Rob Beckett and Josh Widdicombe's Parenting Hell - S02 EP15: Gabby Logan

Episode Date: March 12, 2021

ROB BECKETT & JOSH WIDDICOMBE'S 'LOCKDOWN PARENTING HELL' S02 EP15: Gabby Logan Joining us in the studio this episode to discuss the highs and lows of parenting (and life) during the lockdown and beyond is the brilliant presenter, Gabby Logan. Enjoy. Rate and Review. Thanks. xxx If you want to get in touch with the show here's how:EMAIL: [e-mail]: @lockdownparent INSTAGRAM: @lockdown_parentingA 'Keep It Light Media' Production Sales, advertising, and general enquiries: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, I'm Josh Middicombe. And I'm Rob Beckett. Welcome to Lockdown Parenting Hell. The show in which Rob and I discuss what it's like to be a parent during lockdown, which I would say can be a little tricky. So, in an effort to make some kind of sense of the current situation... And to make me feel better about my increasingly terrible parenting skills... Each episode, we'll be chatting to a famous parent about how well they're coping.

Or hopefully not. And we will be hearing from you, the listener, with your tales of lockdown parenting woe. Because, let's be honest, none of us know what we're doing. Because let's be honest, none of us know what we're doing. Hello, and you are listening to Lockdown Parenting Hell with... One second, Rob. Sorry, Josh, I was too eager for you. I'm a bit calmer than I was on Tuesday today. That's good.

Calm down a bit. A bit more zen. A bit more zen. Just sometimes I just feel so alive, Josh, and there's not enough time or enough words to express that. So I scream into a pillow. That's good. That's the main thing, that you've got an outlet.

Yeah. Ready? Yeah. Can you say Rob Beckett? What's Beckett? And can you say Josh Widdicombe? Josh Widdicombe. Aw.

There you go. Strong delivery there. That is a two-and-a-half-year-old, Flory Knight. Flory's a nice name. Flory Knight. Saying something that vaguely resembles your names. I thought it was quite good. We're living in Portugal and away from family.

Your podcasts keep us going and laughing our heads off. We love you guys. We hope Flory can introduce one of your podcasts. She has. Yeah. Flory Knight sounds like a name of someone associated with the craze. Flory Knight turned out of a shooter. How are you, Rob?

Yeah, good. We're sort of getting into our rhythm a bit. We've schooled the house. It's slowly getting cleaner and tidier. The big piles of admin are getting sorted out. We're slowly getting our life back, Josh. How's it going in Casa del Widacombe? Good, good, fine. Do you know what? I think we should just get into the emails, Rob. It's the lockdown parent email bag.

But it's actually emails and there's no bag. Do you want some World Cup emails? Yes, so this is about dealing with a newborn and a huge international sporting tournament yes hi rob and josh i had an absolute result this is from kane harman had absolute result with my now two-year-old boy he was born on the 3rd of july 2018 specifically he was born during the first minute of penalties, England v. Colombia. Oh, that was the greatest summer of my life.

And mine. Love Island was peak Love Island. That's not the reason it was mine, but yes. It was great. You had the football and then straight into Love Island. It was the best. Oh, my God, I loved it. Sorry, Josh.

They've had a baby. In the first minute of the penalties in Columbia, while I missed the penalties, my wife had insisted on watching the game during the labour. Oh. Take your mind off it, I suppose. Exactly. Unfortunately, our stream was slower than the person down the hall in maternity ward.

Oh, no. So we knew Harry Kane was about to score. Oh, that's good and bad, isn't it? I remember we used to watch in the Swell Cups when the back windows are open and back doors are open. And if someone's watching it on analogue and someone's watching it on Sky, analogue always got it first.

Well, I watched England v Argentina in the 2002 World Cup in our student bar. One of the TVs was faster than the other one. So we were behind the other half of the bar. It takes away all the anticipation. What did she say? How did it affect her birth? Oh, this is from the dad.

It doesn't... Oh, right. They said about the slower stream, he said, but then the reason he's emailed is, I then had a whole month of paternity leave. I watched every game while feeding, changing and lulling our newborn to sleep. That's what I'm saying, Josh,

that you're going to watch so much and you just have to learn to take shifts when the games are on. Well, yes, I agree. Can I suggest something? Have you got an iPad? Yeah, I've got an iPad. Right, here's what you're going to do.

You want to get a buggy that's got a flat bit so you can put the iPad on the buggy and then you can sync it up to your phone and use that as a hotspot and then you can stream the game because it's normally all on free to view, isn't it? Yeah.

ITV or BBC. Watch it on the iPad and push the kid around the park. Oh, my word. And then when the baby's asleep, sit on a bench with the iPad in front of you. Yes, please. Oh, my word.

And Bluetooth headphones. Thank you very much. I've made your summer. Josh, can I send you this? This is, we've had two things come in. This is quite Josh Whittaker heavy. Oh, yeah. Take me back to the salty Josh Whittacombe days,

but no one's come in with any more salt recently. No. Well, it's because I haven't been out, isn't it? Yeah. The bloke at the tip will hate you, though, Corey. He turned up, didn't book in, thinking he's all the big and been running red lights. Who does he think he is?

And this is Jess Appleton. I'm really resenting the glee with which Josh chucked in Plymouth 143 yesterday on Tuesday's episode. I'm married to the manager of the team they beat and fuck me. What? Sunday was a tough day on the conversation. No way. Who did you beat?

I can't even remember who we beat. Oh, this is going to go down badly with Jess Appleton. You can't even remember that you beat her husband's team. Oh, well, if she's called Jess Appleton, then the manager's Michael Appleton, isn't it? Yeah, so who does he manage? We beat Lincoln 4-3. He's doing fine.

Lincoln are doing very well. They're second in the league. Well, he doesn't like losing, though, because she said Sunday was a tough day on the conversation front. Luckily, we have a TV five-month-old to feel the silence. Oh, my word. So that really hit home to a listener. Now, this, Josh, I'm going to send this to you.

It's a doll that's for sale. So, hi, Rob and Josh. Loving the podcast. Listening from Dublin. Usually when I get out for a run to escape my husband and six-year-old son. It's my son's birthday in April, so I've been browsing the Smiths website for a a present for him came across this josh look-alike i feel it's a striking resemblance all the best with a new baby josh he could took out like this little guy absolutely fucking amazing

that is so good that is exactly you and the exact same hair but i've never seen you in shorts are you a shorts guy i not unless i'm on holiday or i actually well obviously exercising i wear shorts no but like leisure in the summer uk well i would yeah i will but i never feel totally comfortable in the uh i've got very i've got very pale legs rob yeah but you shouldn't worry about that everyone else we're british of course we're gonna be weird i bet you i bet you my legs are paler than yours what would you be more insecure about absolutely bronzed adonis legs and nothing else everything else pale what do you mean nothing else how dare you just like that's the only thing that's that's brown like you feel self-conscious that they're pale but it'd be

weirder if they were perfectly bronze it would it would i'll give you that i'll give you that you've been to thailand i haven't been to Thailand, Rob. Have you? Yeah. It's so hot, mate. Too hot for polo shirts. So do you enjoy a flip-flop? I just find they're an uncomfortable...

