The Lucky Ones

Since I last blogged the world has gone mental. My last blog was about a guy saying I was shit at a comedy gig. Now I long for the opportunity to go out and be called shit. It's so crazy that less than 3 weeks ago I was at my sisters hen do, we were happily playing the classic toilet roll wedding game, we didn't even save the used bits of toilet roll. We all left saying "see you in 6 weeks". Now it's looking like the wedding might be just immediate family, I might be the only bridesmaid. The Hen do will certainly be a bigger gathering than the wedding. My other sister is a doctor who specialises in infectious diseases so this must be like Christmas for her!

But we are the lucky ones. I always think it's funny when people say "oh you were lucky" on days when you've had a car crash and only got minor injuries. People said that to me when I dislocated my elbow just before my GCSEs, I was "lucky" because it was my left arm. But what about all the days that nothing bad happened! You don't go calling people lucky then. But I guess I feel like of all the times in our lives this could have happened this is actually a good time for us. Dan is able to work from home, I will loose some work, I had some paid comedy gigs coming up and some schools work in June but hopefully it will just be pushed back. The kids are at an ok age, they're not worried, they're not in the middle of exams, Eric is just about old enough for me to explain things to him. Our house is big enough and we have a garden. They will still drive me mental though!

But imagine if this happened while we were in our old tiny house with a little yard, or when we were homeless, living with another family. We're also all healthy so we don't need to worry too much about us getting it, and our parents are young enough to not be at risk either. We are a best case scenario family, and I hope we will be able to use this privilege to help others.

We know old people who can't take any risks and will be completely isolating for months, I know a lot of comedians who don't have another job and have paid out for Edinburgh and stuff, I know a couple who are both self employed, I know a single mum on a zero hours contact. What will homeless people do?

 We've got a old neighbour called Geoff, he's such a legend. Once when I got trapped in my porch with both kids I had to climb out of the window and run and get help, Geoff was the first person I saw, he's always out walking his 2 dogs. I got him to come back to mine, I climbed back into the window and then passed the boys out of the window to him. Eric was only a baby at the time and cried, but we managed. I saw him in the street yesterday and he was saying how if he has to self isolate he won't be able to go out and top up his gas card because he's on a pre-paid meter. I told him to leave his number with us and we'll look after him. He doesn't have much family and isn't on the internet. Today he called round with his number and gave us 2 toilet rolls!  he said "your kids.... when I see them my heart shines, and when they go in your house it's like the sun goes in."

We have a lot to be thankful for, so I feel like we're able to be positive about this time. We don't actually spend much time as a 4 so I think this could be nice, when you are limited in what things you can go out and do it does make you be creative with what you have. I hope to practise my banjolele more, maybe write some new comedy, get back into art, I'm thinking textile stuff (batik and machine embroidery is something I want to do more of). Dan has already been making a podcast which hasn't been released yet, but this might be the ideal time. I'm going to finally start Eric's baby book, I spent hours doing Percy's one but Eric's isn't even started.

This is a weird week where everyone has been told not to go out, but the schools are still on for now. As a massive extrovert I'm trying to get out and see people while I still can. Yesterday we did some chalk painting after school.

I've decided to do a Facebook live craft a day for kids, everyday at 10am starting on 23rd March from my Hannah the artist page. I'd love people to interact and post photos of what stuff they've made.
Here's the link: https://www.facebook.com/artisthannahjones/

The internet does make this time in history better. I'm normally a bit down on the internet but it's great to see people asking for or offering help, sharing photos and videos of funny stuff they're getting up to.

