that are really different from each other, to make some kind of art from.

My favourite door so far.
I’m going to England tomorrow, mainly to meet my new nephew. Night.

Treating Ourselves

After six months of unemployment Dan finally has a new job. He is working for a company that makes software that manages stock. By stock I don’t mean stock cubes or invisible money stuff I mean, real life stuff. I had to try and explain this in French to a school run mum in the supermarket and as we were standing by the chicken aisle I said something like: for example, you want to count these chickens, this company can help. Then she thought he was working in a supermarket and was very confused as to why he was going all the way to Toulouse to count chickens.

The interview process for this new job had a lot of stages to it. It was two online interviews, and then he had to do some work and present it in Toulouse. That day went well and he was feeling pretty positive but it was annoying not to know. Then the phone call that we were waiting for came on a Friday and they said… “You have a confirmation call with the big boss on the Monday.” That was such a weird weekend because it seemed like he had the job but he just needed to go through the details of exactly what the pay is and how often he would have to go to Toulouse. But we weren’t quite sure if we could celebrate.

We’ve spent the last 6 months saying, “when you get a job we’re going to do this, or buy this.” The list of things we were going to do and buy was long and I feel like our spending over the past few weeks has been a lot. On the first weekend, (the weekend when we still didn’t know for sure) we bought new clothes for the kids, me and Dan went to a spa, a really nice warm pool with a sauna and steam room and then we went out to Spain for a meal. (We live an hours drive from the bit of Spain we went to, we didn’t take a private jet.) 

We found a restaurant outside the Salvador Dali museum that was very reasonably priced. The burgers were about 5 euros so I said to the kids, “you can have what you like from this menu.” So Eric said, “ok I’ll have the seafood paella then.” 

We sat outside and ate and then it began to rain, the guy put up the umbrellas but it was still cold and we weren’t really taking our time to enjoy it. By the time we were done it was tipping it down. We ran in to use the loo and then realised there was a whole restaurant inside kind of hidden away down some steps that we could have moved to.

On the Monday Dan had his confirmation call, which turned out to be just a chat and nothing was confirmed! I was so annoyed! I just wanted to know the deal so I could get on with my life and sort out when we can have people to stay, when I can go back to England to see my new nephew and work out if the kids need extra childcare now for when we’re both working. We had been discussing if long term we should move to Toulouse. If he was going to make good friends there and if he was going to need to be there two days a week then it would save us money to move there. I would be happy to live in a bigger city but I would miss living by the sea and I wouldn’t want to up-root the kids again. That evening he finally got the call with the details including the fact that after a month of working in Toulouse they would let him work fully remotely. This was big news. It wasn’t the original deal at all, they were looking for someone who was properly part of the team, that’s why the job was advertised as “hybrid”, but they really liked Dan and didn’t want him to be tired. It would save us a lot of money and also just make everything less complicated.

The random spending continued, because the next weekend there was a lot of snow on the mountain which there hasn’t been for a while and we really wanted to get in one more day of snow this season (we had one day on my birthday). We found a place that was free to ski on the beginner slopes but we did still have to pay for ski hire. It was a super fun day though, the boys love it and they can do it by themselves now.

And we treated ourselves to one more extravagance: apple crumble with a Mars bar ice cream on top! One day a few weeks ago we were eating apple crumble and Dan asked if we had any cream or ice cream to go with it. When he looked in the freezer we only had Mars bar ice creams. I said there was no way we could eat apple crumble with Mars bar ice creams while being unemployed, so obviously that went on the long list of things we would do when he got a job.

It’s mad what people spend money on isn’t it? Loads of people would buy a car that they can’t really afford on finance but could not bring themselves to indulge in an apple crumble with a Mars bar ice cream on top. Maybe for health reasons or maybe it’s just too decadent. I don’t know, but I would highly recommend it as a luxury treat, that would still cost less than buying a pudding at a restaurant.

Dan did his first day this Monday and he was in Toulouse for four days staying over at a hotel in between. It seems like it went pretty well, they have long 90 minute lunches and work late, which is not what English people choose but it is quite sociable. It’s quite a young team of guys mostly in their 20s. All the communication is in French which has been hard work. Dan is very good at French but it’s not his first language, and he doesn’t know slang or business French. He said it was very weird being in an office again because he hasn’t worked in an office since before Covid.

