So, today I am hanging out in bed
feeling--I feel really rubbish.
Claud just left for work.
I've had my breakfast
and then I threw up my breakfast.
Feel a bit gross.
Now I feel like that sort of feeling where you're not entirely sure
whether you're hungry or sick
but I've got Clara here today; she's going to be looking after me.
Being awesome.
I really want to get some work done
because it is Monday, and Monday is the day of work, no?
Maybe. Maybe I will try.
Or perhaps I will just lie in bed and...play The Sims
and then maybe have a bath later, if I'm feeling up to it.
Covering my hair that needs a bath in this rather nice turban.
Have a video on how to do this, by the way
if you're looking.
Also wearing this delightful vintage...
Let's see. Can you see?
There we go.
This delightful vintage jumper here, which I love.
It's not wool (because I cannot do wool).
And Tilly was enjoying cuddling into it earlier.
So you know it's good
If Tilly approves,
you know it's good.
Hello again.
Still good morning. Still morning.
But had a nap.
But, look, Tilly's not moved.
Tilly?
Dogs are so weird.
She's either running around like, "Oh, my God, super excitement!"
"Yeah, life's so great!"
Or she's just...that.
But that's probably quite good for me, to be fair, because that is--that is me.
Yep.
Unlike Walter, who all he does is sleep
and then...he smells some chicken
and he gets excited for two minutes
and then he goes back to sleep.
Pretty much what Walter does.
It's good, Tilly makes him move around a lot.
We got Walter when I was...nineteen, I think?
Eighteen, nineteen.
And I'd been really, really ill for about a year
and had been on bed rest, and...
Just generally felt disgusting.
Felt really ill.
And I was also really, really lonely
but I had Walter - just lovely
'cause he used to sleep on my bed
and then my dad would take him for a walk.
And feed him breakfast, obviously
and then he would just come back and sleep on my bed, all day long.
Even though he was a little puppy, all he wanted to do was sleep
and now he is a sort of middle-aged dog and...all he wants to do is sleep.
All right, this is not a good look, Jessica.
All right, there's nothing for it.
Lipstick.
It's the only way.
This is of course my Maybelline Superstay 24hr.
The Cherry Pie, the one I showed you the other day.
'Tis my favourite!
OK.
Know what we're going to do to make this day better.
We're going to play The Sims.
Yes.
The Sims is such a great game, because it makes you feel like you've achieved something
even when you really, really haven't.
Run someone else's world. A whole made-up world.
J: Genuinely, you look really good today.
C: Thank you! J: I really like your hair.
C: Thanks! J: Please comment on Clara's hair.
J: Look how pretty it is.
J: It's really nice!
C: That's what happens when I actually care.
J: So, for those of you - I realised that some people watching this might be new to my channel -
and might be wondering a) why I'm in bed
on a Monday morning
b) why I need help
and c) who you are!
My neighbour actually thinks you're my wife
by the way.
C: I'm not.
C: FYI!
J: I found out the other day.
J: He was like, "That girl you live with. The short red-haired one."
J: So I have chronic illnesses and disabilities
which--there are many, many videos on this channel where you can find that out
and some of the symptoms are things--well, I have chronic gatigue, for one thing,
which is a symptom of the other conditions I have, because my body is always trying to make itself better.
And also, when I'm really tired, my stomach doesn't work very well
and so I just spend the whole day in intense nausea
and it's so gross, and you feel a bit like, "Oh, I can't move my head
or my body, or else I will just vomit."
And I also have a thing called POTS.
Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome
I have a video on that, as well, kind of explaining what that is.
It's very hard to sit up.
And the final part is, "Who is Clara?"
Well, who are you?
C: Heeey!
J: Who are you, Clara?
C: I don't know. On a spiritual level?
J: Well Clara actually helps me out in all ways
of life.
C: Yeah.
J: When I'm feeling gross and ill, you look after me.
You bring me the sick bucket
and drinks.
And she makes me sweet potato wedges.
C: Yeah. That is a bad day.
C: Make sure Jessica doesn't faint, or if she does, that she's, you know,
somewhere safe.
J: Or you call my mum when I take an overdose of painkillers.
C: Oh, my God, that was a day.
C: But, yeah, that's a bad day
and on a good day we are out and about filming,
replying to emails,
I make all the phone calls for obvious reasons.
I'm setting up the cameras and the lights.
J: Yup.
J: 'Cause it would take me like five times as much energy.
You do all the volume stuff.
C: For the ones that have been asking these questions,
I do audio and sound on the videos.
J: "How does the deaf girl know when to put the music on and off?"
J: Although, it is possible to edit visually.
I should make a video on that.
C: Yeah, she actually does edit through the waves
J: Yeah. And you're also my best friend!
C: Yeah, that too.
Then we move onto the friend part.
J: Aww.
C: We actually hang out at the weekends and it's a lot of fun and all of that.
C: Like, we genuinely like each other.
