I love cardboard boxes.

Thanks for your comments on the last blog, Dan was delighted that so many people have been reading about his balls, and the only update you need to know is that he is doing well and the countdown has begun.

But this blog is not about Dan's balls, it's about how much I love cardboard boxes. Every week I make a to-do list, things like, invoicing parents, adding things to my art website, and then places that need cleaning. About 2 or 3 weeks ago one of my tasks was to do my UK tax return, I'm still UK self-employed as well as French self-employed and we rent out our house so we have some UK income.

I really hate this kind of job, way more than cleaning, and I put it off a lot. So at the end of the week where I planned to do my tax return, I was going to an artist event. It's where artists make art outdoors in public and people can watch and potentially buy stuff, I've done it twice before and it's a fun day. I've just done an exhibition, so I had lots of little things I can sell, plus lots of work I can show and I now own a lot of easels I can display work on. So I really had nothing I needed to prepare, but I did have an idea for a fun project and a tax return to avoid, and a giant box. I started thinking about how I could make a photobooth out of my box...

...and many hours later it was finished. It has a slot to put 2 euros in and a timer. You look through the frame and then the finished photos that I draw come out the hole in the camera. I don't draw faces in general because I'm not good at them, sometimes I do include people in my work because I don't want places to look deserted, but people definitely aren't the main focus. So I did a practise one where I was drawing Dan and I gave myself 3 minutes. It was pretty bad so I decided I needed to give myself 5 minutes per drawing.

On the way to the random village that was having the festival, Amelie-les-bains, we went to see an art exhibition of a local artist I really like called Jon Everitt. His stuff is very imaginative, if you've ever played the game "dix it" the paintings are just like those cards.

 

 The kids really loved the work, there's a lot of fun details to look at and I bought two little prints, but my favourite piece (below) he didn't have a print of. 

 

It's the eclipse.  

Then we went off to set up the photobooth. There weren't many other artists there, just a wood sculptor a stone sculptor, a painter and me. There were some food vendors and stuff. I didn't think many people would come, but I was hoping we'd just get a few people so I could try it out. And then a group of little kids arrived, they were around 6 and they were interested in my mad box, so they went off to ask their parents for 2 euros to do it. Once one kid had done it everyone wanted a go, and not just kids adults too. There was then quite a queue of people waiting to try it. It was hard work, 5 minutes is not long, it not only involved some artist skills, but I also had to speak French and ask their name and spell it right when they spell out the letters, which don't always sound the same in French and I did have to start again on one because I spelt the name wrong. But everyone seemed happy with their drawings. The bit where it comes out of the slot that's painted like a camera was really fun.  

Two friends around my age came and wanted a portrait together. I said I could do it in 7 minutes, which was too ambitious. It was really hard and I was a little embarrassed by the results and I assured them that they were both beautiful, even if my drawing stated otherwise. These friends made a video that they posted instantly on Instagram that's had over 4000 views. And it's probably the worst drawing I did that day! The were lovely though and afterwards I made Instagram friends with one of them and saw in her bio that she is a founding member of the comedy club in the random village we were in. I watched a bit of her comedy and she was dressed as a giant cake. When I first started comedy I used to use costumes and props a lot. In my first ever set I dressed as a puddle. Maybe I've found my French twin. Anyway I've agreed to do a 5 minute set in French in January.

 

The following weekend I performed stand up in English for the first time in 2 years. It was at a winery owned by an English speaking couple who often put on English speaking events. They had a bunch of comedians come up from Barcelona. It took me so long to prepare for it, because my material is not fresh in my head like it used to be. I wrote some new material too about Duolingo and I've got this new bit about how stupid the English language actually is. Like, why do we use the same word for brushing the hair of your pet horse, and an adult deliberately befriending a vulnerable child in order to later exploit them? That kind of observation.

So I actually spent hours writing it, and trying to memorise it, and it went fine but not amazing. The audience were not the best, they were old and not massive laughers. A woman was trying to give out tapas during my set, which was not ideal but I stopped and made it into a thing which I think was the right choice. I once had to look at a post-it note in my pocket, which was not ideal but fine.

 

It was fun meeting the other comedians who were all up on a fun weekend kind of thing from their normal venue in Barcelona, and they said I could perform there if ever I was down. If I lived in Barcelona I would definitely get involved in that scene. But I don't, and my current life plan is to fill that little comedy hole in my life with art.