I used to love a flip-flop. Now I'm a slider guy. You're a slider guy? I wear sliders on holiday. I wouldn't wear sliders out and about, but I used to wear flip-flops and espadrilles out and about a lot. We spoke about my dog shit espadrille experience, didn we yeah we've already worn them since that but what i've learned is when you have kids you you have to have a sturdy bit of footwear because you don't know

where you're going to end up in a day yes you know i mean if you when you're young with no kids you could just go to the pub with flip-flops on haven't got a care in the world but when there's a kid involved there's also they tread on them you roll over your foot with the wheel of the push chair you've got to go with a hardy foot hardy shoe yeah hi rob and josh i've heard lots of people writing in about their kids early rising and wanted to share a hack we stumbled across recently with our almost two-year-old she tends to wake around 6 6 15 so not too bad but not ideal for a weekend mum and dad lying ever since she was a baby we've used a bluetooth speaker to play white noise into a room and a few weeks ago she got a baby we've used a bluetooth speaker to play white noise into a room and a few weeks ago she got massively into the gruffalo i decided to try playing the

audio book through the speaker and when she woke up and started to call for us it worked like a charm now she'll happily sit in a cot for another half an hour 45 minutes listening to a story while we reconcile ourselves to getting up not sure how it would work with kids who are not in a cot anymore but wanted to pass on anyone's little early rises it is this is from rachel that's a great idea because when they start to get a bit annoyed to go oh the gruffalo and just listen to an audiobook and that's that's sort of educational isn't it yeah that is really you know we've got one of those things that plays the audiobooks but we got it, we played it and then she'd go to sleep and that got her into a waking up in the night situation, so we had to stop using it.

Well, have you got that box that you put an actual figure of an animal on, like an actual Gruffalo figure and it plays the Gruffalo? No, it's kind of what I think is called YOLO. It's good. It's really good because it does the old sun and the moon thing as well. It's got that. Oh, that one. Now, we've got a thing called a Tony. Is it called a Tonyony i don't know tony's that's what they're called right it's

a box yeah and it's a speaker but you can control it from your phone but they get little figures so like little like mini figures of things whether they're like a um a pepper pit gruffalo pepper pig whatever and as you put it on it plays an episode of the gruffalo plays and episodes you can get like aladdin lion king all sorts of different stories and characters. And you can also get ones where you can record messages to them and read them a book yourself. So if you're away at work, you could record it and send it to like Bluetooth.

But they're really good. And they can control them as well then. So you could give them a little figure in the morning. But I think the key there is they're still in a cot. It's such a game changer, the cot. Keep them in the cot for as long as possible well you say that ellis james's sleep problems his child's sleep problems were completely solved by the move to the bed really yeah so you remember when we spoke to him and it was all going badly i mean badly is an understatement they moved him to the bed straight

onto the 7 730 wake-ups. I think really it's just a game of luck. I think that's the thing you can send yourself mad with science but it's only a game of luck, isn't it?

But you can try. It makes yourself feel better that you've got a plan. Anyone that's got a surefire tip on a child it's not surefire. Well, we're going to find out

with your new child and the no-stroke technique to get him to sleep. Oh, can't wait to bring back the no-stroke. Didn't work the first time. Can it work the second time? Josh, I've got a question, and a lot of the podcast listeners have got the same question. Yes.

Has Rose sent the two-year-old Christmas presents to her cousins in Nottingham? No, she hasn't sent the two-year-old Christmas presents at all. For people that aren't aware of what we're doing, Josh, and they're new to it, Rose has presents for her cousins she hasn't sent from two years ago. Is that right? Two years ago. Christmas 2018. Yes, and you've basically put the threat out that as every week goes by, if she hasn't sent them, we will open one of the presents.

So we opened David's tiny karaoke microphone last week. Have you had presents from them at Christmas? Yeah. We've still been receiving their presents. So we opened David's tiny karaoke microphone last week. Have you had presents from them at Christmas? Yeah. We've still been receiving their presents. Oh, my God. This is even worse. So they are still sending you Christmas presents, but you still haven't sent any since 2018.

And now we're opening them. Yeah. Poor David. This is David's mum, Lindsay. Lindsay. So this is Rose's auntie? Rose's auntie. Do you know what, Rob?

It's a solid gift. Oh, what is it? What's Lindsay got? It's only a reusable coffee cup. Aren't all coffee cups reusable? No, like one that you take to the coffee shop with the lid. All right, I thought you meant like a mug. You've been just launching crockery in the bin.

I'm like Jay-Z, mate. My mug's a box fresh. I've got 99 mugs and reusing one. I give up. I panic. You're fine. You're fine. We knew where we were going.

We understood the gears. Delete that, Michael. Delete my panic joke. Yeah, so it's a reusable. Oh, is it Bluetooth? Is it heated? Or is it just a classic? No, it's a classic. It's Sol is the brand.

It's a nice brand. It's a glass reusable coffee cup. Oh, glass is dangerous. Glass is dangerous. It's going to crack in your bag. And that's never going to get through the postal system to Nottingham. But you're right, Rob. It did never get through the post system to Nottingham.

That's not a bad present, actually. No. That's not too bad, is it? So you've got the, I think we should play a new game where what you do is you leave the present, once we've opened them all, we leave them all out on your wall at the front of your house to see what goes first.

What goes first? Oh, we could have a sweepstake on it. And we could set up a live stream. That's what we should do. Josh, we should put them out the front of your house, right, and then set up through your window by the front door an iPad live streaming on Instagram and then leave it through your window by the front door an iPad, live streaming on Instagram, and then leave it running for, like,

all day and see what goes first. That would be a fun thing to do, wouldn't it? That would be fun. Am I an influencer? That would be fun. I think we should do that with them all at the end. All right. I'll put them in a pile.

Yeah, lovely. I've got no idea where the microphone is, but I'll find it. Are you tempted to use any of the stuff, like the microphone or the mug? Well, the mug is genuinely useful. Obviously, the microphone is a complete piece of shit. How many presents have we got left out of interest? Four or five. Oh, my God. How many cousins has she got?

So she's got probably four or five cousins and then the parents. Oh, right. Okay. So there's a lot of nottingham crew. A lot of nottingham crew. I'm not going to lie, Rob. This is going to get us through to the reopening of the pubs, content-wise. Oh, perfect.

I've got a good email here, Josh, we can finish on before we introduce the gabby of logan um rebecca fennel has said hey josh and rob your stories of kids mispronouncing things reminded me of one of my son's tennis lessons when he was five his tennis coach was called jemima and on one occasion when i dropped him off i heard kids from the previous lesson say goodbye. I nearly died laughing when I heard not one little voice, but two in succession as they were twin girls pipe up and say to the coach, bye-bye vagina, instead of Jemima.

And also around age three, four, my son could not pronounce treat. And after dinner would always ask for his tits. My son just turned 18 in lockdown. So hang in there, guys. They do eventually grow up. Love the podcast. Been ice sitting alone through lockdowns.

You've generally kept me laughing. Thank you. Much love. Bex. Wow. Thank you, Bex. I mean, as soon as you said Jemima, I was going through the roller decks. I won't lie.

I had the right answer before it came up. Yeah. You was on V before I finished Jemima yeah do you know what I thought the other day we never say this is how you get in touch

and please leave us iTunes reviews so please do leave us five star iTunes reviews it does help the amount that Peter Crouch has got is fucking inhumane

I love how petty you get about stuff like that. You love it. You love comparing and contrasting. I can't believe it. But we should say the email address. Oh, yeah, go on. Is it hello at lockdownparenting.com?

I'll be honest with you, mate, I've got no idea. No, but people do get in touch. I think it's in the description. It's in the description. It's like the dark web they find out our email. I don't even know what it is. Either that or Michael's writing all these, in which case he's a hell of an imagination.

