One Crazy Night

I was half way though writing a blog about the summer holidays, but then some crazy stuff happened last night and so I'm going to allow the stuff to do a blog queue jump.

You probably know because I do mention it a lot that I have started running a monthly comedy night called Early Risers Comedy Club. It' aimed at parents or anyone that appreciates a strict end time of 9:45pm. It started in January and it's been going ok, some have been amazing, the pirate one was my favourite so far. The comedy musical duo Jollyboat headlined and they did a fab job.

 Catherine Burgis was also on that one, and she is a genius. I'll be honest last months was not great the acts were good, but you get what you pay for with a £12 mic and my Mcing was not the best. But it was bad enough for me to really want to make the next one better. I promised the crowd to get a better sound system, and I got in a guest Mc to give myself a bit of a break.

I was really excited and confident about this months, I was confident in the acts and MC, we had been listed in a echo article, I'd advertised a few places online, acts had invited people to support them, I knew people were going to turn up. The show starts at 8, timings are very tight to end at 9:45 so we have to start on time. Each month we do a theme this month was summer holidays so I had in my car, buckets and spades, a wind break, a rubber ring and a giant hammock on a frame that I had to unscrew into 3 pieces to fit it in the car. I also had, as I do every time the giant paper mashe gro-clock for the goodbye song. So I arrived at the venue at 6:45pm to set up, only to see a sign on the door saying the bistro is closes at 4pm for all of August. I don't want to completely slate the venue because they have been good to us, but they could have let us know!

I went into mad Hannah mode, the building was still open, but just closing, I pleaded for them to let us us the foyer or anywhere, they said "No." Even when I said "but we have a comedian coming from THE SOUTH" our headline act came all the way from Gilford to do this night! I was not going to cancel, so I started running like a mad woman into every cafe asking to use the space. The downpoor and my lack of coat made me look even more crazy. One cafe said they would if they hadn't got live music on, another said they have the football on. I met up with Tom the guest MC, he had a more calm laid back approach to me, he suggested a restaurant called Grilla (not Gorilla as I thought.) We went in, they phoned the manager and he said yes! whoop whoop the night was saved.

Luckily Tom had brought his sound equipment so he set up while I stayed at the old venue and re-directed people. I got on social media and made a sign for the door. The real lesson is always carry a pencil, paper, blue tac and a plastic wallet with you. I didn't need that stuff for this particular night but luckily it was just in the bag from a previous month.

Steph Pictches = Legend

Jess and Martin a lovely couple that I've only known a few months, turned up to help out as they do every month now, Martin makes the posters, videos the night, and this month provided lighting....and he told me that my top was on inside out. Jess sells the tickets and has previously been the have a go hero doing 3 minutes of comedy for the first time ever. I stayed till 8 and then rushed off to see a beautiful room full of people ready to see comedy. Tom did an fantastic job of crowd work, and the 5 acts were genuinely all brilliant, in their own unique ways. The audience were wonderful. It was hard not to run over and we had to cut some bits short, but we did it. I loved doing the competition, this months question was "where the most unusual place you've been on holiday?" The winners were a couple who honeymooned in Chernobyl!

The unsung hero of the night was Daniel Jones. He stayed in and did all the washing up and put the kids to bed, so that I could go out and live the dream.

The night has given me a taste for what the night could be, I made a nice profit too which I will be investing in a new microphone. I'm now so excited for next time, hopefully we'll be in that venue again. We have SAM AVERY headlining. The guy who does sell out tours! 11th Sept. Hope to see you there.

Early Risers Facebook Page

Early Risers Twitter Page

My New Thing

Last week I started a new thing and it got me thinking about all the little phases I've been through, and there have been a lot. Some lasted a few months, some lasted years, a few I've made money off but most I haven't. So before I reveal my new thing, here's my life in phases and hobbies:

Primary School:

Gymnastics I loved it. It was so much better than ballet which I was awful at. I once did 1000 cartwheels in a day for no reason.

Building dens in the woods and disused railway line where we lived. (And then finding the dens of other kids and destroying them)

Keeping pet snails

Roller skating- there was a time in year 5 or 6 when I went to a roller disco every Friday. I wish that was my life now.