Job and house news:

Dan is the "preferred candidate" for a job doing admin for a collective of farmers, but they haven't actually officially given him the job and we saw a house we LOVE that's massive. It's got a front a back and a side garden, the side bit is separated from the front and back bit, and that's where the BBQ bit is. At the moment it's got a kitchen downstairs and upstairs but the upstairs one is the one I'd keep, because it leads onto a lovely balcony that I would try and eat on 80% of the time. It has a massive space that could be a lounge and diner, you could basically live your whole life upstairs and then the down stairs is all bonus fun stuff like creative spaces plus a space for friends to stay. It needs modernising but it's livable.

We probably won't get it though, lots of people are interested, we've put in our best offer which really is the best we can possibly do. If no one else can go higher then we'll get it, but there's lots more viewings and someone only needs to go 5 grand more for the estate agent to agree and cancel all future viewings.

So I'm not expecting that we'll get it, if we do it will be a miracle. We've offered our best and we will see.

 

The Vacectomy Special

I know this is the news you've all been waiting for. I'm very excited to announce that Dan has finally had a vasectomy. He's been thinking about getting this done since around 2019! Originally I thought it would be nice to have 3 kids, but like many people I know, after having one you reconsider everything. But after having Eric (our second) the birth went quite well and he was a pretty easy kid, I did think maybe we should go for 3. Full blog about the pros and cons of 3 here written in 2017.

In 2019 I was much more seriously thinking about going for number 3, and at the time it felt like such a difficult decision and I was on the fence and Dan was too but a bit closer to no than me. There was a general election and I was telling people, I'm not sure how seriously, "If Labour get in I'll have a 3rd baby, and if the Tories get it we'll move to France." I felt like under Labour we could afford a 3rd baby, but if the Tories got in we didn't really want to live in England any more, and Brexit was about to come in which meant people weren't free to move countries, but we still could because of Dan being French. Liverpool was a really weird place to be on that election, because everyone I was hanging out with at mum groups were sad about the results, but we had this feeling of, "we have to all work together and look after each other, because no one else is going to look out for us." And I actually started giving away my baby stuff from then, which is a good but not irreversible step to take on your way to a decision.

If we had conceived a baby at the time I was thinking about it would have been a lockdown baby and I take a lot of comfort in knowing that that would have been an absolute nightmare mixed in with a 5 year old and a 2 year old. We wouldn't have gone to France with a 3rd child, which is weird to think about now because France has not exactly gone well. Anyway sometime in the face mask wearing days we decided it was time fo the snip and Dan got on the waiting list, which was a year long due to Covid. 

Weeks after arriving in France in 2022 Dan got a phone call saying, "your vasectomy is next week," and I now wish he'd just flown back and had it, but at the time that seemed a bit mad. He told them, "I live in France now," and then it was just on the to do list for a long time but we didn't understand the French health care system. And the system is different depending on if you have a job or not and we kept switching between the poor person scheme and the person with a job and health insurance scheme. Eventually, after literally years, he got an appointment about it where they said "now you have to wait 3 months just to make sure you're really sure." WE'VE BEEN SURE FOR ABOUT 6 YEARS! It feels almost not worth doing now I'm 40, but hopefully I'll at least get a good blog out of it. I'll get to the juicy details now...

So I dropped him in the local hospital around lunch time and he had to wait around for ages with no pants on for this very busy surgeon to be free. And then it was pretty quick and I went to collect him, he seemed surprisingly well and could walk to the car ok. He got home and got the frozen peas straight down his shorts, and then we had a mad chat about if we should eat some of those peas for dinner seeing as he was deforesting them on his balls. Dan made the point that there were 2 layers between the peas and his balls, (the plastic pea bag and his underwear) and we both agreed that 2 layers is the minimum acceptable number of layers between peas and balls for peas to still be edible. We talked through a lot of different scenarios when we did our marriage prep course, but peas and balls was not one of them. 

 

So yes half the peas got eaten for dinner and the other half that we refer to as, "the penis peas," were being continually frozen and defrosted for several days and have now gone in the bin. 

I don't know how much you know about the vasectomy process, but they cut and then cauterise two tubes and then they put a "grounding patch" on his side that means "he wouldn't be barbecued" by the electrical rod. He could smell his own flesh burning. Anyway, after that you can still ejaculate but there's no sperm in the fluid. Sorry if that's more information than you wanted.

But the important bit is you're not straight away safe to get on with baby-free fun times. It's like that time I put cheese in my glue gun, it took a while to get fully back to glue again, and there were a few embarrassing moments in my art workshops where I could smell the cheese. Dan has been told he needs to ejaculate 30 times in the next 3 months. Then he has to go back for a test around Christmas time where they test the fluid to see if there's any tiny lonely half people still swimming around in there. 

So here's where I need your help. What is a fun way to count up to 30? Obviously you could just keep a discrete little note on your phone, if you were boring. But Dan suggested it would be cool to make a big thermometer like they do for fundraising, but in the shape of a penis, obvs. Or I suggested getting 6 out the way and then getting an advent calendar to reward yourself with a little chocolate every time. Although if someone didn't know that was your special advent calendar they might eat some to catch you up with the date and ruin the whole system. 