A nice thing about being a parent in times like this is that kids are so in the moment, they don't get the seriousness of the situation, they're not talking about it all the time like adults are. I had to begin the day yesterday by singing happy birthday to one of Percy's teddies. He also said before bed "mummy I love you from the ground to space, Daddy I love you from the ground to the top of a giraffe." He is unaware of what a burn that is to Daddy because he's really saying Mummy I love you 20,000 more time than Daddy. (based on space being 100km away and a giraffe being 5 meters high)

Stay strong friends!
Big up the NHS workers
Big up the supermarket workers, thanks for staying calm in the chaos.
Parents - you can do this!
People who are struggling financially, emotionally, or health wise have a virtual hug from me, lets all look out for each other. x

When comedy isn't all laughs

This week has been a stressful week as an aspirational comedian and amateur mum. 4 gigs in 3 days and not all of them were nice. A few people have said to me recently "I don't know how you find the time to run a comedy night and do load of gigs and still be a full time mum." The answer is I don't really have the time and sometimes I do everything badly, and I don't really rest. By Tuesday this week I was so overwhelmed by the amount of stuff I had to do, that I had to call in my parents for emergency childcare.

I spent the first half of the week searching for a new venue for my monthly comedy night, Early Risers Comedy Club. I did this in the evenings so that I didn't have to drag my two year old round them. I was a bit nervous about going by myself in to random venues and asking if they'd host us. I'd already had a lot of email rejection, and because we pay the headline act £50 there is no budget for the venue, so I felt like it was a difficult task. People were surprisingly nice though and most seemed open to the idea of it, one venue that wasn't suitable even wrote me a list of all the other places I could try. I narrowed it down to two venues and then went back for a second viewing with Jess and Martin the couple that help me with the night. I am super chuffed with our new venue, it's nice looking and cosy, parking should be a bit easier and the best thing for me is that they seem to be really up for having us.

All this venue hunting was pretty time consuming, it took 3 evenings, and didn't leave me much time to practice my stand up. I hardly did any gigs in Jan and I need to practise to get stuff back in my head again, plus I've written 4 1/2 minutes of new material about introverts and extroverts that I needed to try. So I was a little nervous when I turned up at a comedy and poetry night in Manchester, but it turned out to be a lovely night, my new stuff went well, I met up with a comedian friend Evaldas - last time I saw him he was in a car that had been driven into a ditch along with some other comedians that I had booked to do a corporate gig with me. (They were fine and hopefully one of them will get some new material out of it.) This Manchester gig was also they first time I'd ever performed my Somalian pirate joke directly after a Somalian comedian has just been on, which made for an extra punchline. I had venue envy about the super nice venue they had, all in all it was one of those nights where I just felt like I love being a comedian and the world is a wonderful place.

In total contrast the next night was the kind of night that would make people quit comedy forever. It was at a cricket club near Burnley. The average attendant was a 50 year old man, although the were a few women and one dog. I was booked as a paid middle for £20 which is about what it would cost in petrol to get there. But I was penciled in for another, better paid gig, that I would get if I didn't mess this one up (no pressure). I realised on arriving that this was not my ideal audience, but I have often done fine in an audience that doesn't look like they'd find me funny. Once a guy in his early 20s wearing a north face top told me he loved my set about breastfeeding. So never judge a man by his north face top. I felt pretty out of place, all the other comedians, the mc and the organiser were men, and the opening act did what I think is quite old school blokey comedy. That's not a criticism, it went down well so it's obviously what they wanted, but I was pretty aware that my stuff was the opposite end of the comedy scale.

I got up and was immediately heckled. "Stand up," a guy shouted. Implying I was short, which I am. Genius. This is when I made my biggest mistake. I'm not a great improviser, but no one is at their best when they feel like they're the odd one out. I couldn't think of something to say so I ignored it, like I was told to by my mum when I was 10. But although his comment was the kind of thing a kid would say to another kid in the playground of a primary school, my mum's advice does not apply to all situations. Ignoring is the worst thing you can do! If my kid ever gets bullied at school I will teach them some good heckle put downs, as soon as I take the time to learn some myself. So I carried on with my set, although my new stuff went well in Manchester, this was only the second time I was doing it so it probably wasn't the right stuff to start with. It was not enjoyable and I knew they were not on my side, some of the more well tested stuff went better and I did get some laughs. When it was over some people said well done which was nice, I think some people genuinely did enjoy it. But one particularly horrible man decided to come over to me just to say "you're shit" and then walked off. Thanks random man, it's always good to get some helpful constructive criticism.

