Jonesfest 2021

I'm just recovering from the maddest weekend. If you didn't know me well maybe you'd think I'd had a big night out drinking - that's what normal people do in a mad weekend right? But I am far from normal. I'm recovering from having about 8 families doing a ceilidh in my very average sized garden, followed by my house being pretend burgled by 4 comedians for a game.

Jonesfest is a festival I hold in my garden for no reason. People keep asking me "what this in aid of?" and "are you raising money for something?" and "is it someone's birthday?" No. I just love people. I've missed people, and I don't have the right personality for a January birthday. It came about last year after we finally got our garden fixed. We got this decking area for eating outside, but when you take off the table and chairs it looks just like a stage. And when you own sound equipment and have lots of creative friends it's just rude not to put on a festival.

The first one was last August. At the time it felt like we were celebrating the end of covid but we now know it was just that little sweet spot between 2 lockdowns. It was more restricted last year, it was the rule of 6 indoors and 30 outdoors. I cancelled a lot of the things I had planned. We had a circus skills workshop and a drama workshop for families, a bike ride, a baking for kids session and a breeze block sculpting workshop. It was a lot of fun and not too much work.

This year I decided to go bigger. I'd planned two evening performances, a music night and a comedy night, as well as a load of other workshops and stuff. It was a lot to organise, probably a little too much and about two weeks before I was pretty stressed and had no time. I could have put less effort in, but once I have the idea in my head for something I find it hard to back down. I don't think anyone would have complained if they didn't receive complementary Jonesfest tote bags, but that didn't stop me getting up at 6am, before the kids, twice so that I could print more Jonesfest tote bags. I also took a whole day off work to sew together plain cotton bunting so that every kid could paint a bit to decorate the garden and then at the end they could take their bit home.

The Friday was the bunting workshop and the all age music festival (with face painting and hair braiding). Dan was going to play some of his album (Exhume check it out on Spotify) and then I had 2 other very talented friends that I had somehow managed to persuade to play. I woke up to heavy rain and Percy running in saying "happy jonesfest!" he was so excited! It was a difficult decision to cancel the first nights activities, but I think it was the right one. We did have gazebos and stuff but I don't think many people would have come and and I don't think it would have been that fun to be out in the rain. Percy was so gutted though and was in tears. I was pretty sad too, but we continued with the bunting making which the kids loved and then saturday was a big day of fun.

The day began with a crochet workshop led by my mum and a simultaneous chess tournament. I've never done crochet before it's really hard! It's like a magic trick, if you're good you just wiggle a stick next to some wool until it makes a flower, if you're bad you just make a blob.

The next event was the kids show. This was the one thing I knew a lot of people were coming to. Half an hour before it started it was pretty stressful. I had a house full of family we were trying to make lunch for, sound equipment to set up, I was running all over the house trying to find rugs to cover the slightly wet grass, some good friends that we haven't seen for ages arrived early and I just didn't feel I had the capacity to be nice and get things done (sorry friends don't take it personally!) but then it all came together. and by the time more people arrived I was pumped and answered the door like "WELCOME TO JONESFEST!!!" the garden filled up with families and it looked mad like a real festival.

We started the way all good festivals should start with my Dad playing nursery rhymes on the accordion. I'd forgotten I'd agreed to sing them on the mic. Then we had the absolutely awesome Leila doing a teaching some super hero style dance moves, she's so good at what she does. If you have pre-school kids you should take them to her group, it's so much creative fun. Here's her theatre company 

Then we had my good friend Steve and his granny puppet reading a story. He did this a bit on Facebook live in lockdown, and I'd forgotten how genuinely hilarious it was. He was just reading the book A Squash and A Squeeze by Julia Donaldson but the accents and the little asides and the way he interacted with the audience made it incredibly entertaining for all ages.

The finale of this mad show was my dad attempting to teach everyone the eightsome reel, a sort of ceilidh dance. He only recently started learning the accordion and is good considering that, but he was not good enough to play and shout the dance moves so it descended into a beautiful chaos, and then I tried to help by shouting random things like "right hand star!" with no clue if that's what they were meant to be doing.

After the kids show there was meant to be an adults aerial hoop workshop, which turned into a bit of a free for all mess around on the hoop. We watched Jo be amazing and other people struggle to get on. It was loads of fun though and very kind of her to drive her hoop set up all the way from Bradford with a baby.