The fact that we're not having more kids means that I'm sadly out of the 15 year challenge of who can have the most ginger children by 2028. There's only 18 months left on that so really you need to get on it now if you want them to have a good amount of hair by 1st Jan 2028. If you are a participant (and I list them on this old blog here) please send me a photo of your kids, so I can do an update - it can be the back of their heads.  

While recovering from the snip, Dan missed the opportunity to win his own motorbike. When he first got his previous job he bought a second hand 125 motorbike to commute on so I could still have the car. After a year of riding it a bit too hard on roads it was a little too small for, it completely died. The piston in the cylinder had melted, I don't know what that means, but it doesn't sound good. He had to pay a garage to take it away. He didn't even get any scrap money for it. So imagine how surprised Dan was to receive an email inviting him to an open day where the top tombola prize was his own bike! He wanted to go because he thought it would be funny, and he wanted to to potentially win his bike back. But as we all know it's illegal to participate in a tombola while you've got frozen peas down your trousers.

There's no big life news unfortunately. Dan was meant to hear about a job he's already had an interview for last week, but he hasn't so it seems very unlikely that he would get that, but not impossible. He had another interview today which went okay, but not amazing for a job with the council in Perpignan, and then he'd got into the final 12 out of 60 for a remote job in marketing for a bike tour company, that he was excited for, but they decided not to interview him. Then this morning he was also phoned about a job that the job centre sorted out for him, which is sales and admin for an agricultural company.

Next time I'm going to talk about having the best time possible with a big cardboard box and doing some comedy for the first time in 2 years which I will be doing on Saturday night. 

Bye bye. 

 

Returning to France

 The lovely thing about living in France is when you return back after a holiday in the UK it’s like the opposite of the holiday blues. Most Brits go on holiday for a bit of extra sunshine, but it’s very freeing to not need to maximise my sunshine intake all the time. Sometimes it’s a sunny Saturday and we stay in a play board games which we all know is an actual crime in the UK. 

I stayed in England over 3 weeks and it was lovely, but it was long enough to get a bit bored and be happy to return. Me and the boys flew back from Manchester to Carcassonne but before leaving Carcassonne I met a random woman and bought 5 big easels off her for my exhibition. (It was pre arranged because she lived there, I didn’t just see her walking the street with 5 easels and force her to sell them)

Carcassonne is a lovely place and we had a nice little wonder around  before going back home. Dan had been on his own for 10 days and was very happy to see us all. And we were especially happy to be back because our friends the McMaster family were visiting. They found a last minute package deal to stay in a holiday camp 35 minutes away from us. So we did a lot of fun water based messing about with them at a water park and the lake inflatables. Jumping or falling in water is one of my top hobbies, especially with friends and family.

I also suggested we did sunrise painting and not everyone was as enthusiastic as me, but I think in the end we were all we glad we got up for it. Sunrise wasn’t until just after 7. But I got up at 5 am to get ready and arrive at the beach for 6 am to arrive when it was dark. If you’ve never watched a sunrise my top tips are all the best bits happen before the sunrise. The sun actually rising is like the finale of the show. You have to get there when it’s dark to truly appreciate the full change from night to day. First there’s the glowing bit which is like the support act. It’s not the best bit, but it tells you the show is about to start and gets you in the mood, and then all the best colours happen around 40 minutes before the scheduled sunrise. I was commentating on it and getting very excited the way some people would about sport. 

I love when you see the florescent colours, I've got a book all about colours and it says florescent colours were only invented in the 70's but the sunrise is proof that people didn't invent florescent, it was always there. I was on a massive high, hyping up everyone about the colours and painting them. My reaction when pink came out was like the reaction of the crowd when the artist P!nk first stepped on stage to perform a big show. Unfortunately by 9am I was so tired and had no energy for the rest of the day. It was worth it though, and I loved how different everyone's paintings were.

Zac and Dan share a romantic moment together on the platform you can swim to

 

all our paintings

It was a lot of work getting ready for my exhibition, most of it I had done before I went to England including two oil paintings that needed time to dry, a big acrylic painting of the chateau venue and making loads of little post cards of different areas of my region the 66. I had 10 days between getting back from England and the exhibition and the first of those days were spent with our friends splishing around on inflatable slides. But we had a week set aside where Dan would be on childcare to allow me to do my last bits of prep which included, a small painting, printing lino designs onto canvas bags, making some more paper lino prints, pricing all the work and typing up the labels.