Who cares? If it gets us the numbers up, it gets the numbers up. This has got a nice ending because previously we spoke about when my wife had to go into hospital for a week or so and talking to children about their parents being unwell and the best way to do it. This one's from Sarah Hoddy. This may be a little long, but it's got a happy ending

and would help answer how to tell children mummy or daddy is ill. When I was five, my sister was one, my dad was diagnosed with pelvic cancer. Obviously at this age, I wasn't quite sure what was going on, but within a month of my dad being diagnosed, he had to have his leg and half of his pelvis removed. He was in hospital for a long time. And my mum told me, my sister, that he had gone on a long holiday. When he came back he had no limb so my parents thought it would be a good idea to tell us that he had wrestled a shark and won a competition but lost his leg in the battle at this age five and one oh wow so you know it's hard to try to explain the pelvic cancer to five-year-olds i mean so anyway they've told him they've told them

that he went and had a fight of a shark and he won but lost his leg when i got to primary school i was so proud that my dad wrestled a shark but i told everyone in my class this inadvertently caused a lot of the other kids to become scared of the sea to which to which point my parents told me what really happened and he had a horrible disease so that the children wouldn't be scared of the sea anymore. Oh, my God. And this is a nice. And Sarah says, my dad has been cancer free for 22 years and rocks my world. Oh, that's nice.

Nice, nice story. But yeah, the old shark fight. But he did lose his other leg to a shark, which was a terrible. Terrible turn of events. Terrible turn of events. he lost his other electric shark should we introduce gabby logan this is a fun interview this i love gabby logan and also what's interesting about these is you don't know what direction they're going to go in and no i didn't realize we just spent so long talking about her just having a very tall son yeah

we spent a lot of time on that didn't we it was a great episode though enjoy and rate and review and email us and also if someone could email us and tell us what our email address is that'd be great yeah that'd be brilliant drop it into the emails what's our email address uh gabby logan hello i mean we've started we've kind of started um how are you um actually i know you're not supposed to say this i'm all right you're all right good i'm okay i'm quite good i've had yeah good start to the week everything seems to be i shouldn't i'm tempting fate now aren't i but you've got you've got an athlete's mentality though haven't you that's the thing you've got i'd say i'd say i've always i'll send it just before we started interviewing you because you know using the commonwealth games and stuff you you're like

you've got athletes mentality but to broadcasting and you're just so efficient so good at it and just so switched on because we've bumped into each other quite a lot of different corporate hosting events and you just it's like you're like you're like a broadcast machine you're just on it it's so impressive that you're so... Meanwhile, Beckett's pacing up and down backstage. Yeah. You're on bloody hell. What am I going to do?

Yeah, that's exactly what it's like. The last corporate we did was probably the last corporate I did with people because that was like mid-February last year. Yes, it was. It was like, I think it was some sort of company conference you were hosting. They just booked me again for next year they booked you i'm joking no they haven't booked me again yeah but i think they have a different comedian every time oh okay well why don't they have a different host every time surely

10 years that gig right oh stop rubbing it in it's all right for you, Rob. I've never fucking done it, mate. You might be doing it next year, Josh, right? I might be doing it next year. We've had McIntyre. We've had Bishop. We've had the whole, you know, the whole gamut. Yeah, so if they cut the budget, you might get a call next year, Josh. Anyway, Gabby, let's have a chat about your setup at home with kids. What's the kids' setup?

So the setup is I've got twins who are 15. They'll be 16 in the summer. So they're in the year of no GCSEs. That was a big night in our house when Boris slipped that into his mudhands. Oh, no wonder you're all right. They've got no GCSEs and they're self-sufficient. So how does it work? Well, they have got GCSEs, but they've still not been told what is going on.

So they just have to keep working really hard. They had to actually, they were both due to sit at the beginning of January, their maths GCSE early just something idiosyncratic that both their schools do they're at separate schools a girl school and a boy's school and so they managed to sit those even though we'd locked down so they have had the experience of going into an exam hall sitting in GCSE according to you know what we've heard there's no GCSEs but there's going to be some kind of assessment going on so everything they do they're trying to do, the best they've ever done

because they think this might count now. So it's brilliant because they're literally, they go online at about half eight, emerge for food sometime around 12.30 and then go back on to about four and then they're like zombies because they're just on screens all day.

So, I mean, I do feel for them because it is hard being on a screen all day and also hard learning like that, you know, because it's not the best way, is it, to be learning. But at least they know, you know, they're focused. I think two years ago, if they were 13, I'd have no chance. You know what I mean? There'd be an Xbox on the floor. There'd be, you know, kind of one ear would have the school on,

the other ear would probably have some music or their mates on. Now they're a bit more serious about things. So in the world of Top Trump, I was going to say in the world of Top Trumps and parenting in lockdown, because people always say, oh, it's difficult like this or that. I'd say, would you say that having two

that are doing GSECs that have been cancelled is probably, it's a pretty cushy gig as parenting in lockdown goes. I have to say, oh yeah, it is. I mean, I can't, I can't, I i can't i'm trying to dress it up but you know the stress it's very stressful um it is because obviously the gcses were going to be a big stress this summer weren't they having two kids doing gcses at the same time i was thinking for two years i've been thinking oh my god this is and then last summer of course when all the big sporting

events got knocked back to this year i was then oh God, I'm not even going to be at home when they do their GCSEs because they're managing to slot in all these. Now they're probably going to cancel this summer's sporting events. I'm going to be home and they've got no GCSEs. The worst part of it is for teenagers that they have no social life, you know, so you are their everything. And obviously some days that's a good thing. And other days you're the worst person that's ever walked on the planet, you know so you are there everything and obviously some days that's a good thing and other days you're the worst person that's ever walked on the planet you know so so your ego takes a big bashing kind of on an almost daily basis if you have to change your way you relate to them in a way have you had to offer a more matey vibe i've noticed my son calling me things like chief and mate. Chief.

He went, all right, chief. Okay. And so that he's, I mean, he's just, he's quite a character anyway. So considering they're twins, they could not be more polar opposite, right? So they are an absolute, you know, kind of human experiment. He is six foot five.

He eats almost 90. Already? Yeah. How old is he? 15. And he's six foot five? Five, yeah. And so that takes a lot of fuel, right? God!

So my figure is old. I'd be terrified if he called me chief. How tall can he, Gabby? He's just over six foot. I mean, he used to say 6'1 in the programmes when he played rugby. No chance. I was always, yeah, 6'0, mate.

And so Ruben's friends all think he's an experiment that we did. They call him the human sporting experiment that we kind of tried to create a new brand. And so he's really big and eats a lot. That's the biggest challenge with him is keeping him fuelled, you know, because he's... Take me through his food for a day. It is. Normally you'd ask this if someone had a one-year-old but could you just take me through his meals right when they're little you want them to eat all the time

don't you go come on eat your food eat your food now i'm going surely you don't need a steak at nine o'clock you know that fillet of beef's gone i only bought it yesterday he's he'll have um breakfast could be genuinely anything from tuna and noodles to a steak to eight shredded wheat. It could be, I'm going to say it could be anything like that. Then there's a mid-morning. There's always some kind of smoothie being blended, about 11, maybe a tuna wrap. And then lunchtime, he will have anything from, you know, the whole bags of fresh pasta. He'll have one of those with some chicken breasts or chicken Kiev or something or some vegetables. Then there's a mid-afternoon snack before he goes in the gym.

And then there's the evening meal, which he deems to eat with the rest of us. And then late before bed, another meal is made and created. And I said to him the other night when he was making his pre-bed meal, I was like, do you have to have this one? And he said, mum, I wake up at three in the morning and I've got like cramps. I'm so hungry if I don't eat now so I just can't relate to it you know I just because I'm like 47 my metabolism's almost stopped you know I mean I'm just like oh oh a Malteser that'll see me till tea time but he's just hungry and obviously doing a lot of activity so that is the hardest part of the first lockdown I found that the biggest challenge that they didn't just want a snack I'll have a like an avocado on a piece of rice cake for my lunch yeah but he the first lockdown I was oh my god I'm making so many

meals all the time but this lockdown I've stepped back from the cooking and how much exercise is he doing a day normally he does loads right so he's he's playing sport he's playing he's a rugby player and he's playing rugby he's got to do his own training now, obviously. So he'll go out and he'll shoot some hoops for about an hour, and then he'll go for a walk. So he's really good at getting out, actually, and doing the maximum in terms of what he's allowed to do socially. So he'll go and meet a mate for a bike ride or something.

