Our little lobster baby

We have news!

Percy's going to be a big brother! Due date 9th May.

The keen detectives/stalkers among you will have already worked that out. It was obvious, in the blog before last I wrote "I was flicking through this magazine at the dentist" dead give away. I generally avoid the dentist unless it's for free. I was meant to go about a year ago, but I thought "nah I'll just wait till I'm pregnant again". They phoned me up 2 weeks ago and I was miraculously ready for an appointment. Had two fillings topped up for free. Thank you NHS.

But anyway back to the baby. The scan was really fun it was moving around a lot which was cool to see, it made it's hand into a 'C' shape for the photo. What does this mean? does it want a name beginning with 'C'? It looked like a little lobster claw.

I've been sick quite a lot which has been grim. A few times I've been looking after Percy on my own while puking into a bucket, he kept asking "what you doing mummy?" and then one time he said "my be sick" and started pretending to be sick. Then he said "can't do it mummy, you do it" as if it was a chore that needed to be completed.

We told Percy the day before the scan, We showed him pictures of him in my tummy and him as a newborn and he kind of gets it to some extent. If I say "where's the baby?" he says "in mummy's tummy". He seems cool with it as a concept, who knows whether he'll be cool with it in reality. To be honest I don't know how I'll cope with it in reality either. Newborns are tough. But I'm excited to become a family of 4 and meet a whole new fresh half me half Dan human.

2 Years of Percy Jones

Today was Percy's 2nd Birthday! and despite some obstacles like me having a 24 hour puking bug yesterday, it all turned out to be a brilliant day. One of those brilliant parenting days where you think "yeah that was worth my genitals being temporarily destroyed 2 years ago for".

He is at a pretty adorable age right now, where he is excited about opening presents but not yet demanding. After he'd opened one present he said "mummy open one" thinking that everyone got one, bless him. He's going to have to unlearn that at christmas. He got loads of lovely stuff from our generous friends and family, including many many vehicles. But the one that I enjoyed him opening the most actually cost 1p (plus £2.80 delivery). He'd got this book out of the library weeks ago called "the wheels on the bus at the zoo" which he absolutely loved and has learnt almost off by heart. So I bought it for him, not even a brand new copy, and then we made a big deal about taking the book back to the library and the fact that it wasn't his anymore,  then when he opened this book that he knows so well he was overjoyed!

Is that the Duplo royal castle set with working cannon...why yes it is. Guess what mummy and Daddy will be doing all day tomorrow.

Just to give a balanced view though, Percy isn't always 100% adorable. This morning while I was tying up balloons I asked him to bring me a red one, he happily toddled off and brought a red one back, well done top marks you're adorable. Then I made the mistake of saying "can you get me a orange one and a yellow one." He went off picked up an orange one and then attempted to pick up a yellow one as well, but wasn't able to pick up two at once. He made several attempts, always dropping one then falling over and then had a full on tantrum, kicking and screaming all because he was not able to hold 2 balloons at once. Eventually after a bit of time out he managed to calm down.

I really wanted this party to be a success as he spent his first Birthday in hospital with pneumonia, and although he did have a party, he wasn't quite himself and he wasn't old enough to understand the concept of birthdays. Whereas he's known for a few week that it would soon be his birthday so he was excited. He had a teddy bear picnic themed party.

I spent a long time making hats with famous bears on.

We had a few bear themed games and then some bear food made by Dan who I have to say has surpassed himself. Normally I would do the creative stuff (excluding writing or music) basically anything visual but as I was puking all of the previous day Dan was left with the task of being my nurse, butler, cleaner, looking after Percy, doing the shop and making 30 bears driving cars and marshmallow bear things, and decorating the party bags. He was a hero.

My friend Keisha made a fabulous cake!

 check out her stuff: https://www.facebook.com/keishascreationz/

Percy had a wonderful day he got to have a bit more sugar than normal which he was very happy about. We are fairly strict on sugar (and very hypocritical) I was quite proud when he saw a big tube of milky bar buttons and said "rolling pin". Yeah that's right Percy, thats a rolling pin, there's definitely nothing interesting inside there.

There were a few funny kid comments "when it's your birthday and you have a garden you need to have a bouncy castle" Ben age 4. Sorry to disappoint you Ben.

And to my parents "why haven't you gone home yet?" Abigail age 4

Thanks to everyone who came, and thanks to The Langstons for letting us throw a party in our temporary home. x

Hannah's guide to fashion

Yesterday I went to the dentist, and while I was waiting I flicked though a current copy of Marie-Claire.  OM Gosh it was ridiculous! I think the last time I read a girly magazine was when pizza express was giving out free copies of girl talk magazine in the mid nineties. 

