Jones News

I've not blogged for a while so I thought I'd do a little round up of our news in the style of those awful family Christmas letters, which will hopefully become outlawed now thanks to GDPR.

Dan news:
Dan has a new job! After working in IT for Merseytravel for 2 years, he's now got a job at Riverside Housing that isn't in IT. He only accidentally fell into IT 10 years ago due to a bit of casual sexism and ageism. "Dan you're a young man, any good at fixing computers?"
Dan is very good at IT and has learned a lot and progressed well, but he would prefer a more people based role like the one he has now got, which is something to do with "procedures".

Dan after his first day at work.

Hannah news:
I've been getting back into work. I did a bee mural in Manchester that was really fun. I learnt a load of cool bee facts too, like did you know that the male bees don't have stingers, and they don't do any of the work, their only purpose is mating?

I'm planning to go back to work 2 days a week from September.
But more exciting than that... I'm going to be doing a 1 hour 1 woman comedy show in September! It's going to be in the Everyman Theatre (in the basement not the real theatre). It's mainly going to be about parenting and it will be part of the Liverpool Comedy Festival.

Percy news:
Nothing much, today we went to the skate park and he looked very adorable.

We also had a weird conversation about strawberries and heaven.

Percy: I won't drink water today because it's not sunny.

Me: You still need to drink water every day. If you don't drink any water you'll die. Like, remember that strawberry plant that Mummy forgot to water last summer: they died.
(I'm not sure why I felt the need to bring death into this conversation.)

Percy: Well the strawberries went to heaven though....and when I get to heaven I will eat them.

Me: Oh right and THEN what will happen to them?
(Meaning will they die again? can strawberries die? Will they go to some kind of second strawberry heaven?)

Percy: I'll poo and wee them out, out of my bottom and my willy.

Me: oh ok.

Eric news:
Eric turned one on 3rd May. I'm totally over the baby stage now. Around 9 months I was a bit sad that if I have no other babies then this is my last few months of baby time, but now I'm over that and enjoying him getting more fun. I love the 18 month to 2 year stage, it's so adorable. Not 2 and a half though then they become evil for 6-9 months. I'm mean, this is only based on a sample size of one so don't worry too much if your child is 2 1/4 right now. But worry a bit.


So Eric can now walk a few steps mainly in a sideways crab motion. He might have said words but it's difficult to be sure. He's doing a couple of baby signs (bird and more). Maybe he's a massive player that just wants more birds. He copies sounds though, like I showed him a toy fire engine and said "neeenaaar" and he reapated "neenaaar".

He loves Lola the rabbit, going on a swing, climbing in and out of the sandpit, pulling all the roll off the toilet paper, baked beans, cheese, and blueberries. He hates the paddling pool, despite liking the bath and he can be pretty clingy to me. He absolutely adores Percy, most of the time, until Percy sits on my knee and then he gets a bit jealous.

What a difference a year makes

House news:
We finally finished putting up our tropical wallpaper and we are still married - just.

We've now started digging a soakaway in the garden to stop the grass being so wet. Basically theres a massive hole in our garden and if you're standing behind the swing at the wrong time you could easily get pushed in. Just perfect for little kids to play in.

Mental Health Awareness Week

For the last few years whenever it's been mental health awareness week or whatever, I've thought "shall I write something about my mental health? Nah, why should I, it's just a bit attention seeking, what's the point?" My youngest sister Sarah has been quite open about her struggles with anxiety and eating disorders and has had 3 articles published in "The Mighty" and I know she isn't doing it for attention, she just enjoys a bit of writing and explaining things people might find hard to understand. And I think people appreciate her honesty and her attempt to erase the stigma around that kind of stuff. So I thought I'd give it a go.