Baby Zac getting into the festival spirit

The evening was my comedy night, I couldn't wait. I had 4 of my most favourite comedians who I would also call friends to entertain the audience. 

a calming rabbit cuddle is what comedians need before every show.

We did a mash up of the shows Mock the Week and Taskmaster. So for mock the week we did things like "unlikely things to hear in a covid briefing" and everyone stepped up to the mic with their funny suggestions. Then we did some Taskmaster style silly tasks, they had to recreate an artwork on a teammate's face. Then we played a blind game of connect 4 where I scented the pieces. The red counters smelled of peppermint and the yellow ones smelled of next perfume. Blindfolded contestants had to take a piece from a mixed box and place into the connect 4 game. Every third go the non-blindfolded member of the team got to play a piece. While I was setting up for this game I was thinking "maybe this is a rubbish idea for a game, I should have given it more thought," but it was actually incredible. What made it so funny was that Mike (who is Bulgarian) had never heard of the game Connect 4. So it got to his go, he was on the red team, and there were about 5 red counters in and only one yellow one - it was an easy win for the red team if only they knew what was going on. Mike seem to seriously have not worked out from the title "Connect 4" that you have to connect 4 until his frustrated blind team mate shouted out "JUST GET 4 REDS IN A ROW!"

The last game was the maddest and the one that Dan thought was not a good idea. But I think most of the time, as risk increases fun increases. The game was to burgle our house. So the 4 comedians got given a bag (a Jonesfest totebag of course) and they had 5 minutes to go into our house, in the dark (because it was late by this point) and search around for the most valuable items. There were two kids and a baby asleep upstairs: if you wake anyone you loose the game. When you think the 5 minutes is up you have to go out into the garden and climb behind the shed, over a bit of chicken wire to some wood off our property. No one was allowed a watch or phone, they had to just guess when 5 minutes was up. Then they all came back and revealed their loot.

Lee had misunderstood the value thing and squeezed a breeze block sculpture of a head in his bag. Mike had a load of random thing like several pencil cases of felt pens and a wii remote. Anna had taken the kettle, but Sean was the clear winner with our house keys, our car keys, my sisters car keys and the house keys of our neighbours who happened to be in the audience! The night came to an abrupt end when we got heckled over the fence by the neighbours and then it started to rain. It was the most bonkers joy filled thing. Mike wanted to chat to me about using this panel show format again and I'm happy to see if that's possible, but something makes me think it was a "you have to be there" kind of moment and those people and this weird garden festival scenario was the perfect combination for this exact type of weird silliness.

Sunday was a lot more chilled and started with a lino print workshop. It's something I've been learning for a few months and it's really fun and I love to share things I've learnt. 

After lunch we headed out to Childwall woods for a wide game. This particular game, called dragons, is one I grew up playing. The knights have to find a flag and take it back to base, the dragons have to catch all the knights and take them to the secret lair. It's so enjoyable to play and way better exercise than a walk in the woods. I arrived dressed in a full dragon onesie of course, and Percy was in his generic reptile onesie (crocodile or dinosaur maybe?). When we pulled up, there was a big group of people in hi-vis jackets that were "Friends of Childwall woods." They demanded an explanation of why were we dressed like that and then I had to explain the concept of wide games and then Jonesfest. I showed the guy a video of people doing a ceilidh in our garden, as if that was some kind of explanation of why I was dressed as a dragon.

I must have first played this game about age 10 and continued playing it until my early 20s. One of my friends Ben that came with his son says he remembers playing a game of it in a park with me back in the day and getting weird looks for chasing me. It was exciting to be passing on this game to the next generation! To make it work with small kids we didn't let the kids go off independently, so Dan had Eric and I had Percy. We also made a whatsapp group before we started so we could communicate vital info like "it's the end of the game." This was a new dimension that didn't exist when I played before. As well as communicating important stuff we could send threatening messages like "we're watching you little knights" and that's always fun. I quickly discovered that a fleecy onesie and wellies is not the quickest outfit for chasing people. It makes sense if you think about it, you never see Olympians wearing wellies. The whole thing was a lot of fun and I'm really up for doing it again, the more people the better so if you're in Liverpool and up for it let me know.