So I wouldn't call myself a fashion guru but here are my personal do's and don'ts:

My fashion Don'ts (Marie-Claires do's)

Don't wear your sleeping bag in an industrial estate...

...and I think the Nazi Goose-step went out a while ago.

Underwear goes under...the clue is in the name

Think about what you're doing in your day...if you think hands might come in useful, then dress accordingly.

If this is what you wear to walk your dog what do you wear on a night out?

I've got no real issue with what you're wearing here, but you're not really respecting the piano

My fashion Do's
If it's winter and you're not making an effort go for: jeans, long sleeve tee shirt and hoodie.
If it's winter and you're making a bit of a effort wear: woolly dress, tights and boots.

If it's summer and you're not making an effort go for jeans and short sleeved tee shirt and cardi (for a British summer)
If it's summer and you're making a bit of an effort go for shortish floaty patterned dress with 3/4 length leggings (so you don't have to sit carefully and you can still ride a bike and climb trees when necessary) cardi and pretty flip flops.

If you're getting ready for a night out wear your least comfortable shoes, pretend it's 20 degrees warmer than it actually is and wear double the amount of make-up.

That's really all I can say about fashion.

Best Days of Your Life

Hey, I thought I'd write a blog about my recent comedy show... if you came thank you so much, you were the best most loveliest audience in the world. You laughed a lot, which either means I was funny or you're just super lovely friends that would pay to fake laugh for a hour just because you care about me. Both options are positive so I don't really mind.

 I tried to video the performance but although the record button was pressed unfortunately the camera which we set up on a tripod had already turned itself off by then so nothing got recorded :( sorry Lydia in Australia. I'll have to do a world tour and come to you. Anyway this blog is kind instead of a video.

So a while ago (maybe 6 months ago) I signed up for a slot at the Liverpool Comedy Festival's "funny looking fringe". That name constantly brought back painful flashbacks of when I used to have my very own funny looking fringe (why mum why??!!). Once I got over that I could start preparing material for the hour long show. I'd only ever done about 12 minutes of comedy at any one time before, so this was quite a challenge for me. I decided that the theme of my show would be my school days... because I thought that would be fairly relatable to everyone. Although some more than others, it works best if you were a similar age to me and British. This is the flyer I made.

The blurb is:
School days are the best days of your life, if you die at 16 and can’t remember before 4.

Blending the everyday with the surreal, comedian Hannah Jones remembers surviving school in the 90s as a dyslexic ginger.

“Whimsical” and “lovely” comedy, this is group therapy for those who were never cool enough to sit on the back seat of the bus. 

But guess what, someone who regularly sat on the back of the bus came... Danni McGuinness the show was not written for the likes of you!

I had a bit of a set made from things that remind me of school

and also some fake motivational posters because my secondary school was big on that once. Mine said:

Together 

Everyone

Achieves 

Mediocrity

There is no "I" in team, unless you're dyslexic.

There's no such word as "cantywantydodar"

You can achieve anything if you have rich parents.

Believe in yourself, 'cause everyone else thinks your an idiot.

Dan introduced the show in character as a strict head master. With "settle down it's you're own time you're wasting etc."

The show was around 50% new material. I got in some of my old classic stuff like eskimo muslims (about how hard it is for them in summer time Ramadan), the get your own back story (the one where I attempted to murder my teacher), my opposite songs (Think of a song title and then make every word the opposite word e.g Bye bye miss ameriacan pie = hello Mr Iraqi salad).

I also did a lot of new stuff... A whole new bit about sex ed and how in my school only set 1s were deemed sensible enough to put condoms on cucumbers, which is natural selection in reverse. I had a new bit about P.E. the horrors of the bleep test and sports day, how I'd set my sights on being an Olympic egg and spooner only to discover that wasn't a thing.

I had a new joke about king henry v111. 

Did you know he invented tinder?... Well not exactly. He invented the concept of swipe left and the head is gone. (It works better with some actions)

One of my favourite new bits was about when I had to keep a dream diary for psychology A-level. In this section I acted out 3 genuine dreams I had with some help from Dan and some homemade costumes. So there was the dream that I was a pond and a horse was drinking me. Then the dream that putting sweetcorn in your armpits was a new way of taking drugs....this was kind of funny coz we obviously hadn't practised with the actual sweetcorn before the really performance so it got a bit messy with sweetcorn water going everywhere. The third dream was the most surreal and most time intensive costume wise:

I dreamt that my husband was the Suez canal, but I was still me, obvs. So we had the kind of conversation you would have in that position:

You're a canal

Not just any old canal, I'm the Suez canal.