Dan had seen a job he wanted to apply for, it was a well paid remote marketing job similar to his last one but with more responsibility, so he sent his application off one morning, and then got a call that same day quite late like 8pm asking him to come for an interview. Then it got very busy because I had to squeeze all my work into a smaller time so that he could have time to prepare for the interview. The kids did not have a very exciting week that week, although I'm sure they were happy when we kept suggesting they watched a film or played computer games.

We also went to see a film that was projected on a big screen outdoors in our village. The posters said it would start "at nighfall" and when we went at 8:30 they told us to come back later. It didn't start till around 9:20pm and ended at 11pm, which is really late for a kids film. It was a nice cute thing to do though, it was free, and a kid in Eric's school even gave our boys a little pot of popcorn each. I don't normally love kids films but this was so funny! and it would have been even funnier if I had a better knowledge of French. If you get a change to see Marsupilami you should. We laughed a lot!

Dan's interview went well, he will hear back next week after they have interviewed more people, he's also got an interview for a job in Perpignan on 15th Sept and there's another job he's just applying for that is a bit more junior that what he was doing before so hopefully if he doesn't get either of the first two he could get this.

My exhibition was lovely in the end, the set up was a little stressful. It's a long a windy road to get there and I had to go by myself so that I could fit all the paintings and easels in the car. I wasn't allowed to put nails in the old walls but there were some random hooks and stuff poking out that I could use plus I had all my easels. It was bit windy though and a few times paintings fell down and I was worried about them being damaged. When it was all set up I went back home so that I could bring the family back in the evening. 

The road to the Chateau where I had my exhibition.

 (when you see the pink hotel turn right.)

Thankfully by the evening the wind had died down and the weather was perfect, people came from all around up to a hour away which I really appreciate. I sold 4 paintings and some smaller things. A few families with kids came which I loved. I really like kids to have the chance to see accessible art. Most young kids like to draw but they are sometimes given the message that famous artists are all dead and it's not really possible to be an artist now. 

This whole thing came about because I made a video series called "attic to chateau" where I revealed a painting a day in my weird attic bedroom. I've seen other creators do things like this and sometimes their dreams come true, I'm unfortunately still living in a weird attic with no windows but somebody with a chateau got in touch and let me borrow it for an exhibition! Which is mad. If you want to see a 3 minute tour of the exhibition click here.

If you want to buy prints or bags of any painting click here

My friend Flick is back in the region after two years in Paris, she's an abstract artist and just a very fun person to be friends with. It was really nice having her at the exhibition, and introducing her to a few other friends I've made since she left. At the end of the evening she took my boys back to hers for a sleepover which meant that me and Dan could pack up everything back into the car. I was exhausted when I got home, and then I realised we left a painting there! Very annoying as the whole reason for the sleepover was to save us doing 3 trips there in a weekend.

This week I have been trying to get back into English teaching again, in September I have to rearrange a time for everyone to have their lessons. I am not doing my bigger group this year, and unfortunately some online teaching work I was going to do isn't available any more so I really need to find more work but I am secretly hoping the art stuff will take off so I can just do that instead.

Next blog...hear all about the Vacecomy Dan had yesterday and I guess we'll find out of he gets any of those jobs.  

The house and the Poo.

 I haven't blogged for nearly a month, because when interesting life stuff is happening I have no time to write about it. When I last wrote we were still in this weird game of "house chicken" where we had seen a beautiful house that we wanted to buy and we really couldn't wait to leave our ugly house but I was scared to commit to a not particularly desirable village in France and just France in general. Especially while Dan doesn't have a job. And the sellers accepted our offer but kept pushing back the signing date.

So we arrived in England at the end of July and we had been told we will sign for the house (which we could do digitally) before 3rd August. After a few days of seeing family we were out at a pub with my parents when Dan got a phone call from the estate agent who said sorry but they don't want to sell, they had some new news that the guy is much more ill than he first thought, and therefore doesn't want to sell.

It was pretty disappointing and really ruined that pub meal. being in a pub with your parents and your children is one of the worst places for emotions, along with on stage or when you've just done your make up. I prefer to cry in the car or when everyone is asleep, or just with Dan. So that was a weird time, but by the next day I felt o.k. It's not really a net negative its just different stresses, I feel less trapped overall but also like there's no way to escape our less than ideal house any time soon. 

sister time

 The next day we went to see Joy and Philp an their boys, and they were the perfect people to see because they have gone through many parallel life experiences. Originally they were meant to come to my parents house for a fun day out on the boat, but their son broke his leg on the first week of the holidays so they were stuck indoors. But we had such a good time hanging out having big laughs and a few serious moments sharing stories of how we both have lived mad lives between countries missing people and living in weird situations. They were about to move into a new house that they were renting in Liverpool. and this was the first time in I think 11 years that they had lived just as a family of 4, I don't think they ever even lived as a 2, because when they were in New York they shared with people and when they were in L.A they lived with Philip's mum. 