Which is very helpful when you need someone to, you know,
bring you the sick bucket - you might as well be close.
No.
[Laughing]
No.
Oh, I love The Sims.
OK, what should we do? I feel like we should set--we should set a challenge.
A challenge seems right.
I'm gonna show you--right, this is my little neighbourhood
that I have created.
It's called Rusland
because my grandparents used to live in a place called Rusland Valley in the Lake District
and I love it.
What are we going to do?
I will admit: normally I tend to play with all of the...
all of the cheat codes.
So let's not do that today. Let's not do that.
I like to start my neighbourhoods with not much, and then build up.
So I start with the founding people
and the founding places.
And then over here.
It's supposed to be Kellgren-Fozard
but I couldn't do that.
I need to re-name them.
Look, it's us!
There you go. Aww, look at her cute little face!
She looks like a mini Claudia.
Also, yes, you are noticing the, er,
the Tombstone of Life and Death here.
Right, so, I'm going to give you a little house tour to start with.
Here is my house. I believe I stole it from another neighbourhood.
[Evil laugh]
Decked it out.
Got some nice little benches out here in our little gazebo.
Lovely.
Aw, look, it's so pretty.
This is our little art balcony.
Where we will stand, and paint.
That's actually something I'd like to have in real life.
A balcony with some--just some easels set up, you know.
Rounded sculpture in the garden there.
OK, let's go from the bottom up.
So, we have our lovely hallway here
where we enter.
We've got the phone; we've got dog leads.
Cutest thing.
I love having the pets. So cute.
We should probably get Claudia off the loo, but...
That's fine.
She'll just be there for now.
Oh well.
We've got the dining room.
Dining area, really. We've got a bar in it.
There's a sound system for when we feel like a boogie.
Got a study in here.
You know, bathroom, where Claudia is.
Up the stairs.
We've got...a kind of games room. It's more of a hang out space.
And then there's another bathroom.
Here, we've got a bedroom
that's going to go to one of my--one of my children.
One of them who apparently is a bit more...modern?
Than I am.
So you come up the stairs again to this landing.
Beautiful bathroom. It's really dark.
Because sometimes you need darkness to [?]
A quite a teenage bedroom.
I thought. Quite liked that.
Got the teenage-y chair. Drum set.
Posters stuck on the wall with tape.
Let's find a suitably teenage-looking bedside lamp.
Mm, I'm gonna get a desk lamp.
That's pretty chilling out.
"Chilling out" - so not cool.
Er, what about a basic lamp?
There's a lava lamp.
Oh, yeah, OK. Full on hula dancing
lamp.
And then this is the master bedroom in here
which, I'm afraid, is where Jessica's going to have to walk up to.
Back we go.
Jessica, potty train Thelma. [?]
"Serve lunch"
Oh, is that all you can do?
I thought you were fairly progressed on this.
Right, you can make some lunch meat sandwiches
and you can eat them, and then you can study cooking, Claudia.
This must really take forever if you can't--
if you can't just cheat and press on the bladder bar; make her need to go again.
Oh, no, Tilly's starving.
Oh, hello. The actual girl in question.
Hi.
Hi, hi. I am just making you a little pet bed.
Oh, good. Look at her learning.
That is the important thing.
That she learns.
Is it weird to make a version of yourself in The Sims and then play it?
But also make versions of people that you know.
Is that weird or is it normal?
The Sims seems so much--[laughing]
The Sims seems so much less fun without cheat codes.
Man.
My God, The Sims is really slow when you can't cheat.
Aw, look, she's crying.
Waking everyone up.
[Laughs]
Oh, Claudia looks very bored of this whole potty training experience.
You know, the thing is: I absolutely love The Sims and
I've been playing it since...since I was eleven, probably?
And I never play it without the cheat codes.
Don't know why I decided to do that now.
Let's just go back to cheat codes, because why not?
Why not indeed.
When we were little, my brother and I were only allowed to get
computer games that were in some way educational
and we really, really wanted The Sims
'cause some of our friends had it.
It was like, "Yes! Please! Please!"
But my mother wouldn't give it to us
unless we proved that it was educational.
So, to do that,
we had to--we made a PowerPoint presentation
to prove to her how educational The Sims was
and I basically said that it was really gonna help me - because I wanted to be an architect at the time -
and so I had to have The Sims
because I had to learn how to make houses work.
And I told her that in The Sims,
if you built a house that wasn't viable,
it would fall down.
Of course, er, that is not the truth
of The Sims
at all.
Does not happen.
No, no, no.
But she let me have it!
Oh, and I also told her - my brother at the time was a bit of a terror as a child -
and I was like, "It will really help with his socialisation
because he will understand that other people get upset
and hurt when you're mean to them."
Also, you can get anything if you make a PowerPoint presentation to your parents.
Let's get this cheat code in.
testing
cheats
enabled
I went through this whole phase of downloading things from The Sims.
So I spent ages doing that.
Cataloguing them all. [?]