(It was quite difficult to choose a picture of me that would go well with this post)

When I was 28 and I had just had Percy I was in that newborn blur of weird hormones and extreme sleep deprivation that was making me go a bit crazy. I remember the midwife coming round and I was in tears and she said "do you think you have post natal depression?" and I said "no" because I knew that I didn't. I had all the symptoms of depression: feeling overwhelmed and helpless and tired and unhappy, but I knew that if I just had one nights good sleep I would be fine. It's not that much help because I wouldn't get that for months, but I knew that my head was fine, and that people could help me practically and then I would be ok. I only knew all that because I had depression from the ages of about 14 to 23 and for some of that time (the student days) I was so happy with life, not at all stressed, but I still had some days of feeling total despair, a weird kind of anger and self hatred. Then the next day I'd be totally happy and loving life again.

In 2016 I did a whole 1 hour, one woman comedy show about my struggles at school, which was quite therapeutic. But, I didn't mention my biggest struggle - depression because it's not really funny.

In some ways this is easy to talk about because all my issues are in the past. But in some ways that's what made them hard because it started while I was a teenager, and I didn't have the communication skills or the confidence or the networks to be able to get help. I'm not friends with many teenagers or people who own teenagers, but if you're one of them this might be helpful. If I had depression now obviously it would be hard especially while being a mum, that responsibility would make it difficult, but I hope I would have some coping mechanism and the resourcefulness to get help.

So Year 10 is kind of a bad time for everyone right? I'm not sure what exactly caused it but I started getting these weird down feelings that I didn't know what to with. I later realised that I probably had bipolar disorder, but at the time I didn't know what was going on and if I was making it up or, what to say to people when I felt like that. So I just started being really weird and going off on my own at lunch times and stuff and then my friends kind of broke friends with me, I think because they didn't get it.

Eventually I realised that something was wrong and tried to get help. I don't know if this was just me or all teenagers, but the absolute worst thing I could think of was being vulnerable. Being in trouble wasn't high on my list of things I wanted but it was much higher than being vulnerable, so I went about stuff in weird ways.  So I decided I needed to see a doctor, but I didn't chat to my parents about it, no that would be weird and awkward, I just snuck out of school one lunch time because getting caught sneaking out of school would be way better than having an awkward chat about depression. It took me 4 attempts over 18 months to finally get prescribed some anti-depressants which in the end really did help.

Attempt 1- The doctors was closed and I think well maybe that was what was meant to be.

Attempt 2 - I asked the receptionist how old you have to be to go to the doctors on your own, they said 16. I was 15. I decided to wait until then.

Attempt 3 - I'm sure theres some lovely middle aged man doctors, but this one was not understanding, and just said things like "teenagers" and "hormones" at me.

Attempt 4- A nice woman doctor finally acknowledges that I actually seem to have a problem and prescribes anti-depressants.

The following 3 months after that I felt loads better than I'd felt for years, but slowly it began to get worse again, I think maybe the effects wear off. But it at least gave me enough head space to think I do want to be better. Every 3 months I have to get a repeat prescription, so I have to invent reasons to get to the doctors. I would often forget to take the tablets in the morning so I hid some in an empty lipstick in my school bag to take if I remembered later in the day. I also started counselling which was the other side of Coventry, 2 bus rides away and quite difficult to make up explanations for every fortnight.

Although I did have the internet, this was early 2000s, I didn't have a phone or computer with internet in my own room and I didn't know how to delete search history. (I still don't.) So basically the internet community which I hope is a massive help to people now, was no help to me then.

After maybe 9 months of taking the anti-depressants the doctor encouraged me to try and come off them. I started taking the tablets every other day but that didn't go well for me, the crazy down days became much more frequent. During one of these days I had a psychology exam which I had revised for the night before when I felt fine. I started off answering the question ok, but then my brain was just exploding so I wrote a load of crap in messier and messier handwriting. The teacher confronted me about it and I mumbled something about dyslexia.  The point I'm trying to make for parents is there could be more to what comes across as a moody teenager.

After a bad day I felt really guilty and embarrassed for some of the stuff I did on a bad day, my boyfriend at the time definitely saw horrible stuff than anyone else did.