On his last day in the office this week they threw him a welcome drinks thing after work, which was very kind but he would have rather just started his long journey home. The train takes 2 and a half hours but his train home was delayed and then when it got halfway it decided to be a bus. Our village is not great for public transport so I had left the car in town and cycled back earlier in the day. Which was a good job because the door to door journey took him 5 hours 45. I supported Dan emotionally with messages all the way.

  

Nothing Toulouse

Hey, I haven’t blogged for a while because every week I keep thinking Dan will get a job this week and then I’ll write about that. Well he still hasn’t, but it feels like it’s getting closer. 

He widened the search a lot so he applied for a few short term jobs which he was interviewed for but didn’t get, although one of them has come back to him with a possible other opportunity. He applied for a job with Amazon that sounded horrendous. It was to be one of their warehouse guys, but he’d have to wear steel toe cap shoes and walk 12km a day, working from 5am to 1pm for minimum wage. They were having a big recruitment day and 200 people were being interviewed at once. He also applied to work for a Muslim aid agency which advertised as “hybrid in Pairs” but had to turn them down when they said it was 3 days a week in Paris. But best of all he applied for a job with a sex shop! Hahaha sex. (It was just content writing not being in a physical shop.) Still funny though. He’s still waiting to hear back from them actually so it could still happen.

But anyway this week he had two interviews for a normal boring company based in Toulouse to do a job very similar to his last one. Unfortunately Toulouse is two and a half hours away and he might have to do 2 days a week or maybe even 3, but hopefully in time either they would trust him to not come in so much, he could find a more remote job elsewhere or option 3 we could move to Toulouse. There would be a lot of things to consider, I’d miss the sea, and we’ve started making some nice friends here now, but it’s a possibility down the line, he might not even get the job. He will go there on Wednesday to do a presentation for them.

We’re currently in the middle of a two week half term, which has been taken over quite a lot by interview stuff and me needing to look after the kids while Dan works on that, but we managed to get out for a nice family day last week to the mountains. We were hoping to sledge but there was no snow, so we went to this town called Llivia which is a tiny blob of Spain surrounded by France, mainly for the cheaper fuel. And also to the hot springs, which is a bath temperature pool with mountain views. I was surprised that it’s not actually deep enough to swim in so it’s more like a bath temperature bath actually. Which I loved because our house doesn’t have a bath. 

See a little video of our day Here

I wrote all that yesterday while waiting for my sister Sarah to announce her big news: She’s had a baby! A massive hairy but adorable baby. She had a difficult labour with him because he was 9lbs! But don’t worry I helped her through from 1000 miles away with my hilarious jokes. 

There was a lot of chat in our family WhatsApp on the 14th (Ash Wednesday/ Valentine’s Day) about the baby being called Ashley Valentino, if he was born that day, that’s such a cool rockstar name right? But he was born of the 16th. If you don’t already know the name would you like to play the name guessing game?

First name = a common Irish surname

Middle name one = a paw patrol character 

Middle name two = a disciple 

Last Name = Gillard.

Comment with your guesses, or scroll down to see the answer.

The hair!

His name is Murphy Marshall James Gillard.

Welcome to the outside little man.

Falling down a mountain (part 2)

After practising a little bit on the beginners slope I wanted to try the between the legs ski lift that takes you up over bridge onto a bigger hill, it was tricky getting into this ski lift, you have to go through a turnstile thing which I found tricky with by big clown feet (skis) on. I had also accidentally dressed as a clown. I got some ski trousers for 2 euros from a charity shop which I was super chuffed with as they were such a bargain. They looked normal with my blue coat but when I took off the coat (because it was actually hot) and I was just wearing purple trousers with elastic straps over a red and white stripy top I did look a bit clown like.

Anyway I got on to this ski lift, which looks like a zip line seat from a kids park except your not ment to put all your weight on it, you just put it in between your legs and let it pull you. I managed this fine and even managed to film a little bit of me going up for my TikTok (see here). I put my phone safely back away in my pocket and then, I don’t know how but I just ended up on the floor. I thought about grabbing on and being dragged up but decided this was not the thing to do, so I just crawled out of the way of the person behind me who shouted “oopsie!” I didn’t even know the French used “oopsie” but that’s nice. And then I skied down and got in the queue again hoping not too many people saw. The second time I made it to the top but coming down was a problem. I fell over twice and the second time I could see the rest of my family were all at the top of the beginners slope which was just across from where I was, so I gave up on going down and crawled sideways to suggest to them we took the cable car now.