Tigers- I don't know why, but my room was covered in posters of tigers and I used to wear a green-peace tiger t-shirt.

Drawing and junk modelling it's not really a phase if it lasts your whole life but it's probably the first thing that I though 'this is my thing'.

age 4

age 9

Rap. I was one half of the the legendary rap duo Han and Fran, probably the best rap duo to come out of the village of Burton green, Warwickshire in 1996.

Mad Science I'm definitely not a scientist by nature, but I briefly had a chemistry set and tried mixing everything together with some pencil sharpenings thrown in for good measure. Nothing happened.

Drama when I was 10 I started drama lessons. I had to quit gymnastics to do this which I was sad about but, I really loved drama lessons. In an alternative universe where I didn't get shy age 15 I think I could have done something performingy at uni.

loved being in "blitz" this when I was 13.

Secondary School
Rodents I had a Gerbil called Goliath (although a stupid girl at school told people I had a hamster called Jesus) and then a rat called Kevin and then 2 rats called Boris and Basil. The state of my teeth help me to date these pictures.

from Goliath the gerbil in the wonky teeth stage.

To Kevin the rat and braces

to Boris, Basil and straight teeth.

Adidas I'm not proud of it. I blame sporty spice and Rachel Davenport.

Recording things on my dictaphone. It was my dad's old one that came with tiny cassette tapes I used to record interviews with people. I was like a youtuber of the late 90s, except the only way I could get people to hear it was by playing it to them on my dictaphone. I've still got some of the tapes.

Stick insects They're fun for about month.

Harmonica

Goliath the gerbil was a big fan of harmonica music

Surfbrands by year 10 I wouldn't be seen dead in Adidas, it was all about Quicksilver and Converse. But my mum once delivered me an ultimatum: either I could have Converse shoes and the cheapest trainers for PE or decent PE trainers and no Converse. I choose Converse and all the PE options that are barefoot, like dance. I could have a been a sporting hero if my mum hadn't been so stingy.

The unicycle I got it for my 16th birthday before they were cool. Still love it although I wish it was more socially acceptable because its the same speed as Percy's cycling. We could do it together.

Batik I loved batik at school, I would have loved a batik pot but they are expensive so I made my own from a metal sweetie tin with a candle underneath it, and I used to just do it with a paint brush onto paper. Later on I read in a library book that Africans use starch to make batik, so then I experimented with that and was asked to demonstrate it to my class. I would have been a geek except for some reason Art along with PE and woodwork is one of the subjects you can't be a geek at.

Uni

Palestinians Just before I went to Uni I went to Palestine for a few months and volunteered. I spent the next few years following what was going on there, getting angry about it, planning to go back and maybe live there, and making most of my fine art degree stuff about it. I still love the Middle East.

Learning Arabic I tried so hard but it's an incredibly difficult language to learn. If only I'd put that much effort into learning French I would actually be able to speak some French.

Dan still my number one hobby.

Poi

Fire Poi That new year 2007 when we were all spinning fire in the park at 3am was boss.

Post uni
Blog writing In 2008 I suddenly realised that I didn't hate writing I just hated spelling and academic writing. If only school wasn't designed to kill off creativity I might have realised this sooner.

Ukulele I've always wanted to be musical but never wanted to put in the hard work. I did clarinet in school but I never got to the fun point where you can play fun songs with fun people. There's a lot of boring scales you have to learn before you can have fun, especially as the clarinet is in the stupidest key of B flat, i.e. not compatible with any instrument. Whereas the uke is in the key of fun times, where you can get to fun after about half an hour of chord learning.

Batik again In 2010 I had a real job, and could finally afford my own batik pot. Love a bit of batik. This has a bit of machine embroidery on it too. Sewing was another one of those things (like music and writing) that was hard work and boring at school, and then became fun when I wasn't being taught it for an exam.

Mosaic I learned mosaic the high risk way: pretending I totally knew how to do it, getting a job doing a big one for a school, watching youtube tutorials and hoping for the best.

Stone sculpting Can you have any more fun for £1.50 than buying a thermolite breeze block and sculpting it? I doubt it.

Comedy it all started in 2011 when a poetry night was cancelled and I went to a comedy night instead. Now I run my own comedy night and have done 2 hour long shows.