You're the Suez canal but I'm still me?

Yeah is that ok?

I kind of liked you how you were before?

You did say you'd love me whatever.

But this is not really what I imagined when I said that. Am I going to have to move house? Because I'm guessing you'll have to stay where you are because you're a major trade route and everything.

Yep?

And can we still have children?

Want to give it a go?

I'm sure all my married blog readers have had similar conversations with their spouses about these kind of marital issues. It's tough but you've made a promise so you've just got to work at it.

I did a bit about romance, I read out my first valentines card from 1996 (age 10)...

Then I read out this bit from my diary of feb 2000. I'm just including this for my school friends non of whom could see it because they're not in Liverpool, but they got a mention. 

"14th February

Today is valentines day and I actually got a valentines present! (I haven't had one since year 5) Abbie knew who it's from but she won't tell me but she says it's real which is surprising because most of our class have fake ones from me and Gillian....

February 15th 

I've found out who sent me the ballon because he told Abbie, Abbie told Lauren, Lauren told Helen and they kept it a secret for ages and wouldn't tell me which is out of order because it's nothing to do with them. Anyway I finally bribed them to tell me but I wish they hadn't because when you don't know you can have some hope but when you know it's Adam it's really boring."

I hope Adam doesn't end up seeing this but if he does...sorry, I wish you all the best, thanks for the balloon.

It was great being part of the festival, I went to see a lot of other shows I particularly liked Shaved Dog and Geins Family Gift Shop. Gav did a great job of organising the whole thing. He's like the mother hen of the Liverpool alternative comedy scene or slightly more offensively "the fat controller of comedy". I didn't say that, that was cheeky Rob Bond.

P.s thanks to my brother in law Josh for some of these photos (he took the good ones)

House News!

In case you didn't know we have been sort of homeless since May when Move Residential and some rubbish solicitors and an annoyed seller all contributed to us becoming homeless (read about it here) since then we have been living at the Langston homeless shelter (read about it here).

Over the summer, especially on our holiday to France, we had a lot of time to think about houses and adventures and what we want from life. It was such a lovely holiday. We stayed for a bit with Dan's French grandparents who live in northern France near Rennes.

Mamie and Papy (the grandparents) are some of the most content people we know. They sit out in their garden which is like a little wood and read all afternoon. Dan said how much he would love to have that French life style....I pointed out that this is a bit unrealistic, they are retired and it's the summer. Imagine us living in France in the winter, Dan working every day, me not being able to speak French and being away from friends.

I could learn French and we could move there but it is quite a massive commitment. We'd have to be there long term we couldn't just go there for 2 years and then sack it off that would be pointless. Apparently it takes 4 years to learn a language properly.  So then we had this idea about buying some sort of caravan or motorhome. I mean a VW retro split-screen campervan would obviously be a lot cooler but probably a lot less practical. We spoke to an old cycling couple who had a motorhome and they were saying if you can afford one while your kids are young they are a brilliant investment.

We started thinking about all the possibilities, like if Dan could earn money through the invisible in the air internet instead of the in a pc in a grey office internet, then we could go wherever we liked. Then my sister Sarah started showing me youtube clips of a family in America with 9 children who have a massive RV and travelled round America for 18 months home schooling them. I mean that looked crazy, but lets say in 3 or 4 years time when we might have two kids out of the baby stage. I could travel round Europe for a bit.

So then we booked ourself onto the camping and caravaning show at the NEC because we're secretly 60. Then we started looking at cheaper houses with big drives so that we could afford to get a caravan and have somewhere to put it. And guess what we found one! This week we had an offer accepted on a house in Gateacre/ Belle Vale.

It's got 4 beds, (and by that I mean it's got 4 bedrooms and no beds at all) a dining room, a lounge, a kitchen and utility room and a big garden. It's very near Gateacre, a lovely old villagey part of Liverpool, and it's also near Belle Vale a not so lovely scally area of Liverpool. But the fact it's officialy in Belle Vale is why it was affordable for us. It needs a bit of work but nothing major like if you were blind it would be fine i.e. no holes in roofs but a lot of bumpy wall paper and grubby looking carpets. If you want to be nosy here's the link: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-55798933.html

So either we could do it up and make it look nice, or we could live with it looking a bit shabby without the chic and buy a caravan type thing.

Hopefully it will all work out this time and we'll all live happily ever after and I won't have to send anymore sculptures depicting my anger to estate agents.

P.S Here's a few of my fave holiday snaps:

22 Months

Hey invisible friends, it's been a while, how are you? Right, good, now let me talk about me. It sounds rude but thats kind of what blogging is right? Just a big one way MSN conversation except the other person can only respond after you've said everything you wanted to say.