So he is normally very, very active. It must be quite difficult for people who are 15 or into sport and stuff now, because that's really been taken away, right? Yeah. Do you know what? I noticed the, it's the testosterone, isn't it? You know, it's that kind of release of kind of getting out.

You're used to going around and bashing into people and all that kind of stuff. So he was much more mild-mannered when he was playing lots of sport yeah and then there's a peaks and troughs you know you don't know which one you're going to get which one's going to come down the stairs because you need an outlet yeah you do you do and kenny's beyond wrestling with him you know that's those days are gone what age did he overtake ken? Height-wise? Yeah. About 12, I think. Wow.

But physical-wise, there's still a bit of a, you know, there was still a bit of a match in the summer, but that's gone. Oh, really? Yeah. Has Kenny accepted that, though? Does he not? Yeah, I mean, you know when the bareback kind of just bows out and walks backwards into the bushes?

Yeah. He's damned up. It's that guy. The silverback, sorry, not the bareback. Bareback's having... We got one. Wow, okay. Such an exciting lockdown here.

The silverback, sorry. But my daughters, so they're twins, obviously. She's three foot. Yeah, you know which one got all the food in the womb. She's actually five nine. She's taller than me. So I am the smallest in the family. But she's really lucky because where we live,

she's a horse rider. She does show jumping. So she competes normally all the time. She's got her, we allowed her to bring, well, we didn't allow. It's much better actually to have them here. She started to bring her horses home in the time. She's got her... We allowed her to bring... Well, we didn't allow. It's much better, actually, to have them here. She started to bring her horses home in the summer. Into the house?

Well, she's actually only... She actually only had one. She had one horse. Suddenly, we got four. When I allowed her to bring one home, she went, it needs a friend, right? So she picked up this, like, really cheap little kind of, you know, almost like the Stecto and son of the pony world you know it

arrived kind of like looking bedraggled and she's going to turn it into a champion apparently and then she's got a foal which is a project and then she's got a shetland so she just morning noon and night in between her lessons she's outside it becomes totally addictive my parents had one horse when we moved to devon at one point it got up to 12 when i was a kid because they knew it had to come in the house the thing is thing is, from my point of view, someone having a horse, like, because I grew up in South East London, like, you know, having horses, I always think of it as sort of like, you know,

like as sort of the super rich person type of thing. But Josh, you're not like from money, as it were, but because of like, if you are in the countryside, is it just cheaper to have land and to have horses? Is it like a... Yeah. So in Devon, like loads of people had horses. Oh, okay. Like when we used to live in Devon, like loads of people had horses. Oh, OK.

Like when we used to live in London, I took her to Richmond Park when she was three and she did a pony trek. That was the worst thing I ever did, right? Because from that day, that was all she wanted to do. We moved out into the countryside about seven years later and that was when she really got into it. But I'm from Leeds, I'm from a city,

I didn't ride horses, right? No. I'm not, so Claire Balding, who I work with, obviously, is my horsey, you know, connection. I know nothing ride horses, right? So Claire Balding, who I work with, obviously, is my horsey connection. I know nothing about horses. So Claire, the other day, because I said to her, look, have you got any old kind of horses that can come be a friend for this horse, right?

So she loves a challenge like that. So within seconds, there was a horse being lined up to come over here to be a friend. So I said to her, how did this happen? I've gone from one to four. She said, you're upper middle class now. Oh, hello. I said, well, how did this happen? I've gone from one to four. She said, you're upper middle class now. Oh, all right. I said, no, I said, Claire,

I'm still that working class girl from Leeds. I'm not, you know, this is, because you're right. The horsey world is really weird. You can have like, we go to shows where you've got people with these 200 grand horse lorries, right, and a fleet of horses. And then you've got somebody that looks like they've just nicked the van from down the road.

The horse gets off and kind of, you know, and it's like held together with sellotape on its bridle it's a completely just totally democratic in the sense of you you don't know what you're going to get do you know what i think when you're from a city you just assume all people with horses are really rich but it's a kind of a countryside thing if you've got the space you can have them and it can yeah it's like anything you can have an expensive horse horse box or uh exactly i once saw a horse being put in the back of a transit van near me to be moved somewhere i didn't think it would go but it didn't seem bad obviously that is bad isn't it sort of animal cruelty to a point but at the time it just

felt like oh that's quite impressive like getting a piano in there sometimes you see bands at horse shows and you think that i'm sure that used to be an ice cream van do you find it scary what should i do the show jump is it show jumping you said yeah Sometimes you see bands at horse shows and you think, I'm sure that used to be an ice cream van. Do you find it scary? What, should I do the show jump? Is it show jumping you said she does? Do you find it scary? Between the pair of them, her jumping over like 1m20 jumps and him smashing into people, you know, in rugby,

I suppose I should be on the edge of my seat kind of feeling. I kind of trust what they're doing, that they know what they're doing, that they're okay. And I don't think you could enjoy it. And I have to say, one of the great enjoyments in my life I kind of trust what they're doing that they know what they know that they're okay and that you I don't think you could enjoy it and I have to say one of the great enjoyments in my life is is going to watch my kids do sport because when you're doing your sport as a living you know like when you go and watch sport like I do to kind of talk about it it's not the same you know you're kind of doing it as a job when I go watch them it's pure enjoyment for me so you're competitive on

the sidelines though do you want them to win or do you control it? Well, when Lois qualified for the Nationals last year, and all you can hear in the background of Kenny videoing her around, when she did brilliantly and then the middle fence of three came down and I went, shit, shit, shit! And it's just silence apart from me swearing in the background and with Ruben I'm like I try not to and then I just got you know I just get a bit excited sometimes you know like I get because it does you know you've got all the other parents on

the touchline you're kind of all going a bit or sidelined you're going a bit mental and and the presence of Gabby and Kenny Logan also at a rugby match. You guys are like, you know, you watch proper rugby. You've got an international rugby player there. Well, Kenny goes off and watches on his own because he just, like, some of the chatter, you know, he goes, like, some of the things that he hears the parents saying, he just finds it all a bit like, oh, shut up. So he just walks off on his own sometimes,

which I think looks so rude. He just disappears and leaves the hall. And I'm left then with, you know, everybody else who's just having a nice day out, you know. But Ruben's plays for Wasps Academy. And there's been a couple of times where Kenny's been watching matches when he's playing for Wasps

where there's been some dads who are all mums whose background in rugby isn't what Kenny's was, you know. And they have no idea that Kenny played rugby. And they'll turn around and say something to him. And Kenny will say, well, you know. And then later they come and go, I'm so sorry. I didn't know you were actually there. And they're trying to tell Kenny what's going on.

He knows a lot. He knows what's happening. It is kind of strange, I think, for Ruben sometimes, you know, because obviously at Wasps, Kenny played there for, you know, 10 years. And have you ever seen, has Ruben ever had a fight on the pitch or a bit of a, you know, in rugby, they sometimes kick off a bit. What's that like as a mum to watch that happen? Even though he's this big six at five, like, bloke.