I had seen Joy in Paris in April and at that point in time they didn't know if they would be going back to America or staying in England but since they Joy has found a full time job in Liverpool and so for now they are staying, after years of living abroad.

 

After seeing my family a little bit we went to stay with Dan's side near Southport. His parents have quite recently moved to a house near Southport with a massive garden. All his siblings came to visit and the cousins played a lot of the game sardines. I may have got involved, and I may have got in a compost bin. 

While we were there Dan checked his spam emails and found he'd been offered an interview two weeks earlier! He wrote back apologising but they never replied. So gutting. He was very annoyed with himself, he is busy applying for more things right now. We didn't do anything special that you would do as a tourist all holiday. We went for a great meal out at the Morrisons cafe though! it's 15 quid for 2 adult hot meals and kids eat free in august so all 4 of use ate for 15 pounds. For the kids meals you could choose a main a veg and a carb based side so Percy choose pizza beans and a Yorkshire pudding which he was very happy about.  

 

We also stocked up on our regular English items, English kids books, decaf tea, hobnobs, a chocolate orange and paracetamol, and in a charity shop I got a brand new looking Levi's red cord skirt for 7 pounds. (I don't have a pound symbol on this stupid laptop)

It was really nice hanging out with all the nieces and nephews. We have 7 between our two families from age 0-11. We got to see a good amount of friends too, it is really nice to see people you've known 20 years and to hear how everyone's lives are changing, and to see people's kids, too. I got to meet Katie and Mike's new baby Emma. She was so cute! and her big brother was equally adorable. I saw my friend Cat too, her eldest is only 13 months older than Percy but he is a giant! Way taller than me. Her youngest who is just turning 6 is only slightly smaller than my 9 year old. 

In height order but not age order, Cat Joy and my boys

 

Dan only stayed about half the time I stayed, because I chose to stay longer to see more of everyone, and he has a little side job to be getting on with plus he needed some time to apply for jobs. After he left, I took the train down to Birmingham to see my first ever friend Bex and her family. It was much more fun taking the train than driving, and I enjoyed the adrenalin rush of successfully doing a 4 minute train change with 2 kids. They're at a fun age to be onboard with the challenge. I can't imagine trying to do it with a 2 year old those guys have no sense of urgency.

Bex has 3 boys a similar age to mine, plus a bonus younger one. They are all such fun kids and in general they all get on well. We taught them the wide game "dragons" in the woods and I realised I can only run as fast as an average 8 year old. Her husband Doug is a trainee police officer and on his first day on the job he had to go to a house with a dead body that had been there 4 days in a heat wave. It sounded horrific but I do think it's cool to have a job that you come back with good stories from. I know I couldn't come home and sleep after catching a criminal while on a night shift, but Dan really wanted to be in the police once and from my selfish point of view I would like to hear his work stories. Not that many interesting things happen in the marketing department of a swimming pool company.  

what's more fun than a trampoline a hose and a slide?

 For the last week of my time in England my parents were looking after my 5 year old nephew Zac. He is very cute and very confident. We went to West kirby beach which was the first time I've been to a UK beach since living in France. I thought it be interesting to see if I could cope with UK beaches, since I've been a little spoilt with the med. and the answer is no not really, it felt like IA had read a description of a beach but got a few fundamentals wrong. Firstly the water was brown, and cold, and secondly I walked out for ages in the sea in high tides thinking I might swim but the water only came to my knees. 

We don't have tides in the med so in order to make the most of being in the UK I suggested we made a sandcastle with a moat where the water comes in around the moat. The kids started making one, and this is where overly confident Zac was hilarious. He started going up to other families and giving them unsolicited advice on their sandcastles and if they were sitting too near to where he thought the water would come in to. He also went up to a kid and said "I'm going to need to use that spade" not "hello please could I borrow your spade for a minute because we don't have any?" just  I need your spade. Unfortunately the tide never came in far enough to get to be the moat for the castle so I think my kids will be put off UK beaches forever.

 

The sea came in to here and went straight out again.

Did you watch the eclipse? we watched it through our glasses that my Dad had kept from 1999. It said don't use them on the back but obviously we did and we didn't even go blind.  