The finale of Jonesfest was a bring and share tea. I was so exhausted by this point my legs were aching from the aerial hoop and dragons and I just wanted to sleep, but only my sister Sarah and the Curtis family, who are big fans of Jonesfest and have been to nearly everything, came and it was a really lovely chilled out end to a mad 3 days.

There were points where I thought I won't do it again, it's a lot of work and sometimes it can be disappointing when people don't turn up to something you've planned, or the weather lets you down, but by the end I was so happy with the whole thing and I'm already having thoughts about Jonesfest 2022. If you helped out or just came along thank you so much for being part of this very weird but fun idea of mine. 

10 Years

My last blog post was about all the exciting things that were happening in July. Now that it's August I can update you on them.

My Interview: I didn't get the job doing art workshops with the Brain Charity. I think I gave a good interview, the feedback was that my art workshop idea was perfect, my answers were all good but evaluation is a big part of their projects because it's funded by Children In Need and so they have to show a lot of positive outcomes to get funding and I was not experienced in evaluation because in my job I work for myself and I am almost never asked to evaluate my projects afterwards in a formal way. It's a bit of a shame but so much has happened since that I entirely forgot that I even had an interview, it's only that I looked back at my previous blog.

On the same day as the interview I was asked to provide art workshops for a lunch time holiday club. Marcus Rashford's school dinner campaign means there's money to provide children who would normally get free school meals with a lunch box of food and some fun things to do. So every Thursday I go to this beautiful community garden surrounded by less than beautiful high rise flats and help the kids to make mosaics of butterflies, which will eventually go up on the fences.

Dan's game show: He didn't win any money. He had a great day and met one of his idols Lee Mack. Out of 100 people 6 won £1000 and one won £10, 000. He did fairly well though, he was in the top 25% of contestants.

Jonesfest: ended last night and was absolutely epic I'll write a whole blog post on it very soon. But to be chronological I first need to write about our 10 year anniversary holiday...

It's been a decade of a lot of change. At the beginning of our marriage we were 25 and we bought a very small house in a very dodgy area of Liverpool. Dan worked in Southport in a job he didn't like and communted by motorbike so was out the house for 12 hours a day. I had just been made redundant from a company that got me to go into school and delivering art projects and so was trying to make a go of doing that without the company and sales team that I was used to. Skip forward 10 years and we have 2 boys and a rabbit, a bigger house with a garden. we've been on a big two month cycling adventure, I became a comedian, and also have managed to do the art workshop thing off and on for 10 years. Dan has a much more local job. It's not all been great; I had cancer and we were sort of homeless for 9 months and Dan will be redundant by next month, but we are very grateful to be in the position we are in.

I've been looking forward to this holiday for about 3 years. I love to celebrate things and I knew I wanted to do something to mark 10 years since this beautiful day.

Photos by Daniel Charles Photography

I remember being dumped with the grandparents on my parents 10 year anniversary when my Dad took my Mum on a surprise trip to Paris. I was about 7 and all I really remember was one morning not being able to find my knickers and being old enough to be embarrassed to go down stairs naked and ask for help, but not old enough to think about a different solution like putting a dressing gown on. I'm sure my grandparents did loads of lovely stuff with me, but that is my only memory.

Anyway I managed to exchange that slightly embarrassing moment where I was abandoned by my parents, for 5 nights of free childcare from my parents! Totally worth it. Originally we were thinking of going to Portugal but in the end, because of the uncertainties, we decided to stick with Britain and I'm glad we did. It was less stressful and we were lucky with the weather.

We stayed in a nice hotel, in a tiny place called Lamphey near Penbroke in South Wales. Being in a hotel meant we had literally no jobs to do. The biggest chore I did all week was rinse out my swimsuit after a swim. Given that every evening after the kids are in bed we do half an hour to an hour of tidying the house this was amazing! In the run up to these days away we we so incredibly busy. I was having less than a hour of free time in 24 hours, sometimes getting up at 6 to do stuff before the kids got up and going to bed really late. It was not sustainable but I kept telling myself the more I got done the more I could relax and enjoy the holiday, which I really did.

The first day was really hot, we dropped the kids off at my parents early in the morning and made the big drive down just stoping in McDonalds for breakfast. I went to Pembrokshire once 2 years ago to visit my friend Hazel who lived there. It was the school holidays and Dan had to work but I was free all summer so I took the boys down for 5 days, an it was amazing - apart from the bit where I lost 2 year old Eric in a farm park for half a hour: that was the worst bit. But the best bit was Tenby beach, such a beautiful fun beach with an island you can swim out to. Except last time I was there my friend was at work and so it was just me and the boys and I couldn't swim out the the island. 