Silly videos When we didn't have a tv or kids, me and Dan would sometimes make fun videos. I'm really proud of the one we made taking the mic out of video art. And then we got into stop frame animation, which was always fun for half an hour and then very time consuming.

Interior design Since getting our current house 2 years ago I've been slowly ridding us of the demon of magnolia. I've done most of the rooms now. Next on the list is the dining room it will be duck egg and coral. Dan has no idea what that means.

Cartoon diary When Eric was a baby and I couldn't get out and do comedy gigs, I expressed my comedy/creativity through cartoons of real life parenting stories. They were fun for a while but did take a long time to do and once I was off breastfeeding and had the option to leave the house in the evenings, I couldn't really be bothered to do them anymore.

So based on all these previous things what do you think my new thing will be?

drumroll....

Excuse the fact I'm in bed.

This week I bought a banjolele. Its mum was a ukelele and it's dad was a banjo. I learnt a bit of ukulele a few years back, but I want to learn to play well enough so that I can play comedy songs without having to bring my sister along. Her and Dan did a good job of providing the music and the giant baby for my song about teething "Bonjela" which is to the tune of Rhianna's Umbrella but it would be nice if I could play it myself. So I'm going to give it a go.

Van Life

We're back from our slightly unconventional and risky holiday! We survived!

As most people will know we're not a normal couple in many ways, normal people don't quit jobs to cycle to Kuwait for fun. Normal people don't attempt to laminate ham, but in recent years we have become a bit more regular: jobs, mortgages children, bla bla bla. It's now over 3 years since I laminated ham. So we were never going to go on a conventional package holiday; staying in the sun in a nice hotel with not a lot to organise ... that actually sounds lovely. But why do that when you can stay in 6 different forms of accommodation, including a noisy stag night kind of a hostel, and a cold van with a 1 year old and a 4 year old?

We chose April as the time for a holiday because Eric will be 2 in May and your second birthday marks the end of free flights. Also we didn't realise the south of France/north of Spain is actually not that hot in April.

We chose to go between Nice and Barcelona because basically we just looked at a map and thought that looks nice. It was probably a subliminal message from seeing the name "Nice." But theres some good places on the way like St Tropez, Marseille, a nice little town called Gruissan and Perpignan. (I remember how to spell that by thinking of a granddaughter asking her grandmother who is a pig farmer "when you make sausages how many sausages PER PIG NAN?")

The View from Colline de chateaux in Nice, there's 337 steps the lift was broken so Dan carried the pram all the way!

We've always been fans on France, I love cheese and Dan came out of a French woman. He speaks excellent French on account of the French woman speaking to him in French as a baby. I don't speak French but I did once do an internship in mime, which others referred to as "the french exchange". When I do attempt to parle le Francaise I always make a bit of an idiot of myself, like the time I meant to say "I'm really happy for you" but I actually said "Je suis tres jolie" which means "I'm very pretty".

And this trip to France was no different. While buying a postcard instead of saying "do you have stamps?" I said "do you want stamps?" as if I was offering to pay for the postcard in stamps rather than money. I also accidentally said "bonjour" to a German couple in Spain and tried to pay with English money. 

After 2 days in Nice we went to pick up our Van. We have hired a motorhome once before which had a shower and kettle and built in hobs and stuff. This was not that. Technically it had a shower, if you don't mind getting naked in the street and pouring cold water on yourself. Most people mind that. Technically it had a toilet ... well it was kind of like a fancy potty that need emptying every 5 days. The potty didn't have it's own space so toilet time was family time, and if you were pooing everyone knew about it. You also couldn't flush the paper and so there was just a bag of paper you would like to flush attached to the tap of the sink.

Driving around in the day was great. As a vehicle it worked well, there was enough space when the beds were folded away and we managed to see some great beaches and interesting places. We used a company called Indie Campers their USP is that you can hire and drop off in most major European cities, so we just paid a bit extra to not do a round trip.