Eventually my parents found out when I accidentally left my repeat prescription in my pocket and put it in the wash. They guessed I was on the pill, I'm not sure if they were happy or not that it wasn't. We had a short conversation about it and it was never mentioned again.

It gradually got better as I became a student, although there were still regular crazy days even though in general I was really happy. I had the occasional high too, not in a good way, I guess it's sort of like being a funny crazy kind of drunk but it doesn't feel nice because you feel a bit out of control and a bit embarrassed. I had one week like that when I was away with Rev (a choir) I had hardly any sleep because we were sleeping on the floor, and there was absolutely no time alone. I ended up having a whole week being high and I even had a hallucination at one point. I went again the next year and people commented on how I seemed "calmer" and "more mature".

I had a bit more counselling in the year that I graduated and that was a lot more constructive because I was at an age where I could analyse my past and accept help, and I actually was well enough to want to be well. I couldn't change what had gone on in the past, but now that I wasn't in any kind of education it was up to me to make life work. It's hard to say exactly, but I would say that year when I turned 23 was the last year that I had depression. Now it seems like a weird distant memory that I'm not sure is real because I never really talked about it much. But it was real and I'm so glad that it's not my life anymore.

Thanks for reading. x

The Easter Hols

This January Percy started getting his free term time nursery hours, which has made parenting a lot easier, until the holidays come and you suddenly realised you are not mentally prepared for looking after both of them. On the first day of the holidays I had a lovely moment where me and the boys along with 2 other families were sitting in the sun on the roof of the central library having a picnic. If you didn't know... it's a roof terrace with a lift. When I told Percy we were going on the roof he asked me if I'd brought a ladder. Anyway the point is we had a lot of fun and I was glad that my main job for the moment is parenting.

On Saturday I'd got home from A & E in the very early hours of the morning to then be sicked on by baby Eric in a wedding... Parenting was not my favourite past time that day.

I don't have a picture of Eric puking at the wedding so here's one of him looking adorable in a ball pool instead.

In between the nice day on the rooftop and the puking incident we'd had a few days staying with my parents and a few days staying on the Welsh borders.

We stayed with some of Dan's family in a house that was a shrine to magnolia textured wallpaper, much like my own house. It had NO WI-FI. For the first time in ages I read a book! (It was the autobiography of the Queen of Jordan, she is a actually a really cool lady. If a history of the Middle East would be a bit to academic for you and a love story would be a bit mushy for you, then I would recommend her book, it's a nice half way house.)

We also made use of our National Trust pass and went to visit Chirk Castle. Avid readers of my blog might be thinking "didn't you once say the National Trust was an evil organisation because all their properties are built on slavery, and if you are a member then you support racism and slavery?" ....well yes I did say that, but the National Trust pass was a lovely gift from our very generous friends, so lets not mention the slavery right now.

On the last night Eric got a bit ill, he was really hot in the night and then in the morning one eye looked red, like he'd been punched in the face. He seemed happy enough though. We made an afternoon doctors appointment in Liverpool and took a leisurely drive back. Dan took him to the doctors while I unpacked, and then I got a call from him saying "we have to take him to A & E they've phoned ahead so they will be expecting him." 

Having been to Alder Hey kids hospital a few times before when Percy was at this age, I know to pack well. Maybe this makes me a terrible person, but we didn't rush him in straight away. We had tea and I packed a bag with everything we could possibly need. Having two children makes hospital trips a lot more complicated. Even if our lodger was in to mind Percy, Dan still couldn't have visited because I had the car, and I had to be the one with Eric because he still refuses a bottle.