So this time I came prepared. We parked up after our long journey purposely left all our valuables in the car and headed down for a swim. The water was so clear, I found it refreshing on a hot day (Dan said it was too cold) we swam out towards the island to find you can actually swim into a cave and right out the other side of the little island! 

Other highlights were cycling to a castle, doing an inflatable obstacle course and jumping off a cliff into the sea.

We had a big chat about what things are important to us in life and realised we really are quite compatible! We both want more nature particularly beaches in our life, we both value journeying and adventure, not doing what everyone else does, we both want time for creativity (we are creative in very opposite ways but we highly value creating things). Lastly I value having friends round for meals and parties and inclusion of as many people as possible, whereas Dan values rest and quiet time. 

Dan has just kindly supported me in putting on a 3 day festival in our house and garden where I invited everyone I knew. So if you know Dan maybe don't drop round in the next few days while he recovers.

Heres to the next 10. 

An Exciting Month

Jones updates...

It's been a busy time since schools have been back. I've had a load of work which has been amazing. I've been doing a mural of about 20 key workers at Percy's school which is nearly finished and just before that I did a massive mosaic. 

Dan's been busy applying for jobs because he will be getting made redundant in September.

Percy is getting very into the football, he's been given Ukraine in the class sweepstake. So we let him watch the only match that started before his bedtime: Ukraine vs Austria which ended 1- 0 to Austria. We are the least football family ever, but we tried to make an effort just in case he wants to get into football one day. As a comedian and hater of football I find it almost impossible to show any kind of genuine support for the footballers. We were trying to come up with child appropriate football chants. He has got quite into it though and has been filling in his little chart keeping track of the scores.

Eric has found out what class he'll be in when he starts school in September, and we're going to meet up with a few of those kids today. He's really excited to join Percy at school. They are particularly excited about getting the school photo together.

July...

Next month is looking exciting. Dan is going on a tv game show! It's a new show called the 1% club where he could theoretically win £100k by answering logic questions. you know stuff like "what cheese is made backwards?" (Edam) In practise if you get to win a share of 100k you have already won 10k that you have to gamble and we've already decided that that is not a risk worth taking for us. Realistically he is much more like to win nothing or maybe £1000 but it sounds like a fun day out, and Dan will get to meet one of his comedy heroes Lee Mack, who is the presenter.

Other things that are happening in July are: I have an interview for a job teaching art to people with neurological conditions.  If I get it I'll explain more about it.

On 23rd July it will be our 10 year wedding anniversary. I'm super excited about this because we will be having 5 nights away without the kids! The most we've ever had before is 2 nights and I just can't even imagine having 5 nights. Imagine being able to have a full conversation over dinner without having to wipe somebodies face or arse! Yesterday at dinner I said that classic mum line "eat with your knife and fork, you're not an animal" to which Percy replied "humans are animals actually."

We're ending July with what I am super excited about and Dan is tolerating for the sake of my happiness. JONESFEST our festival in our garden. Everyone that knows me is invited. It's like a weekend long party to make up for an 18 month long lockdown. I refer to this lockdown period as introvertfest when I'm trying to persuade Dan that Jonesfest is a great idea. We did a cut down version of it last year at the end of August in between lockdowns. We cancelled the evening things but we did a circus skills workshop and a drama workshop and kids baking and a family bike ride and breeze block sculpting. It's quite a lot of work to put together but then on the weekend it's just so lovely being with people and doing interesting things.

This year I'm most excited about my comedy panel show "Mockmaster". It's a mixture of 2 of my favourite shows Mock The Week and Taskmaster. I've loved putting it together and I'm super pleased with the line up. I won't go in to detail about the tasks I have in store, but let's just say Dan has already declared he is taking no responsibility for it if things go wrong. That's the level of fun it's going to be.

Other fun things happening at the festival are my favourite childhood wide game in Childwall woods and my sister Jo teaching an arial hoop class.

Redundancy, hugs and DIY

A few weeks ago Dan was told that he is going to be made redundant in September. It was weird news, his job which is writing procedures for a housing company is all he's ever wanted to do since he was 5. Jokes. Ok it's not the most inspirational job but someones got to do it... Actually thats not even true they've had a big restructure and decided that no one needs to do that job. 