With the beginners pass you get one free cable car return journey, so we hobbled over the road to get on it. It was a beautiful view on both sides, as we went up we could see the little town surrounded by mountains and on the other side, close to the mountain, we could see this toboggan track which looked a lot of fun. At the top we stepped out onto a flat bit which was busy with groups milling around and a few ski school groups, it was a bit of a party atmosphere with music playing loudly. 

I found the bit I had gone to once before with Percy when he did his school ski trip last year and I was a volunteer helper. It was this very gentle slope with another zip line style ski lift. After going for one day on this bit I thought I could ski. I don’t think I ever fell over because the slope was so gentle, and I always had to help other kids that had fallen over, that is what I was there for so I never got to really discover what I could and couldn’t do. So we had a bit more practise on this bit and then Dan took the cable car back with Eric while I skied all the way down the mountain with Percy. I massively misjudged how far this was and how long it would take. There were a few lovely bits but mostly it was too steep. I went too fast and then I fell over, and then I couldn’t get up. Percy was much better than me and had to wait patiently for me. One time I fell into such a big heap of snow that it went all up my back and down my clown trousers.

I was relieved that we finally made it down it one piece, actually in two pieces, we haven’t been one piece since 2014. We had taken a wrong turning at some point and didn’t come out exactly where we wanted too but luckily phones exists and we managed to meet up with Eric and Dan. After giving back our ski stuff we headed home. Stupidly I had planned to host a dinner party that same night as it was my birthday. But cleverly I had made Dan agree to cook for it. There was still a lot to do when we got back including all of us showering and changing into party appropriate clothes.

We had three families round, for the first hour or so we had my artist friend Flick, with her 6 and 16 year old daughters. They are English, and then we had a couple who Eric refers to as “our board game family.” They are two girls, one French and one German, but the language they mainly speak to each other is English. Every Wednesday we play board games together. So for a while we were all English speakers and we played our new game Herd Mentality together. It’s a game where you have to answer questions and you get points by having the same answer as the majority. For example “what is the heaviest fruit or vegetable?” Most people said pumpkin so they all got a point, but I said watermelon and someone else said pineapple so we get no points.

We ate this lovely Gordon Ramsey sausage rice dish that Dan made, and then another family arrived. I know the mum from my French class, she is Spanish/Senegalese but speaks good French, and has a French partner and two young kids. So then I tried not to speak too much English as everyone there at least knew some French. Our German friend Marie also spoke good Spanish so they could talk together, and the kids all talked together in French. 

It did get chaotic, but in a lovely way. At one point I let the kids draw on our big sliding door window with Posca pens. I thought it would be a nice non language based activity that would keep people amused for half a hour but within 5 minutes the windows were filled with doodles.

I had a massive rainbow cake. Good food colouring is really hard to get in France, so when I was back in England for Christmas I stocked up on the good gel food colouring, thinking it would last for years and I’d use it for all the kids birthdays. But then I was just too tempted to use it on my own cake and it’s now nearly all gone. I got sung to in English, French and Spanish. 

Good night, Bon nuit, Buenas noces.

Falling down a mountain (Part 1)

Hello welcome to my first blog of 2024. It’s my 15 year blog anniversary and my 38th birthaversary.

 I feel blogs are dying a little now, because there’s podcasts and TikToks and vlogs, and to be honest the page views have gone down a bit since the glory days of the 2015-2020. I’m going to carry on with it though, even if no one reads it, just because I enjoy reading it back sometimes and remembering things that I would have definitely forgotten otherwise.

According to page views you guys love a bit of tragedy though. You like it when things go well for us but you absolutely loved it when things were going badly for us a few months ago, you loved it when I was going out of my mind stuffing frying pans in public bins just before we moved countries, but you loved it the most when I had cancer in 2018.

Well sorry to disappoint but things are going ok right now. Not great, Dan is still out of work although he has a bit of temporary work for this month which we’re very grateful for. It was my birthday yesterday which I want to write about but I never got round to writing a Christmas blog so I’m going to do a quick Christmas summary:

I painted my pregnant sister’s stomach.

