Weird Weekends

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

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

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

I wish I was on holiday here!

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

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

The house

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

This is before the clean.

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

Lunch time.

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

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

The stilt dancing men

The men posing with the women

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

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

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

my first skates

My 36th Birthday.

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

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

Halfway

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

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

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

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

Some more of my art inspired by Port Vendres

The post art show swim.

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

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

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

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

First day back 

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

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

Bonne nuit mes amis

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

Holidays are weird now

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

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

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

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

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

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

This is either her arm or a croissant 

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

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

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

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

The school trip was completely ruined by…………

Or  ………… is how I want to die. 

Or white people love …………

And then the other cards have answers such as:

Camel toe,

Daddy issues

Bum Cancer

Squirrels eating pizza,

A dinosaur shooting laser beams.

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

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

Look how funny it is….

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

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

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

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

Losing a job and finding a job.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I did some photo embroidery too.

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

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

My Weird French Life

This is my first June in France. We moved here in April 2022, but because of a misunderstanding of the visa appointment system, I had to spend almost the whole of June 2022 in the UK. I've done quite a few weird things recently so I thought I'd tell you about them. Firstly, I did stand up in French! This took weeks and weeks of practising and I still didn't get it all perfect, but it was ok. I got through it, I got some laughs and all the people I met were super supportive and lovely. I don't think I'll do it again in French any time soon though.

French comedy is odd. Maybe not all comedy nights in France are like this, but this one started with tapas, they didn't serve any lemonade, but they did serve orangina. Then everyone went to a 300 seat theatre. The show didn't start until almost 9 and there were several kids in the audience. There was no compere, we just knew the order and the acts introduced the next acts. I was politely clapping along to the guy who came on after me until Dan pointed out they were clapping for me. There was a guy doing a short intro, then me doing 7 minutes, then two stand ups doing at least 30 minutes each, and then a hypnotist doing an hour and 15 and NO INTERVAL, that was the weirdest thing. I spoke to the hypnotist beforehand, he was French Canadian so he spoke to me in English. He told me his bit had to be a minimum of 1 hour 15 to work. You can't hypnotise people in less time than that (unless you're the snake from Disney's Robin Hood). I wold have been really interested to stay, I don't think my French is good enough to be hypnotised in French, but I was intrigued to see what went down. But in the end after doing my set and then sitting through over an hour of stand up that I didn't quite get, my need for a drink was stronger than my curiosity to see if I could be hypnotised in French. So we managed to sneak out.

The next weird thing I did was a favour to my weird but cool artist friend Flick. She wanted to shoot a video where she was going for a great day out with her best friend in the world... her painting, and I was there as the gooseberry/camerawoman documenting their love. What I love about Flick is that I come across as very normal and sensible next to her, and that's a nice change. In my friendship groups in Liverpool I was always the weird one:

"Please Steve will you come with me to film a little promo video for my comedy club, can we ride together on a tandem and can I wear a horse's head?"

"Dan I had a dream where you were the Suez Canal but I was still me, and I want to reenact it for a comedy show, you're cool with that right?"

So we began the day with the painting which was on a huge canvas wrapped up in a roll in the back of her car wearing sunglasses and lipstick. The we drove to a well know tourist destination Colloiure. It's a beautiful picturesque little cove where you can take a rolled up painting on a skateboard, sit on the harbour wall and share an ice cream with the painting. You can dance with buskers and a painting, and a random passer by who joined in, and then you can get to the little beach and unroll your painting, roll around on it and then get in the sea and swim with it. The most surreal bit for me was when I was filming Flick in the sea with the painting while trying to explain, in French, what was going on to a random older lady who asked a lot of questions.

The weekend after that was a special art weekend, in Port-Vendres, the sightly uglier big sister of Collioure. It's actually very pretty as well but doesn't get the same amount of love from tourists. We had signed up for a weekend of plein air painting, and our works will be exhibited in September. On the first day we went to the beach so the kids could play while we painted. I had brought some canvases but last minute I decided I wanted to paint nature's free canvases (some rocks) instead. The boys also were doing portraits for 1 euro for passers by. They made 3 euros each and were very happy about it.

On the second day Dan took the kids, ours plus Flicks 6 year old, to see soap box racing in a local park while we went back to Port-Vendres (to the actual town this time) to do some more painting. I've no idea if this painting will turn out good or not, we'll see. 

Ive also been doing some embroidery recently, which has been fun. The main benefit compared to painting is I can half watch programs I don't really care about at the same time, so I've been watching a documentary about the Tour de France with Dan and I don't even resent him for it.

 

Friday was Eric's last rugby training, so they were having some kind of bring and share tea together. In England this would be everyone bringing shop bought sausage rolls and quiche and eating it off paper plates in a sports hall while in rained. In France it was everyone making absolutely incredible flans and quiches but so much better than I've ever tasted, slices of watermelon and then a barbecue they just did on the ground, where they cooked a load of delicious Catalan sausage. And then there were the desserts. I made some flapjack but there was some amazing pastries and chocolate crepes to. The kids were having a water fight because it was still boiling hot even at 8pm, they were filling the rugby cones with water and throwing them on each other.

Eric's in the front in the blue hat

The ground bbq.

Ive only got 2.5 weeks left now before the start of the summer holidays. I think this summer will be the opposite of last summer. Last summer it was boring, we didn't know anyone, we didn't go back to England or have any visitors and I wasn't very confident about driving anywhere with the boys. This summer will be packed with almost non-stop visitors, all visiting from the end of July until the second week of September. Hopefully it will be fun! After that I need to find a job and if that goes well maybe we can stay forever and buy a chateau. I don't know. Watch this space.

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.