The next day I left for Leicester Comedy Festival, which I was looking forward to, but after that night I felt a bit weird about everything. I'd been booked to do a paid 30 minute set of comedy for kids, the problem was I don't do comedy for kids, and this booking was a bit of a mistake based on the bookers not very thorough googling of me. He probably would have told me not to come, but as I'd already booked my train he told me to come down anyway and he'd put me on something. So I ended up doing a 10 minute slot on a show with 5 other comedians and a 20-30 minute solo show. The 10 minute slot went ok, a friend I haven't seen for 9 years came down to see me on her lunch break which was lovely. I did the new stuff again and it was fine but I think it could be better. If I got the 4 1/2 minutes of material down to 3 minutes with the same amount of punchlines I think it could be a good bit. I had an hour between shows to rewrite my longer solo show, I decided to completely take out the new bit and added in some material about pregnancy instead. I arrived in this very trendy venue:

to see my tiny but cosy room, and a guy showed me where I could plug in my ipod for my parody song finish. Then that guy disappeared, the room filled up, it got to 5pm (the time I was meant to start) so I just started not knowing whether the man was ever going to come back. (He didn't.)

It was a friendly chilled-out crowd, it felt weird at, first the room was too small to need a mic and the stage was a pallet on the floor. The lights were bright all over so I could see everyone, it felt a bit unnatural to be able to see them so well, but after the first few sentences I relaxed into it and it was all ok. A friend of a friend that I'd never met (Pippa) came to watch and it was great to meet up with her. She is someone in the very rare Venn diagram of comedian, mum and Christian. A weird conflicting Venn diagram to be in. I meet Christian mothers all the time and mum comedians sometimes and I've know a few Christian male comedians but I don't think I've met another Christian mum comedian before. We've made plans to go and do a gong show in manchester soon.

People were very generous, especially in my solo show and I made most of the money back that I spent on the train, and then the booker guy topped it up from his own pocket as it was his mistake, which was super nice. The trains back were annoying, but I was glad to be finally home. I can't relax properly till after Early Risers this week. but then I will take a few evenings to do normal things that normal people do like watching TV and sleeping.

I sort of don't know why I do all this stuff sometimes, I think I just don't want to be normal.

Being 4, 14, 24, and 34.

On Monday I turned 34. I know right, I never thought I'd be a dull age like that. I best suited being 11 and 21, they are ages when you can muck about and do stupid fun things and everyone just thinks you are a good laugh. e.g an 11 year old or a 21 year old climbing a tree..."what a fun outgoing girl."

a 14 year old or a 34 year old mum climbing a tree "why are you doing that? are you OK?" I'm going to examine my life at these ages: 4,14, 24, 34.

Four (1990)
4 was alright I guess. I was cute, and I think it was before I decided I wasn't ever going to fit in with normal people, which I think happened when I was 6. I was chatty, I had a lot of questions, I was a daydreamer.

The biggest issue of my life at the time was can I eat my lunch and change into my outdoor shoes before the end of play time. I know because I wrote in my self written school report that the thing I was most proud of that year was learning to eat quicker.

Fourteen (2000)

Ugh I don't recon anyone in the history of the world looked back on their life and thought my happiest year was the year I was 14. Its just one of those in-between horrible ages where people expect you to act like an adult but you're not, it's the worst age for comparison because everyone is going through puberty at different times. All I can say is I'm so glad social media didn't exist then. I would cringe to think what kinds of things I would have written on it. I feel like age 14 started off ok but by the end of the year I was not happy and 15 was my worst year of life. A few little nice memories of this otherwise horrible age was moving to a new bedroom which I was allowed to decorate myself (lilac with a border of silver handprints) and going on French exchange and meeting the loveliest French friend who I went to find again aged 27.

Biggest issue of my life at the time: breaking friends with all my friends, not having snogged anyone, and having a horrible brace.