I had an argument with my mum about pie.

I held 2 new nieces one 7 months and one 2 weeks old.

We had a fun new year with our friends Zac and Jude.

Dan had a job interview but didn’t get it.

We went to London to see my extended family, and while we were there saw some penguins, a film about the moon and Rachel Goodsall. 

We got evacuated from a canal boat because the river was flooding. I realise this sentence doesn’t make much sense, but we were sleeping in my parent’s canal boat to give others room to sleep in the house. The river was rising fast and this was our last chance to walk off the boat onto the decking and back to the house before the water went over the decking level.

My sister Sarah had a baby shower where I made a quiz. You had to guess from multiple choice questions where my kids think babies come out of, or what they think is good parenting advice. I filmed them answering these questions, see the video here if you want a laugh:

Percy and Eric’s views on birth

Ok Christmas summary done. Let’s talk about Skiing.

When I was growing up I didn’t know many people who went skiing, I’d never been and that was normal for most people I knew. I’m not trying to make out I’m from the hood, we went sailing which is arguably more elite. But when I think of snow I think of sledging. Any time it snowed I’d put on my tights under my jogging bottoms, a pair of wellies, t-shirt, jumper, coat, 2 pairs of socks and woolly gloves that got wet in a second and then made you cold. And we’d head out to the electricity substation which was our nearest hill. We’d mess around for a few hours until we couldn’t stand the cold any longer and then come back for a hot bath. 

Did you know snow can be better than that? Did you know they actually make trousers that are  waterproof and warm and base layers that are intended for the purpose of wearing in the cold? They make boots that are both waterproof and warm! This was a revelation to me and Dan who grew up with the exact same experience of snow. But if you are growing up in the village I now live in it is completely normal to go skiing every year. I think almost everyone will have at least tried it. Percy got to go on a government funded 3 day trip with school last year and I got to be a parent volunteer helper for a day.

I’ve always been envious of people with summer birthdays, I’d love to have a nice barbecue birthday party, but I’ve always had to do indoor things. But living here is redeeming the January birthday for me. The boys loved yesterday so much that they both asked if they could go for their birthdays (May and October) sorry boys. Eric’s now asking if he can go instead of a Christmas present, that’s how much they love it.

We live about 80-90 minutes away from the ski resort we went to (Les Angles) so it’s near enough to do a day trip which makes it more affordable. We got the beginners pass, which was 28 euros each, and actually allowed us to go on some really big slopes and using a few different ski lifts. We had to buy some skiing clothes and the goggles but most of that we’ve picked up second hand, none of us had “ski coats” we just wore our normal everyday coats. But it was actually really warm in the sun so I didn’t wear a coat hardly at all. We hired ski boots, skis, helmets and me and Dan had poles, this cost around 15 euros per person for all of it. If we stay here long term I’d love to buy this stuff so that we didn’t have to pay to hire it but for now it makes sense to hire.

I was under the impression I could ski, because on my one day as a helper parent on a school trip I didn’t  fall over. I have now realised that on the school trip I didn’t really go downhill. I went on the gentlest hill you can imagine. And I was supposed to be helping the kids when they fell over, so I just assumed that I could ski and if it wasn’t for stoping to help the kids I’d be amazing.

So we got to the beginners slope which I think was still pretty steep and I thought, I’ll ski down holding Eric’s hand, he’s never done it before so he’ll need loads of help. He fell over, I fell over and I couldn’t get back up. I was completely useless at helping him because I didn’t know anything. Percy started just getting on with it and doing it with no help. Dan had to take over helping Eric and I had to try and teach myself how to do it. All I know was make a backwards “V” shape with the skis to slow down. But sometimes I got so fast and out of control I had to do an on purpose fall over to prevent just going at 60 mile a hour into a tree. But then I really struggled to get up from the ground when I was down and so sometimes just bum slid down for a bit.

I feel like this blog is long enough and I want to sleep and rest my achy old body, so I’m going to make it a two parter.

Next time…

Falling off a ski lift, going up to the top of the mountain in a cable car, taking 40 minutes to get down the mountain. Rushing back to host a dinner party, bilingual party dynamics and my rainbow cake.