I don't mind that so much. There was one match last year where he said something really sarcastic to the ref, which in rugby, you know, you don't backchat the ref. The ref was having an absolute shocker, by the way. He was useless, right? And apparently and apparently according some of the parents smelt like he might have had a big night the night before um so um he got the scoreline wrong and it was all he'd given was impossible for what had happened in the game you know what i mean like he and reuben went so let's just add that up or did something really sarcastic and kind of and I could

hear him and I was going at that point the headmaster of the opposition school had stood next to me as well so I was like oh he's going to say who's that horrible child I'm going to go it's but um but yeah that that kind of big learning curves those things I think that sums up rugby that you can spend 80 minutes smashing someone but if if you make a sarcastic comment, that is too far. So it sounds like they're both very talented athletes, you know, playing at WASPs and Nationals in the show jumping. How important is that academic stuff? Do you know, the sporting stuff, I genuinely, when they were little,

I tried to get them to play every instrument in the world. I I mean I was like I didn't want them to just feel they had just to choose sport as a kind of passion in life and all I wanted them to do was be interested in stuff and so um and have something that they felt you know kind of that they wanted to commit to and give something to so so I'm glad they both have and they both love their sport but they also Ruben's really good at drama he's going to do drama GCSE and he's on about going to theater school or drama school if the sport doesn't work out he loves acting and stuff do you know what if you're six foot five there's going to be some good roles there well i don't think so i said to him the only thing you can do is hope the rock retires because that's literally it you know i said you'll never you'll never be a leading man

he's not he's not tapped out of growing yet they grow to the 21 don't you well i keep telling him that he's finished um and he said you know he's like mom i'm gonna keep going to because we've got a friend locally who's a top policeman in the met who's six foot nine and he keeps telling me that he kept on growing you know beyond 15 ruben said mom i think i've got my wisdom teeth through um so you know that's it i've stopped now because he doesn't want to he wants to go to six seven right that's his kind of that's his optimum goal yeah and so um i said oh great and then he came through the other night and he went i think they're just molars mom i think um but schoolwork is you know i said to them both whatever happens in life you know she's not you

know being an international show jumper is not you know it's a pipe dream you know i mean you might as well try to say i want to be the queen it's just so hard so she's really she's really academic and she wants to go to university and she you know she's got kind of her dreams Ruben he doesn't love learning as much let's say that but you know I said you just got to work hard and do the best you can and that's you know put as much in as you want out basically so yeah with twins do they feel like they're competing with each other like so one's more academic than the other or one's taller than the other or whatever yes do they feel like they're being compared and is that was that kind of a thing that's you know until they were seven they're at the same school and we lived in london and we

didn't move out so that they could go to separate schools there just happened to be a lot of single sex schools where we live and it was probably the best thing for them because every parent's evening reuben was a bit of a as the scots would say a raj when he was at his first school right so he was always in trouble and so parents evening was always 15 minutes on him and then two minutes at the end going yeah reading's going well you know and that was and so actually and she also then used to start to kind of try and protect him a bit as well, which was, you know, not her role. She didn't have to do that at school. So going to separate schools was great. And there was one moment where Ruben brought a couple of lads back from school when he was about nine. And I went into his bedroom, he was with the boys. And I said,

oh, Lois will be home soon. And one of the boys went, who's Lois? And I went, how long have you known Ruben? And this kid went two years. I went, you never mentioned you've got a twin sister. And this boy went, you've got a twin sister it's such a boy thing isn't it so it's quite nice for them to have had that not being compared all the time you know and they go in swings and roundabouts in terms of like who you know popularity and all that kind of stuff they kind of be a bit they're a bit competitive about sometimes but um but actually they're really lovely with each other and you know they kind of be a bit they're a bit competitive about sometimes but um but actually they're really lovely with each other and you know they're kind of got a nice healthy when i say competitiveness i mean there's four of us competing

in this house not just those two yeah yeah i think that's in the g that's in the blanch more than anything and they've got you know they're kind of they'll say things to me like what did you get for your massachusetts again like really what are board games like in your house? Yeah, they usually descend into some kind of fight. We're better off playing with other families, you know, mixing the families up. Yes, that's a good way of doing it. And was Reuben quite big for his age growing up?

Did he always look older than his sister, even though they were twins, because he was so big? They did the same weight at birth. birth and amazingly they came out at six pounds each which I was I thought was incredible that they were the same weight because yeah way along they told me that the one on top that was lowest was bigger and the one on the bottom was smaller and he came out first and he was um he was six pounds she was six pounds just about on the nose and then suddenly literally within three months he trebled his birth weight so by yeah he was 18 pounds after three months there's no doubt in my mind he should have been a stone at birth you know he saved me all sorts of aggro

coming with a partner so um yeah he was always really big and that you know what it's like with toddlers when like even a ball pit or something with two of them people thought that he was five when he was two you know and they go tell your son to stop doing that he's two are you trying telling him i don't know and they go two you know so it's kind of for a while and people expect so much more from him than he was capable of and even you know as a boy he was always behind her in terms of developmental things he didn't walk till he was 18 months he was like 11 months or something he didn't even bother crawling he just did this commando thing you know where he just scooped his arms and kind of dragged himself around so he does sound like some sort of sported experiment. Does he?

He must get to the age now where, when I was 15, I had no hope of getting served in a pub. But he presumably can go anywhere, right? Remember Eat Out to Help Out last year? Yeah. He had a girlfriend, first girlfriend. I'm not going to say too much about that. It's his private life, right? But they went out to an Eat Out to Help Out locally out locally this pub and they gave them the drinks menu right so

bless him when he came in he was honest he said dad i had a pint so kenny went what he went well i came with a drinks menu so i just said and he said and i remembered what i'd heard when we went out for dinner last week and somebody said they had a foster's i went i'll have a foster's and i said to Kenny afterwards, thank God he didn't just start going through the gins. Do you know what I mean? I'll try your London, yeah, that looks lovely, that dry gin, and then we'll go on to the vodkas.

So, yeah, clearly from last summer, that is not going to be a problem. So you've got to then have the conversation changes, doesn't it? But do you know what, Gary? He can't get drunk at that size. You're going to be fine. There's no way he's ever gonna get drunk that's nice though that he told you because a lot of kids wouldn't have been honest so it's a nice relationship where he can come home and say that he did that and it'd be like an interesting thing to talk about rather than be scared to tell you or keep it a secret and keep going so that you know i think that's a good way that's pretty

good yeah but yeah it's a plus point that you know your 14 year olds ordering pints you know the um you're at an interesting stage because you've got twins and they're at 15 and they're going to be leaving in about three or four years how does that does that do you think about that how does that feel a lot because um especially you know we're coming up now to the summer where they're telling me all the time mum this is the summer of our lives this you've got this summer you've got to just like you know release control we're going to go to festivals you're not mate there aren't going to be any and we're going to do this we're going to do that because i'm i'm not i'm not something

micromanagers i'm not a helicopter but course, I want to know what's going on. You know what I mean? I'm not like going just go out into the wilderness for days on end and have frank conversations about the dangers of drugs and alcohol and everything. And so you've got all those things going. Then you think there's two more years, and then they're off to university, and then they make all kinds of stupid decisions and do things that they want to do.

So at the moment, you're trying to kind of feed in stuff that you hope is going to give them you know a good grounding when they leave but also at the same time thinking it's going to be so quiet it's going to be weird and you know why don't i have more children you know beating kenny's chest why didn't you let me have more kids you've got the horses you'll have to look after those horses, won't you? Oh, no, they're going. She won't let me look after those. Yeah, I mean, I genuinely... Friends of mine have had later babies, so they've got older ones,

and then they've gone and had one in their early 40s, mid-40s. And I'm slightly envious of that kind of, you know, having somebody coming through, coming up the rear. Yeah. Your podcast, The Midpoint, which I was like, well, this doesn't apply to me. And then I listened. I'm in the age range, Gabby.

I'm middle-aged. You drew the bottom line at 35. Are you kidding me? The Economic and Social Research Council did that, Josh, not me. So the podcast is interviewing people in middle age about how they feel. Midlife. Midlife. Midlife. Sorry, sorry.