As a home the van was less fun. Cooking was on a one hob portable gas stove. We ate tinned ravioli twice and just for a treat one night, just to mix it up, we had fresh ravioli. Sleeping arrangements were bunk bed double beds. Eric has never slept in a bed, as opposed to a cot, before and hasn't yet learnt the skill of not falling out of bed. So the first night I slept with him on the bottom and Dan and Percy slept on top.
But when the beds are out there is really no space for 4 suitcases 2 car seats and a pram. So we had to not fully put the lower bed out. It's hard to explain but basically apart from the first night I slept with Percy in the top, Eric slept in the bottom and Dan slept in an "L" shape only half in the bottom bed. What a hero! It was cold at night in the van, so we had to boil a pan of hot water to make a hot water bottle for night time. While I was doing this I remembered that we had left our heating on at home. We were paying to heat a 4 bed house while freezing in a van. That package holiday didn't feel such a silly idea at that moment!

Obviously Percy didn't sleep right on the edge like this.

Dan and Eric

For two nights while we still had the van we visited Dan's aunty in Marseille. That was a real treat, not only did we get proper beds but she cooked us some amazing food, including lobster! All this while she herself was on a detox where she only drank homemade smoothies and the water left over from cooking vegetables!

Dan's auntie Beatrice

One of the best things about holidaying in France is having a croissant everyday for breakfast! But one year old Eric, having never left the country before was not very cultured. On waking up he would whine "honey hoops, honey hoops " so we gave in and bought some honey hoops. For some of the holiday Percy has been going though a slightly annoying "I'm bored" phase. I gave him a bit of a talking to about how lucky he was to be experiencing a different culture etc ... in that annoying patronising way mums talk to their 4 year olds. I asked him to give me an example of how things were different in France and he said that (without any sarcasm, because he hasn't learnt that yet) "French honey hoops taste slightly different to our honey hoops."

Our trip ended in the lovely city of Barcelona, I really liked it there.

It's a major city with a beach so theres loads to do, but the stand out bit for me was our local park. I've never seen a park this good. It has a tropical boating lake, some very cool plants, a statue of a mammoth, a fountain and a really cool play bit that we called "the nursery". It was like a playground with toys, and a couple of members of staff keeping control and even an indoor bit with jigsaws and blocks and stuff, all free! We hired a family bike to cycle round it.

I want to buy a bike like this and travel round the country on it for our next holiday.

Our holiday ended with a very early morning flight, we had a taxi booked for 4:15am. We thought getting up at 3:50am (2:50 english time!) would be enough to get up and dressed. Everything was packed and organised the night before, but at 4:15am I was running down the 5 flights of stairs like a maniac with a toddler under one arm and a ball and coat under the other. getting my own back on all the stag parties in the hostel with the screams from Eric.

We made it. I'm ready for a break now though.

Mother's day fails.

How do you celebrate mother's day? I celebrate it by not seeing my kids or my mother, it's amazing. This year for breakfast I had two hot cross buns in bed, while watching netflix #livingmybestlife. Less amazing was being woken up at 3am by our airbnb people coming in and then being woken at 8am (which was really 7am because of the clock change) by our previous airbnb people who came to collect their suitcases.

Over time mothers day has got more and more complicated. First I would just see my mum because she lived with me when she played the role of full time mum to me. Then as she moved from full time to seasonal and casual mum work, I didn't particularly make an effort to visit her that day if I was in another city. Mother's day got shared out with Dan's mum. Normally Dan's mum got mother's day and my family more often got easter. Then I became a mum which meant I could be more demanding on mothers day. But what I really find hard about being a mum is lack of time to myself, and when I get some ... like now because Percy is in nursery and Eric's napping, I spend most of it thinking "is this the best use of my time?" So my chosen mothers day gift is time.

So we've come up with this slightly weird mothers day/fathers day tradition which suits us now in the small kid phase but we probably won't do forever. Dan takes the kids to see his mum, and I have a day to myself. It's win win, apart from for my mum who I never see on mother's day, but I see her all the time anyway.

But this is all boring context: let's get on to the fails. So I was going to have 24 hours to myself, except the clock changing time lords (who I bet are men) decided to shorten mothers day by an hour. On the Saturday evening I was doing some comedy for a fundraiser thing at my new church and I had invited my favourite refugee double act to join me. Graham and Yolav are amazing check them out here.