Twenty Four (2010)

24 was a great and significant age, it was quite transitional. I moved house, from one set of house mates to another, I passed my driving test finally, I got my first properly paid job that I loved doing -art in schools through an agency. I got my hair braided with African braids for a bit, I got my nose pieced, and right at the end of the year I got engaged. I also made the big life move from Radio 1 to Radio 2. I vowed never to to make the move to Radio 4 because everyone knows the life of an average Brit goes Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 4, dead, and by never making the change to radio 4 I might live forever. Other things I did in that year included, accidentally taking a group of people to see naked live art, making a life-size elephant in my neighbours garage in that super snowy winter.

Biggest issue of my life at the time: When will Dan propose?!

Thirty Four (2020)

My life is very different again, I live in a real grown up persons house with a grown up and 2 tiny people. I'm responsible for stuff. I don't know what I'm doing work wise at the moment, I'm just surviving till September when Eric gets free nursery and then I can look into jobs without it being totally pointless because all the money will go on childcare. I'm a comedian, which 24 year old me never would have guessed.  I've managed to entice my sister and my parents to move to the North West. We've just decided not to have anymore kids. My body is not so great as it was aged 24, (but it has birth 2 kids and survived cancer this decade so it's doing ok) I've just bought my first pair of Bridget Jones style suck you all in pants.

I've finally stopped listening to my 30th birthday party playlist on my iPod and we've moved with the times and got Spotify and some speakers. I know I'm late to the party but it's amazing you can listen to ANY song. Also big news: I just threw out a piece of ham that I laminated 4 years ago. (it was on my things to try before I'm 30 bucket list, see the haminator video here) I don't really know what else will happen this year because it hasn't happened yet. But I hope it involves comedy art friends and fun.

Kid Quotes of the Year

When I was growing up my Dad used to keep a notebook of the funny thing we said things, like my four year old description of fog "dark light". I have done the modern version of this, I tweet them #percyquotes and for the first year #ericquotes have been added. (Percy is 5 Eric is 2) At the end of each year my sister Sarah has made me a t-towel of the best ones, although these have got a bit ruined now so I think I might make them into mugs.

View best quotes of 2018 here. My personal favourite was "how do you milk a ghost?" and "do ice cream don't like snow?"

View 2017 here my faves were "we have two babies one made out of plastic and one made out of real" and "Poor daddy one of his favourite ears is hurting".

I don't think 2019 was the best year for them, but it's interesting to see how they are developing over time. I'm glad we've moved away from the questions about death more now, but Percy is still intrigued by the World Wars, Willies, God, and has recently taken an interest in politics.

I'll start with Eric, he says funny things every day but I only managed to tweet a few:

"my favourite fruit is cake"

"I'm a big boy now, I'm tweventeen thousand"

I think 2020 will be his prime year for more Eric quotes.

and here's Percy's quotes:

"The people in Toy Story must have practised really hard not to look scared when they were doing those stunts"

"Mummy I'm going to plan you a surprise party" Percy let me give you some basic tips on planning a surprise party.

Percy your shirt's on the wrong way round. "oh i thought my head was on the wrong way round"

Have you wee'd on the floor? "that's what my willy just decided it wanted to do"

"why are you making your lips even more red than they are?"

"why did God not give you a willy?"

"this water tastes of bums and fire rockets"

"Mummy when we die do we become shadows or statues?"

"one half of my nose is filled with snot and the other half is filled with bogies and they just keep switching round forever"

"Mummy lets play trains, I'll be Thomas and you be the Fat Controller"

"Mummy you need to practise your parking, I wish Daddy was here"

"but we love Peppa Pig more than you love family time"

a few more joint ones:

Eric: What is the cinema? Percy: It's where films are born.

Percy: I want to marry Eric. Eric: I want to marry Granny

Happy New Year.  x

What a Tory Government means for us.

Today is a sad day for most people who will be reading this, because unless you're a millionaire or someone who believes things written by millionaires, you will probably be planning how you will survive or escape the next 5 years in Britain. Before the election I made this half statement/half joke...