Today I was going to talk about my chatterbox son because he's just got to the stage where he can say things that are funny. It's sort of like living with a foreigner, but cuter. Percy is 22 months and his English is a bit better than my french (I got a C at GCSE). He's just started doing little sentences up to about 5 words. He's only recently started using joining words like "in and "the". His most impressive and obscure sentence that he says quite often is "Mummy and Daddy share the car". We said that to him once as he questioned why I was driving, and it's just become this weird thing he said. Today he even said "Harriet Mummy and Daddy share the car" and "Harriet Daddy holiday in the car". (This wasn't true though, Harriet's Daddy just went to work in the car, although sometimes when you have children work can feel like a holiday, so maybe that was a profound statement.)

If you don't know, Harriet is one of many little girls in Percy's life but one he sees a lot of at the moment as me and Abi (Harriet's mum), are doing a baby swap. So, I had a day off and I will have both little ones later in the week. They have a lot of fun together.

Anyway here are some things Percy has said:

"All done sleep time" at 5:55am
When I was chopping his nails: "mummy chop the Percy"
While eating lunch "where's the pineapple!" there was no context to this he hasn't even see pineapple for about a year.
Describing his first experience of death: "woodlouse, oh no, Harriet stamping. another one" = I found a woodlouse, Harriet accidentally stood on it, I cried, we went to find another one.
On a house viewing he said "wow" in every room. Maybe he should be an estate agent.

We're enjoying living with the Langsons, we've had some good banter with them. Today I gave a rubber horse's head to their four year old and told her to wear it when answering the door.

Last weekend was a weekend of seeing old friends. We went to a wedding of one of my oldest friends Charlotte.

Me and Charlotte back in the day

Charlotte and Sam

I saw my friend Rachel and her brand new adorable baby Violet Emily and probably my bestest friend of all Bex and her band new adorable baby Andrew Jace.

We are going to France tomorrow. We will spend a few days with Dan's family and then we will go and do some camping with Rachel and my family. It's not normal camping though, it's posh camping in a caravan with wifi and a dishwasher and everything.

P.S. The most ridiculous thing I have ever said about France was this: "After brexit will France go back to using the Franc?
To be fair, I knew it was ridiculous as soon as I had said it.

The Langstons Homeless Shelter

Last time I blogged me and Percy had been traveling all over the country as homeless nomads. Since then we have been reunited with Dan and have settled in to our new temporary home with the Langston family. We have moved exactly 1 mile from the worst bit of L15 to the poshest bit. This was the view out of my bedroom window before:

 and these are two views outside of our bedroom window and the second room we have been given (a lounge/playroom/office room)

(That's a footballer who plays for England mum's house by the way)

The Langstons are a crazy family that we are enjoying getting to know. 4 years ago the they could have bought a nice normal 4 bed in a nice area and lived a nice normal life but they thought "screw that. Lets buy a house made from 12 one bed flats that has no hot water or heating and requires thousands of pounds to make it liveable and lets make it epic." Quite a big achievement when you have a one year old and are pregnant with another.

So 4 years on it's very liveable. It has a gorgeous kitchen, massive dinning room that looks like a UN meeting room with a massive old 18 seater dinning table, lovely lounge, a playroom, a load of bedrooms and bathrooms in various states of finished and currently the piles of mud and junk in the outside bit is becoming a beautiful garden soon to have a zip wire! On the yet to be completed list is the basement and ANOTHER whole floor that is currently unsafe to even walk in. It's been a bit overwhelming for Percy to go from a tiny 2 up 2 down with 2 parents to this house which is currently made up of the 5 Langstons us 3 and another lodger called Karen. We live on floor 4 or 3.5 ish so he has had a lot of stairs practice!

They are currently getting their garden done which means there is a digger outside which is super exciting for Percy.

It's been fun getting to know the kids who are 5, 4 and 3. They love Percy (sometimes a little too boisterously) and Percy loves them too, especially the middle one Abigail, he says her name a lot. I introduced the kids to the concept of dares...can you believe the parents haven't taught that yet? This resulted in the eldest begging her mum to let her wear knickers on her head to school. Next I'll be teaching the kids spin the bottle, knock- a-door-run, and prank calls.

We decided to pull out of the house we were buying (I wouldn't have minded staying in but Dan didn't feel right about it). So we will be here at the Langstons until we find a new house, which maybe a while as we are a bit confused about what we want right now. We have sent our terrible estate agents a complaining letter along with this:

They haven't responded, surprise surprise.

On a more positive note my homelessness has led to a bit of new material for my comedy.

see it here