It was a good job though, it was quite well paid and very flexible and he liked his team and since the pandemic he has worked entirely from home, which has made things even more flexible with childcare and homeschooling stuff. If this had happened a year ago it would have been a much more worrying situation because I lost all my work from March to October. Then I worked 3 jobs until January when everything closed down and I had to homeschool again. So Dan's income kept us afloat in all that time. At least now I have lots of work and hopefully I can continue working in September. 

Dan's been thinking about all his options. We don't want to rush into any old other job just yet. He's been considering the police. He always wanted to do something active and physical and thought about the police when he was 18 or so, but the anti-social hours and pay cut he'd have to take are a bit off-putting. If only criminals could keep their law breaking to 9-5 Monday to Friday it would be much more convenient. They should make that the law. But the big plan A idea that we've talked about for so many years is moving country. 

There's been so many times before when we've considered it. When we got married we saved for 2 years to go on a massive trip cycling though Europe to the Middle East. On that trip we went with a view of trying out countries for living in, but actually much as we had an amazing time we missed our Liverpool community, and decided to have a baby here. 

Cycling on a nice Swiss road in 2013

The next time we thought about moving was when we suddenly became homeless after our house sale fell through. We had all the money for the deposit still in our bank and thought maybe this is the time. In the end we found the house we currently live in which has been really great, and for a good few years my desire to leave went away. I would still be gutted to say goodbye to our friends and family and home but it's got to the point where we think we would if we got the chance.

Finally getting a house in 2017 a few months before Eric was born

We've been in many circles with what country, but it's been narrowed down a bit by Brexit to France. Dan is half French so him and the boys could live there, the same as French people and I could get a spouse visa. I actually remember saying in the last general election that if Labour won we'd have a third child (because we might be able to afford it) and if the Tories won we'd move to France because we wouldn't want to live here anymore. Sort of a joke but a little bit true. 

We also thought about going further afield, like Australia or something, but I wouldn't want to go anywhere that far for more than a year. For a year we'd go almost anywhere though, apart from the south. We decided if we were going to uproot ourselves there's no point doing that to go somewhere where it still rains a lot. So we've narrowed it down to Liverpool, and the rest of the world except the UK, and space, we haven't ruled that out. If you know of any jobs let us know!

In national news hugs are back from Monday. I'm personally not going to hug anyone on Monday though, because I don't like the idea of hugging people when Boris tells me to. So I'll be giving out hugs to anyone who wants them on Sunday and Tuesday. This is the day I've been waiting for since they announced the lockdown easing in February: The day you can have another human in your house. I'm going to go so crazy with seeing people and I've just finished decorating the dining room so we can have people round for dinner.

Before...

During...

It's the obvious thing to do with this paper

Our dining room was briefly a kids gallery

Dying the curtains. Dan said they look like giant tampons

Sticking on the panels

After.....

It was a lot of work. It took 5 or 6 tubes of no more nails and some nails.

That's a painting I did in lockdown.

Percy designed this bit with the jug.

Can't wait to hug you and feed you all soon. x

Getting back to life

Yesterday was the best day I've had for ages, I've been working super hard. In December I had 3 jobs with the theory I should just take the work while I can because I knew I would have no work in January, so I could take some time to relax then. That was only half true: I had no income in January but there was no time to relax as I had to home school again. It wasn't awful, I'm pretty well qualified as a homeschool teacher and Percy is a pretty good student but I wouldn't call it relaxing. We did some nice things and we formed a childcare bubble so sometimes I was homeschooling 4 kids and sometimes I did have a day without kids where I could do all the other jobs.  When Percy went back to school he came home with a honorary teacher certificate for us with an attached KitKat and 1 tea bag which me and Dan shared. 1 finger of KitKat for 3 months of homeschooling seems fair payment.

Now that school is going back I finally have some art projects to do again, one of them has been delayed a whole year. So I'm really excited to be getting on with that again, when it's all going well and I have loads of work it's my dream job. It has been hard work though, I've made this mosaic bigger than it should have been because I'm not very good at estimating the area of circles. These 2 mosaics will use up approximately 8000 tiles.

Those pink things are meant to be flamingoes, (I copied them from a child's drawing)

both mosaics are not quite finished.