"If the Labour get in we'll have another baby, if the Tories get in we're moving to France."

but this is the longer more truthful statement: If Labour get in I feel like we can consider the 3rd child thing, currently the cost of child care is making it not really possible for me to work, it would just make our lives more complicated and wouldn't give us much more money. But, in September when Eric gets some free childcare, then I can work and even if it's still low paid it makes sense. So having another baby would add another 4 years until I get to that point again. Which is a bit too long, not just financially, for my own sanity too. I'm not saying I definitely would have had another baby if Labour had got in, but it would be a discussion I'd be willing to have. I met another mum today who felt the same.

I'm not saying I'll be moving to France tomorrow, but it's something we've talked about for a while (Dan is half French so we could get in there). I'd miss load of things and people and I think I'd be a bit lonely, but I'd be up for it because I like change, and sun, and it would be amazing for the kids to learn a new language, and I don't really want to be part of Tory Britain. But we're the lucky ones, we're not minted or anything, but we're quite good at saving and so I feel we have options. Some people are properly stuck here.

I tried to explain the election to Percy (age 5). I tried not to be biased, I tried not to say "goodies and baddies". We talked about the blue team and the red team and that Mummy and Daddy were voting for the red team. In the morning I told him the blue team won, he said, with the optimism only a 5 year old can have, "well maybe they'll change and start caring about hospitals and poor people". 

Under Labour I would definitely be in work. I started doing freelance art stuff in schools just at the end of labour. There was more then, I taught loads of different kinds of art as one off lessons - sculpture, mosaic, textiles etc. I sometimes taught drawing skills where I got the kids to draw a face and then I taught them step by step how to draw a face and get the proportions all right and then they compared the two. Obviously the second one was better, but a teacher once told me that their face drawing was then always better, even when I wasn't there to talk them through it and that even their general drawing skills for other things (not just faces) had improved just from me doing one lesson. For a few years I worked almost full time, then every year since 2014 it got worse. I used to just advertise to Liverpool and then I had to keep advertising further and further away to get anything. Then I had 2 months of no work while still paying £46 a day 2 days a week for nursery. So that had to end. If I had either free nursery or a well-funded school I could work, I don't need both but I need one. This is one of the reasons I do stand up. It fits around the school run.

It's pretty ironic that the Brexit vote was won from a lie on a bus, and that some people voted because they wanted to help the NHS, but then this vote was more like "do you want Brexit so much that you would sacrifice the NHS for it?" and people still went with that.

My Brexit bus prop made for my comedy night's spooky special

It would be disastrous to lose the NHS. A year ago I had cancer, I only knew about it because I went for a smear test. It was relatively easy to treat it was only 8mm, if I had not been for a smear test I wouldn't have known it was there until about a year later, when it would have grown into a difficult to treat bigger ball. If you had to pay for smear test I would't have gone. Not because I completely couldn't afford it, I just don't do that kind of thing, I didn't feel at any risk of getting it. I'm only 33 and I have no history or risk factors associated with it. I put off things that cost money, I went to the dentist when I was pregnant with Percy and then didn't go again till I was pregnant with Eric (it's free when you're pregnant). When my TV licence runs out I live without BBC for a few months and then eventually get it and watch everything I've missed on catch up. I'm just not the personality type to go for smears as often as I should but I know I would really put it off for a lot longer if I had to pay to go. Imagine if you had to pay for baby scans or anything where you'd probably be fine. People wouldn't go and most of them would be fine. But some of them wouldn't, some of them would have complications and some of them would die.

One positive about being in Liverpool is that almost everyone I would bump into feels like this, so when striking up a conversation with a stranger (which I did twice today) you're on safe ground. I love that we're the only place in Britain where you can't buy the sun newspaper, and maybe thats a factor in why Liverpool is a sea of red in a world of blue. Because we haven't seen lies and boobs for 20 years. I mean not from them anyway, I'm sure there are multiple places you can purchase lies and boobs.

I've read load of social media stuff of people's views, some funny some sad, all left wing. I really do wonder what Tory Facebook looks like. I mean I doubt people put stuff like "I just voted tory because I want poor people to die" but really what do they put? But the one that stands out to me is this one about what will happen if the tories get in....