Then the line-up is mind... It was like a list of people I thought, oh, we should get them on. So you've got some great people. You've got Richard Osman, Mariella Frostrup, Denise Lewis, Catlin Moran, Michael Johnson, the sprinter.

Oh, I know. And Stiffback Johnson. Stiffback Johnson. Did you see Stiffback in the zoom chat absolutely stiff back zoom chat here he goes so i work with him all the time right so i'm sitting he's he's office in malibu right in his house he he literally sat up on his chair and behind him he had two glass shelves and on it the only things on it were olympic gold medal a gold nike running spike and two baftas right that was and i actually said to him i said because the thing about working with michael johnson right he never wastes a word he will talk for two minutes but there is never a superfluous sentence or any grammatical kind of you know mistakes or ums and ahs and i said your shelf sums you up

you're you're you're just precision you know that is this is me some gold medals and some BAFTAs but he had a stroke in midlife I mean Michael Johnson you know the fittest man in the world and he didn't even you know didn't realize what it was he came out the gym and his arm was spontaneously moving and and he rang when he told me the story for the first time i was i couldn't have laughing so i rang the michael johnson performance center as you do and spoke to the top doctor the top doctor told him get to a hospital and if he hadn't gone to hospital at that point and gone home and gone to sleep which was his natural inclination he'd be dead basically he was so badly paralyzed that he would not be doing what he does now which is he's back jogging and, you know.

Yeah, that's unbelievable. I never knew that. That's unbelievable. Well, I'm definitely going to listen to the podcast. That's the best advert for a podcast inside a podcast. I'm actually hosting my podcast and I'm going to stop doing this trick to listen. You've absolutely done me.

Can I ask about Richard Osman as well? Yes. Did you do it in a studio with him or did you do it over Zoom and online? No, do you know when we did it actually in the offices of my agents in Chiswick it was in the period where you could meet up with about, I'd say a quarter I've managed to physically be with people.

Oh, that's okay then because I asked him to do our one and he said, no, sorry, I can't. I haven't got the right set up at home. It has to be a studio. So he wanted to wait. I just wanted to make sure he wasn't lying to me. So you're not interested in what's in it. You just wanted to make sure that he wasn't lying to you. Yeah, just a booking process, really.

It's just, what, TV and being tall, probably, is it? He said to me, how tall is your son? Good, I'm in. In fact, he was 5'9 at 35, Richard Osborne. And he sort of, he grew later. One of Kenny's best friends and teammates from wasps and england and well kenny played for england obviously but british and irish lines he um was five foot nine at 16 and six foot nine at 17. wow yeah and i said to him what was that year like what happened in that year he said i come home from school and

literally i'm and this is visual here but he said his sleeve of his shirt would just be coming back to kind of like every day. And he'd have to walk down after school for an hour and a half because his bones were aching so much. And when he scored, he was just, you know, and at the end of it, like the Incredible Hulk, he just got some new clothes and got on with his sporting career. Yeah.

That's mad, isn't it? So would you consider me and Rob to be part of the mid, what was the term? It's a podcast called Midpoint. Yeah, but what was the term you used? I only used midlife because middle age. I said middle age used to sound, it was beige, wasn't it? Middle age.

It's never a term of, it's never a compliment. Oh, you're so middle aged. And so the reason I started it completely self-serving was obviously a bit like you too you know with your damn parenting was just to kind of go okay what is this what does it mean physically what's happening to us you know what's what's going to happen to us and and also wanting to feel like I was I was inside as kind of vibrant and energetic as I've ever been but outside clearly changing and so I wanted to meet people that are doing good stuff in their midlife as well I mean like Richard's a great example you know he didn't appear on telly till he was 40 with pointless I think it's 39 or whatever

and he's just he's just produced one of the best-selling books of all time nearly 50 you know so you can have lots of different do lots of different I mean obviously he's an exceptional character but you can do more than one thing you can change your mind about what you want to do and pursue something else so and did being in midlife creep up on you did you do yes it truly did when did you realize um well about a year and a half ago i'd had a moment where i kind of went like that you know when you walk past a window or a mirror or reflection and I saw something different you know and I was kind of because we're in this business right you get lit well you have makeup artists you know you've got people telling you look great yeah you look great you know and there was this one moment where I just saw kind of what probably

other people see and I was like oh I am older and I really you know and then I started looking at myself physically thinking oh and you know I've noticed like when i have like a really good christmas i'm one one run's not going to get rid of it anymore you know or and you and all that stuff just started mumtabism feels like it's slowing down and also i started to feel a bit grumpy about things and i don't want to be a grumpy old woman you know that's not where i'm heading so what is that about and that is all to do with hormones because all your happy hormones start to leave you so you um you become you know your potential to become a bit angrier which um kathleen moran she was on the podcast she likes because she said it makes her feel more like her male colleagues so she's like kind of she goes this is why they've all got

isas and second homes so i wanted to understand a bit more about that and um and see you know whether can you exercise your way out of it no can you you know can you eat yourself out of it no what is well some sometimes it's just being kind of accepting isn't it of what's going to happen and it must be your teenagers must see you as from a different generation. Do you know what I mean? Like, if I think about when I was 15, I mean, no offence in this, Gabby, but my parents felt like an incomparable different age to me. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, you just don't.

My parents had me quite young. They were in their early 20s. So they were still kind of going out a lot you know because they're only in their late 30s so when i was 17 but my kids because i'm i was 10 years older than that i was 32 when i had them so they they just there's some things where they're just rude you know like you just don't understand i mean how could you possibly understand you don't even have snapchat you know it's like and then other things that they're like slightly more kind and benevolent about because they kind of you know want to understand what what what did you eat you know

they'll say things like that what do you have for dinner what was your normal amount compared to you mate well they were asking kenny this question last night because kenny grew up on a farm in scotland and they were like what kind of things because last night i made this incredible tofu vegan dinner right and they went dad i bet you never ate anything like this on the farm, did you? So, yeah, it is strange. And you have to, I'm lucky, I think, in a way, working in sport, I deal with all these young sports people all the time, these footballers who are like 20, 21.

And sometimes you think, oh, am I a dinosaur to them? They look at me and think, who's the old lady coming on, you know, being wheeled on to interview me. So having the kids, my kids, sometimes a good kind of prism as to kind of what is going on you know yeah and it brings you back i find that i think when i said before when you have kids you sort of your pop culture references fall out your head did you just see bbs you know getting them fed getting to nursery but then once they get to teenagers you actually you sort of catch up with all your friends that didn't have kids because you get to learn about it from teenagers, whether it's TikTok or Snapchat or this or that.

It's so funny, when Kenny and Ruben go up to Coventry, which is where Wasp's training is, it's like an hour and a half journey for them after school and stuff. So on the way there, Ruben gets to play his music, right, which Kenny describes as, er, er, swear word, er, swear word, er. I think dads have described music like that for a hundred years on the way back it's it's freestyle so they can kind of like choose a track each but but

Ruben because he's now trained he's quite happy to play sweet Caroline or a bit of Oasis you know on the way home that's fine or a bit of Fleetwood Mac it's okay and kenny's always like oh the journey home's so much nicer but do you know what that's better than i i wouldn't want to be one of those parents that's trying to be down with their kids yeah it's too much yeah it's too much yeah and you said before you like it would have been nice to have another other kids and stuff like that um was that a consideration do you do you know would you want more Were they for IVF as well? Is that right? You had them for IVF? Yeah, they were. And so being candid, we had more blastocysts than, you know, so you have to put them on ice and you decide whether you're going

to have another baby, which is a fairly, to decide, you know, in that way, it's such a kind of pressure-filled conversation to have. So when you've got two toddlers running around at 18 months, what kind of maniac is going to go and volunteer to put you know another couple of eggs back in at that point we're both in this stupid mindset as new parents often are when it gets back to normal and of course what you realize when they're 17 is it never gets back to normal you know or 15 it's not that doesn't happen so when they were about 10 we had to have a really serious conversation about it because that's when you're they're supposed to no longer be frozen,

you know, and we even walked, we kind of walked to the pub in the village and we sat down and we kind of like, you know, what should we do? And at that point, you know, I was probably in my early forties and I just felt like I was too far from having them, you know, it felt like too big a gap.