1999

1999

2026

Zac's drawing of the eclipse

Thanks for reading this far, the finale of this blog is a story about poo, I asked if I could share this but keep the poo-er anonymous but I was given permission to use the name. So my friend Roz came over (it wasn't her) I know Roz from my student days she was in 3rd year Fine art when I was in 1st year and we lived together the year before I got married and she got me into teaching art in schools. She also paints and sells her work online, but she's not a massive show off that makes loads of videos about it like me. but check her out: here's her website

For the past decade shes been living on the remote Scottish island of Colonsay so I haven't seen her all in that time. Last summer she moved to north Wales with her husband and two boys now aged 5 and 2.

I don't think she'd be offended if I said her kids were full on. They had had a long car journey to get to my parents house and were understandably needing to let off some steam when they arrived.  I got out a small bouncy castle and a paddling pool and giant Jenga, and a hammock but even with all these fun things for the kids, it was still a challenge to still down and catch up with Roz over a cuppa.

So we went out in the canal boat, my parents were both out at this point, but I was fine to take the boat out without them. After a pretty short journey I let Roz steer but gave her no real instructions and we started turning round, so then I thought lets just go back. To come in you need a minimum of 2 adults. One to steer and go in reverse at the right point, and one to jump off with the rope and pull the boat in. But unfortunately at the vital jump moment Roz's youngest kid Tom was not happy to let her go. Miraculously my Dad arrived back from his meeting at that exact moment and I was able to throw him the rope.

I was tying up the rest of the ropes and arrived back in the garden to see Tom on the potty. I noticed he had poo all down his leg. Then me and Roz were frantically searching the house looking for the poo. At this point a delivery driver arrived with a parcel and Percy opened the door to him while standing right in front of the poo. I'm surprised he didn't report us for neglect. The poo was on the stairs. Which was actually a big relief as it's one of the few places in the whole house that wasn't carpeted. While we tried to get the poo and Tom cleaned up Eric strategically asked for screen time and got it. Then my boys started arguing about what switch game they would play and I had to remind them "YOU'RE ONLY GETTING SCREEN TIME BECAUSE THERE'S POO EVERYWHERE"

In the airport on the way back I saw this book and sent a photo of it to Roz: 

 

Next blog arriving back in France, having visitors, my Dad's crazy sponsored challenge and my exhibition (which is this Saturday, you should come!)

 

Would you rather?

I've made a fun quiz. My auntie Hilary gave me a book when I was a kid called Would you Rather. It had dilemmas like "would you rather have breakfast in a hot air balloon, lunch in a castle, or tea on the river?"

So to help me decide about France vs England, I've made myself and you a more grown up quiz called, "would you take?"

1) 90% of the time the sky is blue, but you have to use a translation app every time you send a text.

2) Childcare in school holidays is only 12 euros a day, but you can never use grandparents for childcare.

3) It's warm enough to swim in the sea 6 months of the year, but you live in a wild fire zone.

4) You get almost free university, but no 12 grand tax free, and you have to pay 26% tax on everything you earn and wages are not high.

5) You go skiing in the mountains at least one day a year, but you never see your mum on her birthday.

6) Good wine is very affordable, but you have to drink UHT milk.  

If you would answer yes to most of these, you should move to France. 

I left the last blog on a bit of a cliff hanger and I'm sure some people reading this want me to just hurry up and make a decision about France or England, and stop chatting on about it. 

So tiny recap: 

We had an offer on the house accepted in mid June, but they said they don't want to sign until mid July. Then we asked for a date and they said, "before or after 24th July" which is not mid July! Then on the 23rd we said, "are we signing tomorrow then?" and they said, "how about the first week in August?' So then we decided to say our offer will expire on the 3rd August. Which was a bit of a risk because they could have just said, "stop pressurising us, we don't want to sell." I get the feeling they're not 100% sure they want to sell and we're not 100% sure we want to buy, so we're playing this weird game of chicken.

I said to Dan that buying a house without a job is like announcing you're pregnant after a one night stand. People want to celebrate with you but really were all thinking, "is this a good idea? I hope it all works out in the end." 

Anyway they got back to us and said we can sign before the 3rd of August and we can do it digitally, because we'll be in England. After we've signed there's then 10 days where you can still "abort" with no consequences. After that you have to pay 10% of the purchase price to the other side. Which is kind of a good rule, because when we once tried to buy a house in the UK the woman pulled out 3 days before we were due to move, for no good reason, which in my analogy is just like aborting a full term baby.

On a lighter note... we went camping and it was fun. After cancelling our Italy holiday we just wanted cheap fun, so we got a tent and went to a campsite that we'd already been to before. I'm not someone that normally repeats holidays, and I did once try to argue that people who go on holiday to the same place every single year are the worst kinds of people. But it was really comforting in all the chaos to just go back to the same little family run campsite where the kids can be free range. They had a pool, trampoline, table tennis, boules and one little pizza restaurant.