So they came over for tea before the gig and then Dan left to drive to the Midlands with the boys who were all ready for bedtime in their pyjamas. About half an hour after he left we were about to leave but then we couldn't because I had left my keys in the changing bag, which Dan had taken with him. Worse than this we were actually locked in the house. Now I know I can get out the window because I've been locked in before under worse circumstances, locked in the porch with both boys. That time I had to climb out of the window, run down the street, get a random old man and climb back in the window, then pass the kids out the window to a random old man.

So Dan had to come back with the keys, but as we are comedians and just fun people, of course we might as well have a go at getting out.

Here's Mike (Yolav) trying to get out.
Is that an up turned sofa bed in your porch? Why yes, and it can be yours for £20

The gig was a good laugh. It's a funny one because the first time I did it I did 30 minute of my most church appropriate material. Now each time I'm using more and more questionable stuff. This time I talked about childbirth and racism . Graham and Yolav were great they even did a hilarious completely improvised bit where they got a child on stage.

I spent mothers day doing a bit of chilling but also decorating the kids room, which is going to be space themed. It's not done yet, I want to do a mural, but it's looking very colourful and I'm glad to have rid another room of magnolia textured wall paper.

Dan and the boys arrived back on the Sunday night and I found it hilarious to discover that Dan had forgotten to take shoes for the boys, coats and trousers for Percy. They bought Percy a new pair of trousers and they went to church in their slippers! It makes me feel needed though. It's safe to say I will be in charge of the packing for our up coming holiday!

My mother's day card (Me and Percy)

Thanks for reading. x

A lot of change

A lot of stuff has changed for us since the end of 2018. Financially it's been difficult to keep track of anything because literally every month there was a big change. So in November our income was Dan's job (something about procedures?) my job (making mosaics and murals for schools) and rental income from our old house. We had recently lost my lodger/sister so we were feeling the pinch a bit. Then our tenant said she wanted to leave, and then after having two big work projects I got no work booked in for December or Jan, so we were like arrrgh! sell everything! So we ended up putting our house on the market and putting our spare room on airbnb.  The house sale is going through next Friday. We've lost 10K on it so we'll be trying to make a bit of that back by flogging all the furniture and white goods this week!

By mid January I decided as well that 2 months without work was long enough to need to take Eric out of nursery. However good the previous months were you can't pay £400 a month when you're not earning anything. So I'm back to being a full time Mum. Which I'm ok with. Percy gets free nursery 3 days a week so I only have both of them 2 days a week. It's a million times easier than that summer where I had them both full time and Eric was a newborn and Percy was 2. Ughh that was a horrendous time. Eric is at the peak of cute now. I decided this with Percy but 22 months is the best ever age. We went out to town today on the train to get stuff for our holiday (the holiday we started booking when we though we were richer). I spent £4.60 on 2 t-shirts and 2 pairs of sunglasses for the boys:

We had this holiday in France when Percy was 22 months and I think it's made me idolise that age. He was old enough to communicate, old enough to have so much fun at the beach, off breast feeding, sleeping though the night and generally being adorable. On the last day of the holiday I found out I was pregnant with Eric, so only a few weeks later I was being sick everyday and life wasn't quite as fun.

Summer 2016

So this holiday I'm going to try and have the most fun possible. I'm not planning on getting pregnant any time soon or possibly ever again. We're planning on driving from Nice to Barcelona in a camper van. Theres a lot that could go wrong as Eric has never slept not in a cot before and the sleeping arrangements are 2 double bed bunk beds in a van and we can't afford to stay in actual campsites so were just going to try and wing it. So it's not like one of those holidays where you think "I know this will be relaxing and wonderful" but I guess it might be "memorable" or "character building".

Other major changes that have occurred since January are, we started going to a new church. This was massive for us as me and Dan met at Frontline church and had been going there for 13 1/2 years. I won't go in to all the ins and outs, there was no big drama or fall out, but we just didn't feel like we had found our place in Frontline in recent years like we had done in the past. After over a year of trying to make it work at Frontline we decided to join our very local church St. Stephens, which we really love now. The main thing we enjoy is being 4 of about 60 people rather than 4 of 600 people. And being one of maybe 3 families in our age range makes you feel a bit more special. It kind of makes you want to contribute where you can. Percy has already befriended an old lady called Betty, he challenged her to a race. She said "why don't you race mummy" he said "NO YOU"  and they raced twice. Later I asked him why did you not race me? he said "I knew I would beat her"

Our church looking like it's part of a beautiful village, but if I did a panoramic you would see the world's ugliest shopping centre.

