I love Liverpool

Week 2 of my 6 weeks of touring the Uk was in Liverpool. I will always have a special place in my heart for this city. When I’m in France and people ask me where I’m from I always say Liverpool and then if they’re British I have to follow it up with “I went to uni there and I lived there for 16 years but I’m not originally from there,” to explain the accent. I guess adopted children who are a different race to their adopted parents have to do the same thing. “Yeah she’s not my biological mum but this is the mum that raised me” that’s how I feel about Liverpool, it’s not really where I’m from but it’s the city that I choose that made me who I am. And I don’t really have many ties with my birth city Coventry anymore.

Someone recently asked me about why I didn’t want to sell my house in the Uk. They said “do you think you’re still emotionally attached to it” and the answer is yes I am, and I don’t really mind admitting that. There were years of stress and homelessness that went on before we got that house? Our previous house was in a really bad area someone was murdered right outside. I spent so long decorating every room of that house that we still own. So yep I’m emotionally attached, and also I think it makes financial sense not to see it.

I was really greatful that a friend who was going on holiday let me borrow her house. It was a beautiful house as well, she had so many plants and some many artefacts from around the world, and it was in a lovely area called aigbirth. (If you’re not familier its pronounced “egg-birth” other cool sounding Liverpool, places are “old swan” and “the dingle” ) this week was the only week we had a house to ourselves and it would have been pretty relaxing, had I not scheduled in seeing as many people as is humanly possible.

We arrived on a sunny Monday eve and after stocking up on food, driving through made me so happy and also a bit sad that I wasn’t still there, its got everything you could want from a city really. Apart from the stuff we moved for I guess: sun, mountains, and a sea you can actually swim in. We drove along the river past the docks to a climbing place called awesome some walls. 

My kids hardly remember Liverpool and I kept pointing out places I had lived or worked or done comedy which is a lot of places and by the end of the week they were sick of that. Climbing was really fun, and a perfect way to start the week. On Tuesday the romantic bubble surrounding Liverpool burst when Liverpool was grey and I had to go to the Argos in St John shopping center which, since they built Liverpool One (shopping district) is just a weird dystopian mix of terrible shops old people and despair. 

I got to see a lot of people, current people count of people I’ve intentionally seen including their children is 59, I think. In Liverpool I had Grace over for a meal, she has been on a similar journey to me, she moved from Liverpool to Cornwall (or Devon) please just assume any time I say Cornwall I mean somewhere in the south that isn’t London. Anyway she bought a house with her partner Laura and then it didn’t really work out and they are now in the Wirral, after having many of the same stressful moving situations and finding new friend dilemmas as me. I met Danni my old housemate from 2009-10 who now has a very cute one year old, and it’s so lovely seeing her being a mum after years of her thinking it might  never happen. I met up with Katie in the inflatable park that we got pretty much to ourselves because the Uk kids were in school. I saw my Godson Ben and he’s just turning 13 and is taller than me! In fact my boys and Ben and his sister Elodie played a fairly complex board game and me and Steph the mum didn’t have to supervise at all we just got to have a nice chat. I realised how far we’ve come from the day that Percy and Elodie were babies and we could never say a whole sentence at once.

2015 and 2025

I wanted to see my friends Zac and Jude who have boys a similar age, but since it was still term time they weren’t very free to hang out. So Jude suggested that on the Friday, which was her kids last day of term and they finished early, we could go to a trampoline park together. Her kids were actually invited there for a party, but we assumed the whole class would be there and no one would notice my kids being there as well. We were wrong, the party was the birthday boy, Jude’s boys and one other family, so we very much were noticed. The mum of the birthday boy was so welcoming though, she offered the boys party food and when I declined she insisted. My kids did not pick up on the weirdness and were happily posing for photos. The poor birthday kid is going to look back at these photos in years to come and wonder who these gatecrashers are. 

 I went to my old church Saint Stephens and saw a lot of people I used to know, unfortunately the boys hardly remember these people. I also went to see my old man old neighbour Geoff. He told me had had Cancer but he only whispered it because he didn’t want the kids to hear. Unfortunately I said “what?! You’ve got a hamster?” I wish I made that up for comedy but it’s true.

On the Saturday I organised a big picnic in Sefton park, but being England it was raining. It’s frustrating that all the good weather is in France and all the people I want to meet up with are in the land of rain. But we did it anyway we sheltered under some trees and we were near the cafe for if things got really bad. So many people came that I hadn’t seen for ages and you know they are your real friends if they come to a rainy picnic. The weather did cheer up and we had a great time, I just feel bad that I didn’t get to talk to everyone for that long. 

I saw keshia, who was a good friend when Percy was young, her daughter was 2 weeks younger than Percy and we hung out a lot, she even had Percy a day a week when I was working. When we became mums I was 28 and she was just 19 and single. She was a super good mum then, she read a lot more about parenting than me and she knew a lot more facts about breastfeeding and stuff. People assumed I knew stuff that I didn’t know, and they probably assumed she didn’t know as much as she did know. It must been really hard for her in many ways, it was hard enough for me aged 28 with a supportive partner. Now she’s almost 30 and has had another baby with partner Jamie and doing so well, I just feel really happy for her that things worked out for her, she’s actually in the process of buying a house round the corner from my old house that I still own, and I’m slightly gutted we won’t get to be neighbours.

Me Steph and Rachel went on a big night out, the relive our student days.  It was raining of course and I didn’t have an umbrella so I chose to tuck my hair into a sun hat the preserve the curls. And of corse it looked super cool. 

We had a few cocktails on 2 different places on blood street. The toilets in Albert Schloss were the highlight of the whole night.  We attemped to go out to our old spot “Hebbie jebbies” but unfortunately it wasn’t open. So we went to this place called “Teddy’s” instead which was fun but not quite enough party atmosphere for a big Dance. It was a rainy Sunday night outside of term time to be fair.

I finished my week in Liverpool with a Brunch on Lark Lane, I love lark lane, so many quirky shops, we went to Milo lounge one of the places I’ve done comedy before and the boys were made up to have a stack of pancakes Eric had it with blueberries and Percy had it with bacon.

 They were also chuffed with how long it took me to pack and tidy the house I was in because they had a very long time playing the switch. So long that we got to our holiday home near Blackpool about 4 hours later than I intended to get there but it was all fine.

This week just gone we’ve been in the holiday house with my extended family and then to my cousins wedding in Shropshire but I’ll write about that next time.