I got in to Alder Hey sometime before 6pm and then waited over 3 hours in the big waiting room. It was quite nice and sociable at first, like going to a parent and baby group where you're all just having a nice friendly chat. I mainly spoke to a 3 year old girl with a possible head injury, and her parents, who were lovely. After she was discharged she came back because she wanted to say bye to baby Eric. After that Eric got really cranky because it was past his bed time. I wanted to try and get him to sleep but I was worried that if I did that I'd immediately be called through. I finally got through to a different bit that was still A & E but with a cot bed and a curtain, but still didn't see a doctor for another 3 hours. That time was a bit more chilled though. 

I managed to get Eric to sleep

and then I made myself this bed... Later on a healthcare assistant brought me a pillow and blanket

Then finally, a bit before midnight the doctors came to see Eric, and confirm that he did have an eye infection, which everyone knew from the start, and that he didn't need the more aggressive IV antibiotics just some normal medicine antibiotics, which I kind of knew from just looking at Eric and seeing he was fine. I'm sure the GP could have given him this but just wanted to be on the safe side.

12 hours after arriving home Eric was happily sitting in a wedding puking that medicine all over mummy. Oh the joys.

Here's a little happy ending though... I went to the baby group I go to every Monday today and guess who was there? The 3 year old girl from A & E. She goes every week with a childminder and I've never spoken to her or noticed her before, she was really happy to see Eric again and I got to introduce her to Percy too.

The next adventure

At school I was voted "most likely to be in the Guinness Book of Records", which I was really pleased about. Unfortunately I've not made it in yet, but I have done a few odd things in my time. Age about 9 I decided one day to do 1000 cartwheels. For my 16th birthday I got a unicycle and taught myself unicycling. When I was 19 I had a fairly unconventional gap year, spending a few months in Palestine, and then the big one - that I went on about for quite a while in 2013 - was the bike ride to Kuwait.

Dan quit his job to do that one so after that trip we were planning the next crazy thing we could do once he got a job. The main idea was buying a shop, but we also considered fostering or buying llamas (not very seriously). You can read that blog here. but spoiler alert, we didn't do anything crazy we did what normal people our kind of age do: we bought a normal family house and had two children. It didn't go that smoothly... We first started looking for a house when I found out I was pregnant, we finally moved into our new house after 9 months of lodging with another family when Percy was two and I was pregnant again. But the point is that right now we are a pretty normal family of 4 living in a normal house doing normal jobs and we're just not quite normal enough to be ok with that.

I've got friends who moved with a baby to live and work in Marrakech, I've got friends that bought a house made from 9, 1 bed flats and turned it into one amazing house, and I've got a friend that lives in a self-converted horse box. This year my parents moved from the house they'd owned for 25 years to a house right on the River Weaver in Cheshire, and this weekend they bought a canal boat. Next week they're going to New Zealand for a month. I mean it's easy when you're in that jammy generation that ruined the world for us millennials. But still you don't need loads of money to do crazy fun stuff. A bit helps though.

So what's the next thing? Eric our youngest is 10 months old which is a full on kind of age where they can climb stairs badly and choke on everything, and they bang their heads about 5 times a day. But, by 18 months they start to be more like real people, he'll hopefully be off breastfeeding and have a bit more caution about things like stairs. He might even sleep through the night! So we're starting to see past that survival stage of life and think "what would be fun to do in 2019?" We haven't decided what the thing is yet, sorry if you were hoping for an exciting announcement... but the good news is we're open to suggestions.

Percy is an October birthday so he doesn't start school till Sept 2019 so we have a bit a chance to go somewhere or do something before he's locked into the confines of the acedemic year. We talked about renting some kind of Camper van and going on a big trip round Canada or maybe Northern Europe like Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland. Or maybe we'll stick to the bike thing and get a crazy bike like on of these:

We worked out if we bought this one and cycled to church in it every week instead of using the car, we would make back what we spend on petrol in just 42 short years!

This one can fit up to 11 people (although only 6 people cycle)

We'd have to be a lot less ambitious with how far we went on this kind of thing compared to a Camper van, but I reckon a super fun holiday would be cycling from Liverpool right across the country to like Hull or somewhere in an 11 person bike, where random strangers could hop on and join you for a few miles. Think of the people you'd meet and the sites you'd see! Introverted Dan is less thrilled with this idea!