Anglicanism is funny though and not something our kids are used to, like when this lady vicar, or some kind of dog collar wearing woman, (not the actual man vicar of St. Stephens) put her hand out to bless Percy in communion he high 5'd her. He's done it at least twice now ... should I tell him it isn't a high 5? It was some kind of Anglican census thing the other day and we had to tick a box to say we were members of the church, which I did but I sort of wanted to make a new box for myself which would read something like this:

"I'm a dedicated member of St. Stephen's and follower of Jesus, but I just happen to go to this church because I like it, and it's my local. I would never describe my self as "an anglican". I like Jesus and his teachings, I'm fine with most of the New Testament apart from a few bits where I think "that's probably Paul just being a bit sexist because it was the proper olden days" but the Old Testament ... I've got some big issues there. Not sure what to do about that but I'm open to discussion."

Imagine if that was the creed.

I also started a comedy club in Jan. As you do. I've chatted on enough about that on Facebook so I won't bore you with it again now, but here's a link if you want to check it out.

I've been super busy doing comedy gigs though probably a little bit too busy. Some have been awful, some have been amazing, but I hope overall I'm improving.

Theres so much more I could say about life because I haven't made the time for blogging for ages but I think thats enough for today. Thanks for reading.

Best of blogs

Last blog was my decade anniversary blog, so I thought this blog will be a best of blog. I've taken ages scrolling though it all to find the best ones, so I hope you will enjoy this.

2009
I wrote a lot of rubbish this year. I wrote more blogs this year than in the last 3 years combined. That's what happens when you don't have kids to tidy up after or stand up comedy as an outlet. So I just picked one fave:
The story of Han and Dan

2010
What a great year 2010 was. I got a car, I got a real job, there was some nudity, I recorded a rap and got engaged.

My nudity soup exchange  the time I got naked for money, and then made soup.
Naked horse lady when you want to go to see some comedy/art but you accidentally take your friends to see a naked person. - great memories
Patron base rap I'm genuinely proud of this rap I recored about an obscure computer system
Letter to my boss classic poo story
Father's day short and sweet.
7 signs of aging when 24 year old me didn't want to get boring. It's slightly depressing to read now.
Engagement- the official story 

2011
The year I got married and set the goal of trying comedy.

My long term underwear strategy That time when no one was seeing my underwear (the christian thing) but I put more effort into it than I do now that I'm married. I guess there was some in between time when Dan saw me with decent underwear. 2012-2013. RIP nice underwear.
Smoke on earth smoke in hell I'm weirdly proud of this little anti smoking campaign, I feel like if I could be bothered to put it on it could go well on instagram.
The urban cheese awards Hannah tries creative writing.
My unofficial dissertation in 2011 I was studying for a Masters degree in "children and young people in society". I had to write a dissertation and it was about something I can't prove but I just know is true- dyslexics are more creative. I never finished it because I'm too dyslexic/fun to be an academic. Oh well, at least I can do comedy.
Wedding I got married! It was fun.

Tell tale signs the one where I didn't realise my tutor was blind. Embarrassing.
Ode to my Yaris a spot of poetry.
10 things to do before I'm 30 I did 8 of them! Yesterday I even found that piece of laminated ham that I laminated the night before my 30th. Mmm 3 year old laminated ham.

2012
What a dull year this was. We had an epic adventure in 2013, but what people don't realise is that we spent all 2012 saving up and planning and we got robbed. It was all worth it in the grand scheme of things though. On a more positive note I did my first bit of stand up.

My comedy career starts here you can watch the bad quality video. I used a lot of props and did a song because I didn't really know how to do jokes.
Google vs mum who will win the battle of knowledge?
Happy new tax year We were reminiscing about how great this party was just yesterday. I was saying to Dan how our friends would never come over and roll around on our bed for a game called "turnover" nowadays. Never underestimate tax as a party theme.