But yesterday was the best day ever, the first hot day of the year. I love the sun so much (if I lived in a sunnier place I would be a much nicer person) and I love water, and my family are ok. So a sunny day on the river with the family is probably my favourite way to spend a day. And thanks to the Rule of 6 in gardens, it was legal. (Apart from the bit where some of us were inside a canal boat and I thought 'just because we're moving and this isn't a house doesn't mean we're not indoors.')

The boys were very excited to see Granny and Grandad again. Percy has recently got really into chess. He's read 2 children's books on chess and is now reading an adult chess book. He beat grandad at a game and was very smug about it. Percy has also combined his love of chess with his love of dancing. I helped him write some of the lyrics to his chess dance and he does the steps to show which way each piece moves. e.g

"forward forward side,

is the way I like to slide,

you may call me "horse"

but I'm the knight, of course"

and...

"what you're looking at,

is my lovely pointy hat,

the bishop that is me,

I move diagonally."

He is not your average 6 year old.

Eric also had a lot of fun playing labyrinth, the maze board game, and winning a tug of war with his secret tactic that he told us about later: "not letting the other person know that they were playing tug of war." The boys have finally reached good ages that I think I'm suited to parenting. Baby's are cute but they're not well suited to a day sitting on the roof of a canal boat.

Having such a good day makes me wonder should we try and move to a sunnier place near a lake or the sea? Or should we just enjoy getting to go here and see family on sunny days. I feel very rested there but if I actually lived there maybe I wouldn't feel like that. It's not exactly been a restful home for may parents over the last few months. The street was completely flooded and so nearly all their neighbours have moved out and most won't be back till after the summer which is really sad. 

Yesterday

a few months ago in the flood.

I'm trying to decide what things to go back to when things hopefully get normal again. When we went into lockdown I was doing way too much and I was relieved to have a break. Comedy had taken up so much of my life, most night I was out gigging or practising a set or doing all the little jobs I have to do to run my own comedy night. This was all a choice of course: I decided to take every comedy opportunity for a year to see what would happen and some things had happened, I had progressed, I was getting paid work, I met loads of people, I was booked in to do a hour long show in 3 different cities. But the year had ended and I was 6 months into the next year and it wasn't sustainable to carry on like that forever.

The problem is that a lot of the people who make it in comedy are those who just give it everything and work super hard and don't give up. I don't think you can really progress if you choose to just do it once a week, or choose not to travel to other cities for example. There's so many comedians whose relationship breaks up due to never being in, or who's mental health is terrible. They are a weird but loveable people group comedians.

Much of my drive to do it came from feeling like there wasn't much representation of people like me in the comedy world, there are loads of women in comedy but there's often only one on the bill. There aren't that many married women or mums. I find the MCs and the promoters and club owners are almost always men, which makes the atmosphere blokey. 

I know I can't go back to doing as much as I did before lockdown, but it's hard to decide what to do and how much to do it. I will have more time now because Eric gets 3 days a week of nursery and in September he will go to school. But hopefully a lot of that time will be spent earning money. I was considering stoping doing my own night (Early Risers Comedy Club) and focusing more on gigging other places, but I've decided to keep my night, and focus on writing more new stuff and to cut back on traveling long ways for gigs, unless they're really good ones.

Early Risers

Other things I want to make time for are having people round for meals, joining a group for either singing or dancing (I can't decide which and I don't have time for both) and church stuff like getting to know other families in our church, by helping to arrange some social stuff for the kids. There's a million other stuff I want to do too, but I guess you can't do everything at once.

The Ginger Bet

I haven't blogged for ages, I felt like nothing significant had happened just the same old days of home schooling, going for cold walks and decorating the dining room, which is a bit exciting- I cut a very thin bit of wood at a 45 degree angle today and I was super proud of myself. But even more exciting than that, I was reminded of the ginger bet and there's been some very exciting developments!

If you weren't an avid reader of my blog in 2013 then you might not know that that was the year me and some friends entered into a 15 year long bet. "Who could have the most ginger children by 1st Jan 2028" now only 7 years away! Check out this previous blog for a full list and photos of contestants and all the small print rules. The bet part 2

Here are the up to the moment updates.

Sad news to begin with: I'm out. 2 kids, no more planned, both not ginger. Gutted. I feel like I've let my people down.