"It will be like a terrible alternative ending to a Christmas Carol, where the ghosts don't have an impact on Scrooge and Tiny Tim dies. Except it's real."

The one tiny silver lining in the depressing blog post is that at least my parody song will still be relevant for another 5 years. This is the bridge to my independant women parody song.

"The patriarchy, makes it tough for mums like me,

We don't get a lot for free, with the Tories"

Merry Christmas

Chicken pox, Gas leaks, and Potty training

It's been a mad few weeks, beginning with a lovely trip to Cadbury world to see my good friend Bex and family, and then at the end of the day Bex messaged me to say her middle boy AJ had chicken pox. My boys had not had it yet so we were holding out in anticipation. 2 weeks passed and nothing happened and then we discovered Eric had it. In some ways I was relived, we needed to get it over with and now was as good a time as any. If I was still doing self employed stuff in the day, I would have been so stressed out. When you're paying for nursery and getting paid well per day but not working everyday something like this can end up costing you hundreds of pounds and you feel guilty for thinking about money when your kid is sick.

The first full day of spots went fine, I decided since we wouldn't be going out I might as well potty train him at the same time, which is actually going loads better than it did for Percy, he was a nightmare. Eric actually seemed fine in himself chicken pox wise, I kept Percy of school too because I was sure he'd get it in the next few days. I also personally think 5 days of school is a bit much for a 5 year old and that what they learn in school is not very varied... this is sort of a whole other blog post in itself, but in my opinion they learn too much phonics and maths and not enough of everything else in the world that there is to know.

Have you got a primary school aged kid? Ask them to name the colours in the rainbow. I once asked a whole class of year 4 or 5s, only one kid knew, he was Polish and had learnt it there. Another questions you can ask: "what is charcoal?" You might get the answer "its a tool from Minecraft" and I bet if your kid knows that blue and yellow makes green they've never actually been allowed to do it for themselves. If you ask them to mix a skin tone colour they will have absolutely no clue. It's one of the things I used to teach kids to do, back before there was no money for anything but maths and phonics. If you asked a specialist in humanities or other forms of arts I'm sure they would say the same kinds of things.

Anyway that was a huge digression, all I really wanted to say is that we all stayed home and invented chicken pox the board game, which was fun for a bit. But after Percy had 2 days off I phoned the school and they told me to send him in (even though he would probably spread chicken pox) but that's all I wanted: someone to blame.

Then just after Eric started getting better we had a new long burner thing put in. It replaced a ugly old fire that just made a noise and a smell.

I'm a tiny bit in love with that shade of green.

Unfortunately when they took the old one out they detected a gas leak under the floor boards. It couldn't be fixed without ripping them up, so they just re-piped the whole thing for quite a lot of money. It meant that for about 5 days we had no gas which meant no heating or cooking or hot water or showers. Except after 3 or 4 days I thought I'll just test the shower...and guess what it's electric! There was one day when Percy had a swimming lesson that I thought while me and Eric wait we might as well have a shower. Eric normally loves showers but this time because it came on when he was not prepared he hated it. I realised this whole thing looked bad, me with a screaming child who is skinny and still coved in chicken pox scabs trying to have a sneaky shower in a pool, because we had no heating and no way of cooking anything nutritious. We could have been out of a poverty documentary.

The day after that I went to pick up an electric heater after school pick up, and then I was going on to a gig in Nottingham which I needed to leave at 5pm for. There was no spare time in my schedule which is why Eric pooing himself in the car just after school pick up was REALLY ANNOYING! If it was in a nappy I could have changed it, but in pants is really hard to change in the car even if you have all the stuff, even though school is pretty close in rush hour it take a long time. This resulted in me eating burning hot microwaved lasagne while straightening my hair when fellow comedian Alex (a girl) came over.

We left late but managed to get to the gig just in time, the venue was a room above a pub. We arrived to find a room full of male comedians, we said hi and one comedian told me everything he'd ever achieved in comedy. I find 5-10% of adults have not yet learned that saying everything you've achieved to someone you don't know well doesn't make them like you. (The way to make people like you is usually to ask about the other person and take a genuine interest.) I don't think these people are bad people, they just didn't learn that when they were like 15 or whatever. Like I never learned how to tie a tie or do long division.