Other options are going abroad to work just for a short term thing. There were several times when we talked about moving abroad long term, and I think Dan maybe still would, but for me right now after a massively long journey (emotionally) to get this house, I don't want to leave it properly any time soon. I could cope with a year in the Cook Islands though. That mystical place that we often talk about and Dan once said in his sleep just because he once enquired about a job there. And www.cookislandsjobs.com is still one of his most visited sites.

So I'm not sure what we'll do and on what scale it will be. The money to do this will come from "savings we might make in the future" so we don't really have a budget, but even if it's trying to get from Lands End to John O'Groats by public transport we'll do something. If you are reading this it is your job to hold us accountable for not getting old and boring. Thanks.

6 difficult concepts for 3 year olds

I own a 3 year old, his name is Percy. He's a bright kid and knows a lot of stuff. Words in his vocabulary include "drone" and "delight" and "Antartica", he would indeed be delighted to fly a drone over Antartica.

He can recognise most letters in the alphabet and he has an amazing memory for conversations that took place months ago, but theres some pretty basic stuff that you take for granted as an adult that he doesn't know. We chat a lot and he has a lot of questions but some things are really hard to explain. Here are my top 6 in order:

6. Money
An example conversation at a soft play:
"can I have a cake?"
"no"
"why?"
"because it's expensive here, and we've got some cake at home you can have"
"is it a million billion pounds?"
"yes"

Example conversation 2:
"why does daddy have to got to work? why can't he stay and play?"
"because when he works they give him money and we need that for food and to live in a house"
"if daddy found magic beans then he wouldn't have to go to work... ...but then it would grow into a beanstalk and a scary giant would come down and... we'd have to make sure the rabbit was in her hutch."
A few days latter; "if I had a cow I wouldn't swap it for magic beans, I'd just keep the cow."

So yeah he doesn't really get money but he will do, it's easy enough to understand when you're a bit older.

5. Live TV/Radio
Unlike in our day, almost everything Percy watches is on demand (and 90% of the time it's Paw Patrol) but when for some reason we are watching or listening to something thats live, he can't understand why I can't rewind. Like one time we were in the car and a song came on the radio that he wanted playing again - cue massive tantrum while I try to explain the concept of live broadcasting.

4. Time
He gets 'lunch time', 'tomorrow', 'in a few days' and is starting to get the concept of 'next month' but he can't understand 'when you're a grown up' or 'before you were born'. Every picture he sees of me and Dan before he was born he asks "was I in your tummy?" and if I say "no that was before you were in my tummy" he can't really handle it. He says "but who was looking after me, where was I?" When I went to Speke Hall (a National Trust property) the staff were trying to teach him about the Tudor period. Seriously guys, he doesn't care he just wants to run around your big house and play, like at least 50% of the people there. The Tudors are dull.

3. Physics
I use the word physics in the loosest sense to describe all the physical stuff he doesn't get. Like when he was making a road jigsaw which was going into the wall and he asked me to move the wall for him.

He understands more about physics than 10 month old Eric though. Eric is at that awkward age where if I put him on a sofa and walked off he would do a head first dive off it and really hurt himself. The only way to really learn about gravity is to fall off stuff though.

2. Death 
Percy's described his first experience of death at 22 months old "woodlouse oh no, Harriet stamping" but his more recent fascination all started when I though it would be nice to draw a family tree with him. I drew parents, grandparents and then his 3 living great grandparents which sort of then left gaps for his 5 dead great grandparents, who I foolishly mentioned. Since then we've had several death related questions, including "when will those children die?" and "when we die will our house die too?" and, in the middle of tea without any context, "grandpa...when you get old then you die". And then Great grandpa's dog died and there were a lot more questions (she actually was put down but we didn't explain that one).