And so we didn't. And then Kenny, just about a year ago, on one of those days, you know, in those days where everything's great, the kids are great, it's all good and life's great. And he went, we should have had more kids. I was like, don't give me that now. But I always thought I'd have four or five because I'm one of four and Kenny's one of three.

And you know, when your experience is growing up or what you think you're going to have. But we do often thank our lucky stars because Kenny's business partner had um he's got triplets and one is a girl and the other two are twin boys so the egg split in the womb so um we often say imagine if Ruben's egg had split we'd be bankrupt so you know triplets was what was the moment when you found out it was twins like really lovely yeah it was really amazing yeah because because we just wanted to be pregnant so it was like kind of we just wanted to say there's a there's a beating heart there you know so to say there's two um and we didn't tell anybody it was twins for ages because we just couldn't quite believe our luck you know

so we wanted to wait till we got to our first proper scan because obviously with ivf you're starting to get pregnant 10 weeks before you get pregnant. So it's the longest pregnancy ever. It's like an elephant, you know. So you go back kind of almost a year because you start having the drugs and doing all the tests and all of that. So it's a long old time while you've been on that journey before you even tell anybody.

Was it a tough process going through it all? Obviously it works out well because you've got your two kids, but is it quite tough you know i think you said it at the very beginning about a sports person's mindset and i think we both kind of had that you know attitude towards it so we tried to say right okay if this doesn't work this time then you know and and so it's tough in as much as you know you're putting your body through a bit and actually the interesting thing about midpoint is i've discovered if you go through ivf which some of your listeners might be and might, you know, might be thinking about, you can have your menopause earlier because you've mixed up your hormones and stuff.

So I didn't know any of that, you know, because you kind of only read the bits you want to read, don't you? You don't kind of take in everything. And so it was it wasn't it wasn't hard because I think there are a lot harder things to go through in life. It was it was just not the way we thought it was going to happen you know because we're like two healthy people going well what's and there wasn't anything wrong we've told we had unexplained infertility so you're like what does that mean i'll just keep going i'm gonna keep going forever you know so obviously then you start going down a medical road which you don't think you know yeah it's um it's fascinating though because it's like it's something that wasn't talked about as much as it should have been.

Do you know what I mean? In the last maybe 20 years, it's really opened up as a subject, which is just people are much more comfortable talking about, which I think is really good. Yeah, I think it's really interesting as well. When I got a phone call from the Sun newspaper within about 10 minutes of leaving the hospital for my first scan, saying, we hear you're expecting twins.

And I went, what? And so, and then the first question that the journalist said was um uh asked was um are the twins in your family and the inference was obviously that she knew that it wasn't do you know what i mean i was like kind of because because she could easily find out there are no twins in my family you know and so yeah and i made the decision at that moment that i wasn't going to hide the ivf because i felt like i was so grateful to the incredible people who'd helped me get to this stage that I didn't want to kind of you know I wasn't embarrassed by it and I was quite happy to talk about it because it felt like a natural process as unnatural as it kind of is do you know what I mean and I feel like a lot of people have come up to me over the years and people famous

people you know people that you'd know who oh I had it you know but they've never talked about it and i think there was a stigma almost that you're not quite complete or you're not quite right if you can't do it do you know what i mean yeah and i think that's hopefully that's gone now and people don't feel like you know yeah i think so i feel like it used to be thought of like that but i'd never think of it like that it just seems like oh that's just a if it's not quite happening there you just change that and then that happens it's sort of like the seems like, oh, that's just a, if it's not quite happening there, you just change that. And then that happens. It's sort of like the same way as you would if you had a bad knee.

Yeah. You'd need to get adjusted. You'd need science and medicine to help. No one would go, oh, look, walking about, but not the normal, like the natural way with your knee. Like, oh, I have a need to limp. We do do those kind of jokes on The Last Lag, actually. I am, though.

That's your gig. I apologise. It's funny you like this. When the kids were about, we decided not to tell the kids until they were old enough to actually comprehend what that means because right you know you it wasn't it wasn't like we were lying we didn't say one night you're down and i got together but we thought if they don't even know what procreation you know what it is to actually have a baby how can they get their head around doing it a different way so once they started to have sex education at school and started to know or thought they knew what was going on when they're about 10 or 11 um we were driving up to see some friends up

on the weir and we got we were kind of somewhere on the m6 let's say nuts for services right and i'm picturing it i'm picturing it i'm there i'm out of all the service stations to talk about IVF. Knapsford. So he's still in the car. And I turn around and I said, guys, something I want to tell you that I think you should know. And so I told them, right? Honestly, the way they reacted, you just thought I told them that I was mainlining heroin on an evening, right?

They literally were like, what? What? What? And the movement said, are we adopted as well and i was like and i really kind of blew out of all proportion they're kind of like you know made it very dramatic and um i said guys it's really you know and and then we went hang on a minute and he named a couple of other kids he went i bet they are too and i was like what yeah yeah i bet they are as well i said okay maybe i've gone too soon with this conversation, right?

So we got to the point. So how old were they at this point? They were about 12 or 11, 12, right? They knew what IVF was, or they thought they did, right? So we explained it. And then they were kind of fine about it. And I started turning it into a kind of, we really wanted you. We kind of had to choose, really choose.

You're not an accident, you know, and all that kind of thing. Yeah, proof you're not an accident. Yeah, exactly. And then we get to our friend's house and three of my three girlfriends three daughters were there and i saw them run straight over to the girls and there's this deep conversation and they came back and they went yeah we've told the girls we told them we're ivf and they're like oh right okay i said what did they say and they went they're not bothered they wouldn't be it's really and so they laugh about it now because i they've done obviously a

lot more um in biology and things and they kind of understand it that's amazing isn't it well i suppose it it feels like a big bit of news but in a way it's a complete non-bit of news that was yeah the point for me obviously i felt like it was going to be i was broaching this big topic with them but actually they were quite fine without it. It wasn't weird. But it's really, once you've got the required result, IVF is sort of like a non-conversation, really. It's only a real sort of thing to think about and be concerned about. Yeah, during the process.

Yeah. Yeah, it's quite funny. They're like, yeah, we've got to tell you something. And they're telling everyone. We're IVF guys. I'm so disappointed you haven't asked me about, I was listening to Mark Watson telling you about some kind of bad parenting, like when his pram fell off the train and stuff yeah i thought okay because also you've talked a lot about you know ruben sport and all that and it

makes sound like you know everything's going really well right okay so i just i don't want to leave anybody listening to this thinking that you know that it was always thus and yeah having twins obviously you have a lot of challenges. Of course. It's tiring, and you know how tiring kids are. And so my pram incident was a good one. I was walking along Barnes High Street, where we lived at the time, and I stopped at Cafe Nero.

And I got Lois out, and I was holding the double pram. And then I was just looking at the menu or something and let go of the pram with Ruben in it, right? And there was a slight slope on the pavement, right? Which I hadn't noticed. And the pram obviously took off towards the main road, right? I would declare a 17-tonne lorry coming round the corner. Oh, my word. This guy appeared from nowhere, right?