Eric made friends with all the kids. He was playing card games with the Dutch kids and they were communicating in English and then he was playing table tennis with the French kids and chatting in French. He is really good at making friends with anyone.

We also made friends with a Dutch guy who lives in Turkey and is a pilot. I like that about camping, it's really sad that in everyday life loads of people must be doing their washing up at the same time, all lonely in their separate houses, when you could be doing it outside in the sun while meeting other people.

We went to some gorgeous places, they colour of the water was so beautiful. I need to paint a room that colour in our new house.

 

 

We got told off taking this photo, because we didn't know but footpaths are closed in some departments, because of being on a high alert fire risk. This sort of fake policeman dressed as a boy scout said he could of fined us 135 euros. He also said we could walk on footpaths on the other side of the river because that was a different department that wasn't on such a high fire risk. Which seems a bit mad.

We got into jumping off rocks, and we saw people doing some mad jumps way higher and more risky than we did.

 

a crazy man who just ran off the highest bit.

 

 

On the way back we staying one night in Aix which was really pretty and we also stopped off at Nimes where Percy had recently been for a 3 day school trip so he was our tour guide.

I've been busy preparing art for my exhibition. Here's my newest little painting:  

If you're free on the 29th of August please come! Here's the details:

It's only on for that one night, but you can buy prints or products such as bags or phone cases or beach towels from my website at any time: My website!

Thanks for reading. x 

5 weird summers

I've been meaning to blog for ages. I was going to blog about our weird life again but then everything went on fire, literally and emotionally and the fire jumped the queue of blogs in my head. But its now time for this blog to finally get written.

I realised recently that every summer since we moved to France over 4 years ago has been weird. 

2022

We moved in April 2022, and Dan took almost all his annual leave for moving house. By the long summer holidays we'd not been in France long enough to go back to England for a holiday, and I'd been in England for all of June due to a visa admin error. Both sets of parents came to visit, but mainly I remember it just being long and hot and we didn't have enough friends, and Dan was working, so it was a bit lonely.  It was exciting being in a new place but I had no one to share it with. 

We were meant to have a visit from our good friends Zac and Jude and their kids, but at the absolute worst time they got chicken pox and couldn't come, that was pretty gutting and really sad for them.

I got really into outdoor painting with the kids, we'd just sit out on side roads and paint trees and mountains.

We had some good times. We bought a massive paddling pool and invented many games to play in it, such as 'nose ball' (it's like football with a balloon and your nose.)

I really struggled with re-learning to drive with a new big car on roads I didn't know on the wrong side of the road, so we went on the train to lake Vinca a lot. It wasn't a bad summer just a weird one. But I thought, "the first one is bound to be weird, it will be less weird next year."

2023

This summer came just after Dan had lost his best ever job, I remember going back to England and trying to see as many people as possible. The job thing was playing on my mind. We hadn't been in the country long enough to get any kind of help, so we were just living off savings, but that summer was before I really realised how bad the French job market was in our area of France. I still felt okay about stuff. November that year was peek panic about your life time. The thought of moving back to England then seemed mad, we had committed to a house for 3 years and I had mentally committed for 3 years, the kids had only just become fluent in French. We were all in on trying to make things work. We had quite a few visitors and we had made a few friends and I was a lot more confident with French and driving.

Back in England wearing coats in August

2024

The end of 2023 and beginning of 2024 was a tough old time with Dan still not finding work. He had done a few projects and a brief period when he worked for local magazine P.O life who ended up screwing him over. But then in spring of 2024 he found a new good job working mainly remotely for a company in Toulouse, and we thought, "we're sorted now." I had some work too teaching English. We were happy to stay, but then after 3 months of work Dan was told his trial period was over and he just wasn't exactly the right fit for the job. They said, "it would be better if you lived in Toulouse." He said, "I'll move to Toulouse." They said, "nah, don't worry about it." So that was the beginning of weird summer number 3. 

That summer we realised staying in France might not last much longer. We knew our rental contract was coming to an end in spring 2025 so we thought, "lets just try and make the most of being in France." We did a trip to Biarritz and San Sebastien for a long weekend in May, but in the summer we did a big road trip to Lake Geneva and back. 

 

 

It was out first time camping, and we went to some absolutely beautiful places, but our car was dying the whole time and because we were not in one place for long we had to go to a garage and get car parts sent to another garage that we would be in a few days. We couldn't drive fast, a 5 hour journey took over 8 hours and it was very stressful.

2025

After another year of not having enough work and surviving through the French benefit system (which we had finally been there long enough to benefit from) our 3 year contract came to an end in April, and my tolerance for France also came to an end. We said we'd do 3 years, it didn't work out, it's a shame but lets go back to the land of tea and banter and clouds, it's not all bad. But we might as well stay until July so that Percy can finish his last year at French primary school. So we found an airbnb to live in just from April to July. We put most of our stuff in storage and started to prepare to move. But then Dan got a job! 