So far he only knows that old people or "fighting people" die. That's from when he saw a WW1 statue that I attempted to explain. I can't tell him that young people die, I feel like if he knew there was a possibility that we could die he wouldn't cope very well with that information.

1. God.
This is a tricky one because we are Christians so we want to teach him about God, but I don't want him to think other religions or ways of life are wrong and I sort of want him to think for himself but maybe 3 is a bit young for that. Some Bible stories have a nice moral theme, like the good samaritan. Some are just nice stories like the Christmas story, but a lot of the Bible is about God's people having victory over other tribes like David and Goliath... and even as an adult Christian I do find that a bit awkward. And then theres the easter story which is the most important one and I love it, but it's not that child friendly is it? it combines 3 of the most difficult concepts: the past, death and God. godd luck with that Sunday school.

Amish Nights

One year ago today we moved from lodging with another family, into our lovely home. One of the big advantages of a bigger house is having space for friends. I'm quite an extrovert, I talk to strangers in parks, I prefer to wait a bit longer and have human interaction instead of self service in checkouts. I had to chat to randomers on our honeymoon because one person isn't enough for me (chat wise I mean).

So one of the things I was looking forward to doing is having people over, and me being me, means I couldn't just have people over to do normal things like hang out. I'm a quite a fan of real life over technology.... if I was a really big fan I would be writing this in a postcard to you. So I invented this thing called Amish nights, where a group of friends meet up at ours and have low tech, smart phones banned, creative fun, usually by candlelight. We've done story telling, life drawing with clothes on, a singing one, and one where we smashed up and burned down an old shed.

Last week we did a creative writing one, which we started with a good old game of Consequences. I love this game! It's where you write a bit of a story and then pass it on and collectively write a short story together. Here is one of ours:

Ezekiel

Met Hannah and Sarah's mythical other sister 

in Olso

he said "the baby kangaroo travels along a line the mother has licked on her stomach, then climbs into her pouch where it may stay for several weeks."

She said: One day I will return, until then know that I will always love you.

They decided to move to a tropical island together but after 6 years they split up because she stopped shaving her legs. She stayed on the island though because she was happy there, she didn't need a man to fulfil her. Girl power.

After that we got into writing poems. We picked a letter out at random and wrote something with as many words as possible with that letter. I had "I" and this is my not very poem-y poem:

The issue is the impulsive Italian immigrants,

the irresponsible immigrants invade our island,

it's an inconvenience,

they are intoxicated, imorral, infidels,

it's inevitable that we will,

enforce our island initiation,

they imply it's indoctrination,

but we must enforce intimacy with iguanas.

I know it's a bit random but I was quite pleased with that... until I heard other people's that sounded like actual real poems. He's Sarah's:

Wally whale went west one winter,

weeping woefully through the water,

when one Wednesday without warning,

wally wondered about world wide warming...

"will wide water w-eally W-ise?"

"why oh why oh why oh why?"

with that wise Wally whoosed away,

worrying won't such warming delay.

Pretty good huh? `here is Steph's one:

Zipping past the zoo,

I needed a poo,

zigzagging and zooming,

Zuma was booming,

in a zoot suit,

from a car boot

radio speaker system

Zac almost missed 'im

imagine Zac's zed

as they zoomed past and said

To a loo painted zingy lime

Zac just found the time,

zipped in, washed his hands

in stunning Zululand

Zac felt so relieved

But Zuma could not be believed.

There were lots more good poems by everyone else too, so don't be offended if I didn't type yours out.

If anyone wants to come to amish nights, let me know everyone's welcome.

My Trip to the Sexual Health Clinic

Happy New Year! Welcome to the 9th year of my blog.
Sorry for the slightly click baity title. The full title is:

"a crazy day that involved annoying public transport, sales shopping, lunch with Rachel and meeting an overly chatty greek woman in a sexual health clinic. " 

That's chronological order, but it's also saving the best till last....wait till you hear what unusual reason the greek lady was in for!