It was November, everybody's in coats and hats. He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans and was totally incongongruous on the high street you know he just didn't look like calls the pram off like you know gets the pram before it hits the road and just gives me it back in a very calm way and walked off never said a word right just i just stood there like in shock because i oh my god i know i still went and had a coffee which this day i'm not sure was a good well you needed it, Matt. You needed it. Everybody in the coffee shop has seen me nearly lose a child to the rogue.

Oh, my God. Yeah, but that came flashing back when I was listening to that. I was like, oh, my God, I had a pram moment too. You do. You have them and you forget, don't you, until people spark your memory. And the better one actually was when he once pulled another person's pram over, Ruben. I left him next to a pram in a park.

He turned around and he pulled the other pram over because he was quite strong. And the poor child was kind of struggling to get out of his pram. And the mother came running and was like, your child just pulled my child's pram over. Sorry, he's only a year old. I don't know how he did that. Gabby, we always like to end by asking, well, shall I ask it, Rob? Yeah, you go for it, Josh. You know what the question is by now.

Yeah, I do. I'm across the format, aren't I? Is there anything that your husband does, parenting-wise, that annoys you, but you haven't had the kind of guts or the reason to bring up to their face but if you said it now it'd be a good way if he listened to this for him to find out see after 15 years i i you know i pretty much tell kenny when he does something wrong on a daily

basis i can't ever imagine you not well from working with you gabby i can't imagine you biting your tongue if you think something needs to happen but one of the things that recently i've kind of been quite um because he's kenny has become and it's lockdown that's done it to him right i like a clean tidy house don't get me wrong right but he has become obsessed like you know just like there can never be anything out of place and he loves to get the dust buster out he's dust busting and he's like he's all the time doing stuff like that kind of i'm like just calm down a bit just calm down a bit you know just like like let's just let let something kind of happen you know a pair of boots don't make it to the boot room within 20 seconds you know there's kind of like so um and he's and he's because the fury has kind of like you know overtaken and so i've had to kind of like

recently just go look you've got to like learn there's a sliding scale of things that kids do right that is kind of you know and this is really not up there at the moment with teenagers. Yeah, exactly. They're in lockdown. They're learning on computers all day long. I'm prepared to let the shoes go for a minute here. And let's just, you know,

so yeah, that's, if he's listening, just let it go. Yeah. It could be in a park with cider, couldn't it? Exactly. I think there is a point where I think tidiness during

lockdown is a real outlet for frustration do you know what i mean i find myself getting annoyed with mess when i wouldn't have before but i suppose it's because you're in the house all the time you see it don't you and you see also what you see is broken stuff all the time last night 10 o'clock he's got a miner's lamp on and he's screwing the the dishwasher what are you doing he went the door's not shutting how it used to i was like yeah i'm like 10 o'clock and you wouldn't care would you if you're out and about places so everything's got everything has to be kind of right yeah but i suppose he's like you know he you know i know he's got business now and stuff of the the but he like the outlet of playing rugby and that that you know when you've gone such high trending things and even i notice if not gigging i don't have my outlet or i can if whatever's

happened that day i can just get on stage and then just let it out in that routine and those jokes and stuff so yeah that's what i am i am very lucky because sport's been going on so i get out the house and i come in and he'll say things like, what did people say? Any conversations? What are they wearing now? What are they doing with their hair now? I cooked dinner last night and Lou was like next to me as I was cooking dinner. I was like,

so should I have a good day? She went, yeah. And literally, what it feels like is, imagine if like, and it's because of lockdown, but it feels like, you know,

like you know a relationship doomed and there's nothing left to say to each other. But the reason for that is it feels like you know like you know a relationship doomed and there's nothing left to say to each other but the reason for that is lockdown but you know imagine that was like that during the on it's like you went shall i just go watch a telly yeah just go watch a telly literally no one's done anything to talk about we've started learning chess the other night i said right we neither of us know how to play let's sit down right and do this and we went on some website where you had to play against the computer, basically, to learn. And Kenny started getting that really, you know,

the person we were playing against was in America. He's going, he's thinking, look at these mavericks with their moves. And I'm like, I don't think he is, actually. I think he's thinking those two are rubbish. And he was so into it. And I thought, oh, he's like, he needs, like, some kind of outlet.

He's like, competitive chess is not going to replace rugby mate um Gabby it's been an absolute pleasure thank you so much thank you for having me Gabby Logan there Joshua love Gabby Logan always been a fan of Gabby Logan whenever you work with her she's so much fun and she always kind of she brings an energy yeah she's really that's what i'm saying because i didn't want it to sound like she's some sort of like boring robot broadcaster when she's so on it and those examples do she's doing but she's just so professional but she's fun like when you do a bump into those corporate things she's like having a right laugh about all the people that

are there and stuff she's quite she's quite good. Are you slagging all the people off, are you, Rob? Oh, let's face it. 1,000 people in a room, you've got 200 dickheads, surely. On bare minimum, mate. 400. Whatever room you're in. What's the percentage? Even you go to a gig and you like the band, you ate half the people there.

She's great, isn't she, Gabby? Her son sounds like an absolute whopper. Yeah, I know. You wanted to go, but you can't say the words, could I see a picture of your 15-year-old son? um she's great doesn't she gabby her son sounds like an absolute whopper yeah i know you wanted to go but you can't you can't say the words could i see a picture of your 15 year old son that's true but you kind of want to right yeah can please send me a picture of your giant child please yeah i wouldn't fancy my daughter show jumping though oh god every jump Oh, God. Every jump. Yeah. I mean, were you good at rugby at school?

No, I was just fat. I hated rugby so much. The worst thing about being an overweight teenager is people go... Play in the scrum? No, they go, do you play rugby? No, I don't. But you're saying that because I'm a fat boy. You're assuming I play because I'm fat. We never played rugby at my school

we played it like once and it was a lot of fights they just made us do basketball ping pong or football ping pong that's the only sports i did at school i never did anything else we did cricket for an afternoon but everyone used to just field on the boundary and smoke in the woods do you feel like you're beyond being young now yes so i still think of myself as like the new young comedian kid but i'm not anymore i've been doing it for like what is it uh 12 13 years now and i looked in the mirror the other day and i've got a craggy little eyes but i don't want to be the problem is because i'm the smiley, young, excitable comedian. How do you segue that into middle age?

That is a tough segue. Before you know it, you're Joe Pasquale, mate. Oh, yeah, but oh, God. But he's gone the other way. He started to wear leather jackets and get tattoos. What? Have you not seen him? I'm not across Joe Pasquale, really. Google Joe Pasquale topless.

I'm not falling for that again. He looks great, though. Well done to him. He's got absolutely hench. But I don't know. I'm not falling for that again. He looks great though. Well done to him. He's got absolutely hench, but I don't know what I'm going to do, Josh. I've grown a beard, which I think is quite a good middle ground because you don't want to be

fresh faced. Trying to continually be fresh face comedian is a tough ask. Like, you know, and who's doing that still? Russell Howard's doing it well still, but he's got ripped. He's had his eyes done and his teeth done. He's sort of, he's at this stage now still Russell Howard's doing it well still but he's got ripped he's had his eyes done and his teeth done

he's sort of he's at this stage now Russell Howard where like he looks incredible doesn't he yeah but I think a beard

would set him off lovely now yeah but it's alright for you you can grow a beard my beard's too patchy too rubbish is it yeah it's hard to be fresh faced

in the media forever so you're gonna you're gonna have a dark middle stage to your career then? I've just been watching the Tiger Woods documentary about his downfall and then the resurgence. Can't wait. He is a complicated man.

Well, do you know what? Yeah. We'll wait for Gabby to interview Tiger Woods because he is. But we're always here if you want to talk about, you know, parenting Tiger. We are here. Right. See you on Tuesday, people. Thank you very much for listening. Bye.