Continuing to hold the lead is my mum, with 2 ginger kids (and one non-ginger). 7 years is enough time for us to go grey though. I'll be 42 by 2028, it could happen. The crazy thing about this is that my mum and my Dad are both non-gingers.

But here's the exciting news: 3 of the original bet partakers have had babies in the last 18 months and all those babies have a tinge of the ginge!

First up baby Zac 

He is my sisters Jo's baby born in December. She is a strong ginger, ginger since birth (unlike me who was a blonde baby) but she's married to a non-ginger. In my opinion it's too early make a call on baby Zac but let's just say he's in with a chance.

Next up baby James (Jimmy)

The adorable baby of Katie and Mike, both not really ginger but sort of fair haired. The kind of people that look like they are carrying a bit of recessive ginge. Originally this bet was just between them and me and Dan. We seemed fairly equally matched, but as word spread everyone wanted in on the bet.

The third new baby of the ginger bet is the lovely baby Hannah, who was born in December 2019 and therefore has lived nearly all her life in lockdown. Her parents are strong ginger Lydia and non-ginger Tom. My money's on Lydia and Tom at this moment in time. If I can't win myself then the next best thing is a baby I share a name with to win.

One more piece of exciting news on this bet. Joe Fred (well his wife Katie) is expecting a baby in July, they are both not gingers but Joe has a ginger Mum so he's in with a chance.

It's still all to play for, next update coming 2024. EXCITING!

Good One Boris

Do you think anyone in the whole world woke up today thinking Boris Johnson is a great leader? I bet even his own family didn't. After receiving an email from Percy's school yesterday morning hearing that school is definitely on, we put them to bed in the evening telling them we didn't know if they will be going to school or nursery tomorrow. We woke them up to tell them that Eric would be going to nursery but Percy would't be going to school. They took the news surprisingly well. They are pretty resilient to change at this age, at least they have some understanding of what's going on. Not like the time we were kind of homeless when Percy was 18 months, that was a mad time for Percy, it was like now were visiting Grandparents, now were visiting auntie Sarah's student house, now we're visiting the other grandparents, now we're living with another random family for 9 months and then we'll move to our own house and have another baby and auntie Sarah will live with us. Maybe that chaos has set him up perfectly for Boris's mess, maybe it's psychologically damaged him. Only time will tell.

I've tweeted Boris a few times but surprisingly not had a response yet. 

I worked so hard in December and November at my 3 random jobs. I'm glad I did because it will be hard to earn any money now till schools go back, but I was really looking forward to some more decorating work for a neighbour and having a bit of time off to myself in January. Part of the reason I took the Royal Mail job in December is that it would help me be eligible for the 30 hours of free child care from January to March. I'll now be spending that time as an unpaid teacher. 

When I realised before the announcement that schools were going to shut I had a little cry and then I had a hot bath. With hindsight I should have cried in the bath to save on water bills. I can't believe that on Monday some kids went to school! Imagine going to school for one day and mixing with other kids who have seen family at Christmas only to be told that is it no more school till at least February. Or all the schools that had inset days to sort out the safe return of children, when what they needed to be organising was how they're going to teach the key worker kids and how they're going to do online learning.

Everyone's had a bad birthday this year. It's mine next week and I knew restaurants and stuff would probably be closed but Dan took the day off work so that we could at least enjoy a kid free day together, go for a cycle and watch a grown up film, now we will have to involve a 6 year old and maybe a 3 year old in whatever plans we make. I just hope that by the time it's Eric's birthday in May things will be normal again. I'm worried that he actually can't remember what normal is: Covid has taken up nearly a quarter of his life. I asked him the other day what he would do for his birthday and he said "play with Roy" which is one of his toys. I don't think he can remember real parties.

I am super glad nursery is still open for now. It's great that he gets to socialise with other kids, he was the one that got missed out when we homeschooled in the spring. Percy had a lot of things he had to learn for school so Eric got ignored a bit. The nursery have said you shouldn't send them in if you don't have to, but I'm not going to let them guilt me into keeping him off, he loves it there and having only one kid to homeschool makes it way easier. Today I taught Percy batik for the first time. There is no way I'd ever get hot wax out with a 3 year old around. Not sure how I will get through the next month, but today in-spite of everything was actually a nice day, and a very rare chance to spend time with just my eldest.

unfortunately just after taking this I spilt ink all over my chameleon