Today was the day that Dan and Percy set off on their little adventure to France for Dan's french grandma's (Mamie's) 80th birthday party. I decided not to go. The thought of getting a 7.15am flight from Stansted with a baby and toddler didn't thrill me. So me and Eric are staying. Today they got the train down to the midlands where they were meeting Dan's parents to travel the rest of the day together.

What a barrel of laughs that was. They needed to go from Liverpool Lime street, the buses take ages and are unreliable, so I thought why don't we drive to Liverpool South Parkway, all get the train in, Percy and Dan can get on their next train and then I can have a look in the sales, while Eric has his morning nap in the pram. We checked the train times and choose one that even if we missed it, there would just be time to get another one. I checked that south parkway had a free car park, left in plenty of time but somehow it still went wrong.

The car park was full, and Percy was desperate for a wee. Hmmm we hadn't planned for this. after circling the car park a few times, I had to just drop them off, as I wasn't in a particular hurry. I'll just park on the street somewhere, and if I miss the same train as them it doesn't matter too much. (except to Percy who is not great with changes of plans) anyway I managed to find a space in the car park...it wasn't an actual car parking space, but it wasn't blocking anyone so I took the risk, and ran in with Eric in the pram. Dan had taken Percy to the loo and there was now only 2 minutes till the train was leaving. We got in the lift to the bridge between platforms, and then, they ran down the stairs to the platform to be quicker, while I had to get the lift with the pram. They were 20 seconds too late, I was 40 seconds too late. Bums!

It's ok theres another one, in 5 minutes time, "train delayed expected 6 minutes time" "train delayed expected 7 minutes time." arghhh. We made it though, they got on their train at Lime Street. I was sad to see them go.

Guess which was the first stop of their train journey from Lime Street to Dudley?

I'll give a clue, it's a station named after a late 90's cartoon that your parents disapproved of.
(Liverpool) South Park(way)

I continued my day with a bit of sales shopping (got some slippers and earrings both 70% off- thanks for asking) and then met the lovely Rachel Goodsall for lunch, she was nice enough to change the time, last minute so I could shop when Eric decided he wanted to nap. After lunch she said "what else are you doing today?" and then I remembered I needed to go to the sexual health clinic. (Not for anything gross just to get more of the pill) So I waited in there with Eric for AN HOUR AND A HALF and in that time a slightly crazy lady came and sat next to me for a chat. The whole time I was speaking to her I thought "at least I can write a blog about this"

So I don't know about you, but I kind of thought the rules of making small talk were "not in a sexual health clinic" but maybe that is just British rules, because this lady (who was Greek) came over and sat right next to me. I'm used to a baby invited more conversation than normal, but you don't start a conversation with "aww he's so cute, is he a he? he is 3 months old?" not when the baby is 8 months old. I don't mind that you can't judge the age of a baby correctly, but if you can't get near why bother trying. she then went on to tell me my baby was a Vergo and therefore red would be his colour and he would be very connected to the earth.

If you are going to make small talk in a sexual health clinic... MAJOR RULE: DON'T ASK SOMEONE WHY THEY'RE THERE!! luckily it was just to get more of the pill so I answered honestly. I didn't ask back though, two wrongs don't make a right. She told me anyway. She was in because a game of Uno has gone wrong. You know Uno the card game where you match the colours or the numbers. She played Uno with a friend who suggested that the loser would have to drink vinegar, and it turns out drinking vinegar makes you feel bad. "I don't think they deal with that here" I said. but she said it was also a doctors too. She knew because "I heard people coughing, and I thought...that's not a symptom of gonorrhoea"

Aww she was actually a lovely lady and made that hour and a half wait a little bit less dull.

The pill is like the worst advent calendar ever. Even worst than the ones we used to have as children that didn't have chocolate in

P.s There's probably a load of mistakes in this because Dan isn't here to proof read- sorry.