He was on the toilet when he got the phone call that would change the course of our lives, after 3 interviews he was offered a job in marketing. I was happy that he finally had something, and in the short term it was great. We couldn't stay in our airbnb over the summer, because the landlord wanted to make money from holiday people, so me and the boys went to England all summer and Dan stayed in random peoples houses for work. He didn't have the best time, but I had a great summer, seeing 97 people in England. It was possibly my best summer since moving to France, which does really say something about our lives in France.

Why would you live near the Med when you can live near the mud?

2026

After a summer away in England, we moved back to our weird Airbnb more permanently, and I was feeling more positive about France. I started French lessons again, I made some new friends, and we were talking about buying a house. Now that Dan had a proper French contract and a secure job we could get a French mortgage, and although that scared me a bit, it was also exciting. We weren't loving our Airbnb, we hadn't had any visitors, even just local people round to hang out like we used to.

And then after a year of work for Dan, they got a new boss to come in and shake things up. She upset everyone who worked there, changed everyone's roles and got rid of Dan. We were just about to offer on a house and then suddenly the new house or any of the houses was not an option and going back to Liverpool was a real possibility again, but being half way through a remortgage of our UK house that cost a lot of money, made things really complicated. Especially as the terms of the mortgage state that as it's a buy to let we can't live in it if we were to continue with the process of the remortgage. 

The original plan for this summer was to go to Italy. My sister Sarah is going to the Italian lakes and I thought a road trip there would be fun. We planned it all out with a few nights in Nice and a night in Genoa, driving on the way and then getting a ferry from Genoa to Barcelona on the way back to reduce the driving. We had booked a few bits of it, including the ferry, when Dan lost his job and we decided it was all a bit stressful and expensive. 

I had also booked a short trip to England, just me and the kids. Originally Dan didn't have enough time off work to do Italy and England, so I got a flight based on the cheapest ones where he could take us to the airport. We were flying from Perpignan to Leeds and then back from Manchester to Girona late at night so he could get us after work. Then when we cancelled the Italy holiday it made sense for Dan to come to England with us, but those flights weren't cheap any more, and the times made no sense. If we drive to the airport in Perpignan and leave our car there, then how do we get back from Girona late at night when there's not public transport? After looking at many mad options such as Dan dropping us off in Perpignan for our flight and then driving down to Girona to get a different flight to Leeds so our car would be in the right place, we asked our friend Sam for a lift from the airport.

Then as summer was approaching I felt more and more uneasy about only spending a short time in England when the kids are off for 2 months and I'm in a boiling hot house with no outdoor space. We only have air con downstairs so we're all fighting over who gets to sleep on the sofa bed.

I thought I'll just have a little look at other flight options, and then I found some for 25 euros. So we 3 are now staying in England for over 3 weeks, but Dan will stay for the original stupid flight, because he can't be away too long if he wants to get the job seeker benefits, and if we're in the process of buying a house (which is not certain) and to do a bit of work for Guy. 

Shout out to entrepreneur Guy Wilmot for continuing to pay both of us at different times to work on various projects he has going on, without him we really wouldn't have financially survived.

It's our anniversary today, we've been married 15 years. I don't think any of the years have been easy, before these last years that I just explained, we had Covid, and then before that a bit of cancer, then it was the baby stage. Summer 2017 was harder than any other summer, a new born baby and a toddler all day every day for weeks is hardcore. Then before that we were living in someone else's weird house which was mixed, there were some nice times and weird times, and before that our tiny house which was also mixed. We had a few good parties and fun memories there, but it was a pretty crimey. Starting with our first night there after we arrived back from our honeymoon in the 2011 riots and ending with a murder on the doorstep several years later. I grew up in a village where we once got a newsletter saying "everyone please be vigilant, someone's had their wellies stolen from there shed" and that was too little crime. It's really the dream to live somewhere with moderate levels of crime.  

People often say marriage is hard, and I'm not saying it's easy, but in my experience life has been hard and messy and I can't imagine doing those hard things without Dan. Last week I was feeling very unsure about everything, especially about buying a house, because we really would be committing to being here long term. And I had a day where I was more up for the huge hassle of returning to the homeland than ever before and I asked him, "what happens if I really can't do France any more?" And he didn't try and persuade me that it would all be okay, he just hugged me and said, "we'll go back." Even though he doesn't want to, even though it would be a logistical nightmare, I know he would do it, if I needed to.

Thanks for reading this far!

 

Next blog... our camping trip, and do we or don't we sign for a house, which is meant to happen tomorrow.