But then of course some of them came with really bad viruses.
I should add that I was like - how old was I? - fourteen?
Fourteen when I'm doing this
but I didn't learn [?]
so I downloaded loads of stuff
completely filled up our family computer
with Sims stuff.
I actually made a little deal with Claud the other day.
What was I saying? Oh, yes, Claudia.
Yes, because I do tricks with the dogs every single night
She's learning. Look at her go. [?]
because I do tricks with the dogs every single night and Claud just likes to watch that happen,
that she will do lots of nappies and I will just watch her.
So I actually managed to fall asleep there
whilst playing
but it's OK.
Oh, look, I've got Tills.
We had another little nap, didn't we, Tills?
And Clara just brought me...these.
Mmm, yeah,
sweet potato wedges.
Because when I'm feeling really disgusting
I think this is a really good thing to eat
because it's quite plain
but it also has that--
well I can't eat toast, and I think toast is a really good thing to eat when you feel very nauseous?
Because it's very...I want to say claggy?
Claggy.
Is that the right term for food?
...No.
Is that a term you ever want to use? No.
But anyway, you know what I mean? It's that kind of nice...stodginess
that sits in your stomach and doesn't come back.
And then with it I have some quark cheese
because I definitely cannot today--oh, oh, nausea
because I can definitely not handle any kind of...fattiness
on days when I feel gross, so.
Hopefully we'll be OK.
We'll be all right with this.
If you, by the way, want to know -
I've been thinking of doing maybe a list of things that I eat when I'm feeling really nauseous and sick
because obviously it is important to keep eating
then just sort of let me know in the comments down below
if you'd like to see the things that I eat on a sick day.
I prepare things differently, I think.
And...yes.
Also, I wish I had a video [?] with tips on nausea and what to do to combat that,
but I do have some others; some kind of foods that really help me.
So, yeah, I was sick.
Yeah! Again! Woo.
And then I had my third nap of the day, which was actually good
and then took my pills, because of course you have to wait after being sick
to take your pills, otherwise you might just be sick again.
But after my nap I actually feel like I have a bit of energy, which is really good.
So I'm gonna have a bath, which is a great thing to use your energy on.
So now I'm just waiting. Poured a bit of hot water in.
There you go.
I really like my bath, because it's a free-standing bath
and when we were looking at houses, we were very much like, "It has to have--it has to have a bath."
"It's very important. Especially if the bath has feet!"
Hell yes.
The feet.
The feet, the vital feet.
So I've poured some hat water in the bath - just a little bit -
and here's a little tip for those of you with POTS, actually,
I used to have a bath thermometer.
It's really cool; it's like a little disc that you put in
and it flashes the temperature and tells you when it's safe to get in
(that's not POTS-related, that's nerve damage-related,
because I can't tell how hot it is until I get in and I'm like, "God damn it!"
"It's so hot, I'm dying!")
but that has broken
But! Now what I do is: I run a little bit of water in there
- just a tiny bit of hot, so...from the start, so it's not going to be hot, actually -
and then I get in the bath and then run the bath whilst I'm in the bath
and instead of the kind of [whooshing] flash of getting in the bath and "Oof!" all of this heat's gonna hit you.
Instead, you do quite a slow, gradual increase
in your heat
which is lovely
and obviously, when you're getting out the bath, you have to be a bit more careful.
I tend to drain away the water before I actually get out, because that helps my body to cool
and that's very good.
Don't change the temperature too rapidly
or else you just faint - don't faint in the bath.
My brother's actually saved my life; he likes to tell me this. Likes to remind me.
I think he's--he's done it three times?
Three times.
When I was just sort of starting to get ill,
and I kept fainting in the bath
and drowning,
and he came and saved me!
Yeah!
Three times, though.
Why did we not learn?
After the first time
or the second time.
No, no, we didn't. Had to happen three times before we learned that lesson.
So I know that showers are supposed to be more...ecologically-friendly
good for the environment and whatnot
but I have chronic pain, OK? So...no.
Baths are amazing, they really help. Especially with joint pain and the pain in my back.
Just going to show you our shampoos, because I think they're quite amusing.
So these two are Claudia's.
The frizz fixers.
And this one is mine.
Coconut Milk Shampoo
I don't use conditioner
because it just makes my hair too slippy to style.
And this shampoo - coconut one -
is really, really good, because it removes all of the different products that I put in my hair while I'm styling it.
But these three - one, two, three -
as you will see are all doggy shampoos.
Every single one.
Oh, yes, doggy shampoos.
This is actually a low number; we did before have five dog shampoos
and two human shampoos.
[Laughing]
Whose hair is the most cared for here?
Oh, I don't know. And they're all for different things.
OK, now I'm gonna get in the bath.
Yeahh!
I quite like to [?] I like to eat in the bath. It's my alone time.
Generally reading fan fiction on my phone.
Or the weekend section of The Guardian, actually. Either/or.
Either/or.
[Joy to the World instrumental]