Racism disclaimer The emergency blog I had to write after everyone thought I was a massive racist, this story is now part of my current comedy set
Kuwait trip We start planning our trip (photos of my grandparents trip 1953)

2013

this year will always be the year we cycled to Kuwait for lols. loved it. Can't remember anything else we did that year.

I love my skin it keeps me in (a short poem)
Entrepreneurs  it's a funny blog this one, especially if you knew that a person I take the mick out of in it actually ended up reading it, oops.
Wibble on the ribble I start cycle training and I realise theres a bit of the M6 that looks like a uterus, check out the pic!
The Bet (part 2) The ginger bet...who can have the most ginger children by 2028, only 9 years left. I need to do an update on this soon, but meet the candidates here.
trip FAQs
Our movies instead of blogging about our trip we did paper diaries and video diaries. I still enjoy watching the video ones and so does our eldest Percy.

Llama or lodger we come back from our trip and try to decide what to do with our lives.

2014
Got a rabbit, got pregnant, had a baby, neglected the rabbit a bit.

Rabbit "facts" experimental comedy to do with my new rabbit.
Baby Jones pregnancy announcement
The adventures of bumpy Pregnant Hannah commits a minor crime
The middle sister a blog about my sister Jo and her hen night. I was very proud of my costume.
Top 10 pregnancy comments This was very funny and became a bit of stand up that I still use now.
The wedding of Jo and Elisha my sister got married! and some cervix maths.
Birth the story of the birth of Percy.

Dear women in Asda mainly a horrific picture of baby poo

2015
Mainly taken up with motherhood, and saying how anti technology I am and then, I got a smart phone about 6 years after everyone else. I also made a spelling mistake in a £2000 mosaic this year. Can you "BELIVE" it.

Lydia Leaves Liverpool Lydia Palmer, what a legend. In this blog she was leaving Liverpool for a boy. This weekend I'm going to her hen do to celebrate the upcoming marriage to the same boy.
Percy's favourite things
My life in cartoon I went through a brief stage of doing a cartoon a day as a diary, it was pretty fun, I should do it again.
Student days I reminisce about my student days 10 years after starting uni. This is now getting on for 14 years ago. :(
My big confession the one where I gave in and got a smart phone.
Percy's new tricks mostly cute Percy stuff but also a bit about the mosaic.

2016

The year I became homeless and then pregnant.

Rachel Greatsall a blog dedicated to my good friend Rachel Goodsall
Extreme where's wally my first go at looking after 2 toddlers at once.
Becoming second homeless the story of how we had to leave our house and had no where to go.
The Langston's homeless shelter where we ended up, we didn't know at this point it would be for 9 months.
The Best Days of Your Life I did my first hour long comedy show! So much fun.
2 years of Percy Jones

Our little lobster baby we announce our second pregnancy
Brexit for babies Trump for toddlers a creative writing piece about Brexit
Pregnant and homeless a sad one to end the year on. but luckily I now know it all had a happy ending.

2017
Started with being pregnant and homeless and ended with being a family of 4 (plus my sister as a lodger) in a lovely house.

The baby cake the gender reveal cake that went wrong.
My friend the muslim immigrant my most read blog post (despite the fact the text doesn't show up on some phones.) it's about the great bits and the awkward bits of making friends with a random muslim immigrant that I met in the park, or as I like to call her "Samar". They have recently moved back to Egypt.
There's no place like home We got a house! We were so happy, I still am.
The birth of Eric Warning it goes into a bit too much detail.

12 days of Eric
Our A&E potty training holiday
House changes my sister moves in
End of an era a blog about my parents leaving our family home and life growing up in a village.
2 kids or 3? if you're considering this question, please read my extensive list of pros and cons.

2018
this year I got a bit of cancer and did a lot of comedy.

6 difficult concepts for 3 year olds
Mental health awareness week my one serious blog in 10 years of blogs, talking about having depression as a teenager.
Job done! I do an hour long show all about parenting
A bit of cancer one of my most read blogs. I had cancer, spoiler alert, it's all fine now. I write about it humorously though because I'm not good at serious.
the operation

beating the frog and cancer I start doing stand up more seriously

2019
Bring it on! Who knows what this year will bring? New things this year are: launching my comedy club and starting doing airbnb which will hopefully give me some comedy material. And we're going on our first family of 4 holiday really soon.