The lady in charge of the night went down to get people from the pub, she managed to get a crowd of really weird drunk men. They heckled often and badly. I was headlining so I was nervous to do 20 minutes in front of them, no one could do well with this crowd. It was reminiscent of my days teaching kids that had been expelled. In the break they all left which was sort of great but also not so great because we had no audience. The lady in charge was talking about cancelling it and I was not sure where I would stand payment wise if they cancelled the gig. I needed the money to reimburse me for my petrol costs, so me and the girlfriend of another comedian went down to the pub to see if we could get a new audience. On the way down she asked me who I was here to support, I said myself.

We went up to everybody in the pub and invited them even to a couple who were clearly in the middle of an argument and the woman had been crying, whoops! We managed to get a nice group of older ladies and 3 lads - the show was back on. I did my set and loved it, the audience were great and it was just a lovely atmosphere. I felt happy that I'd done ok even though I sort of don't look like a comedian. It was probably the best time I've ever performed my parody song "dependant women"(since then I've done it 3 more times, all worse).

It was a nice road trip too. It's pretty intense talking to a comedian for 5 hours on one day, but sort of nice to have that time. It would take me 2 weeks to have 5 hours of meaningful conversation with my husband. Sad face.

I was about to write a paragraph listing my achievements in comedy last week, but I have to be careful after writing the paragraph about the 5-10%.

So all I will say is if you're free on 11th December and live near Liverpool, me and Dan are hosting a comedy competition/ slightly offensive nativity play/ craft fair. Its a great mix!

5 years of Percy Jones

Our lovely son Percy is turning 5 years old. I would say the time has flown by, that seems the sort of thing people say but I'm not sure thats true really. The time before we had him seems like a lifetime ago. He's changed from a tiny helpless baby into an school boy. But we've also changed, from clueless 28 year olds who live in a tiny house in studentville and know nothing about babies, to real grown ups in a grown up sized house with 2 kids.

It's crazy to think in another 5 years he'll be 10 and he might be as tall as me.

So this is a little letter to Percy: 5 thing I love about my 5 year old.

1) You are so kind. OK sometimes you're bad at sharing toys, but you often offer to share your sweets. The way you help Eric out with things he can't do is adorable. Yesterday you wanted to give him a big hug because you hadn't seen him for most of the day. You are the loveliest big brother Eric could ever have.

2) You do your own thing. I think peer pressure hasn't got to you yet and I hope it will remain that way for a long time. And yeah you like some stuff that a lot of kids your age like, Paw Patrol, playing train tracks, etc. but you will also make up your own games with cards or imaginary games or telling stories with puppets. You like to arrange your Duplo animals into pens of animals that won't eat each other. You've recently started liking break dancing, and you're future career ambition has gone from "building an ice church for the penguins" to break dance teacher.

3) You ask good questions. I mean not all of them are good actually some of them are annoying like just endless whys. But some are interesting like "when we die does are house die too?" and "do ice creams don't like snow?" or "why is jelly wibblely?". You're quite interested in God and life and death and actually I feel like I can explain anything to you and you're at the perfect age to understand it at face value it not be a big deal. Like "does X have 2 mummies?" yeah. oh right ok. The other day I explained the pill to you because you asked, and it's actually easy to say "mummy takes a tablet that means she won't have a baby in her tummy because we haven't decided if we want another baby yet".

4) You are a rule follower. This is a weird one because I'm totally not a rule follower, I once took my pat rat to a clarinet lesson with me. My rules for life are "better sorry than safe"and "only break one law at a time". Maybe you're rebelling against me, but you like rules. You once came out of school and the first thing you said was "I can't have anymore sugar today because I had cake for lunch".

5) Your positivity. You're still young enough to be enthusiastic about little things. Sometimes you are not that impressed by quite impressive things, but I love that you are still excited by "cushion world" which is when I let you bring all the cushion and duvets downstairs so you can roll around on them.