Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 15: Sophie Robinson

Episode Date: November 16, 2020

This week I'm talking to Sophie Robinson, a woman who I've admired for a long time, for her passion for putting colour into houses who now runs courses online showing how other people how to be bold with colour and have fun with their interiors. We spoke between lockdowns at her house tucked away inthe East Sussex countryside...in fact so tucked away that even the sat nav got lost! Hers is a happy home is filled with her trademark mix of vibrant colours and wallpapers and I loved her infectious laugh which bubbled up even when we talked about her most difficult time struggling with infertility.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Peloton all-access membership separate. Learn more at onepeloton.ca slash running. Hello, I'm Sophia Lispector and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, so I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, but can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates. Hello, how are you doing this week? What have we been up to around here? It's actually been

quite a busy week for me. I've had an album out. I've done an album that's basically a greatest hits album that's called Songs from the Kitchen the kitchen disco which has been inspired by this year and the kitchen discos we ended up doing our house and it's really made me think a lot about actually loads of things I think um primarily it's made me think about how crazy as I started the year back in January thinking my year was gonna be one shape and then end up another like everybody else but I think there's also something about seeing the physical embodiment of something that came into creation solely because of what happened this year has made me really think, I think, you know, maybe for everybody,

there was a bit back in March, April, where I felt like, you know, we were on hold for a bit, but then life would continue, and then you sort of realise, actually, the significance of everything being put on pause is not something you can just sort of skirt over and then pick up where you left off. Although Although that being said, I have started work again on the album I started in January. So, you know, it was actually really nice to come back to it. And I can't wait to finish that as well. So this week, I've done lots of talking about myself

while I do interviews, which, you know, is as strenuous as it sounds. It's actually really easy and also really nice. Everybody's been really lovely to speak to this week and what else um well actually it's funny because my guest this week is Sophie Robinson who's an interior designer who I've really liked ever since I saw her do the Great British Interior Design Challenge which is a series I watched I watched all the series of it and Sophie was a judge on that and what I loved about her wasn't just that her love of colour really resonated with me, but I always thought she was incredibly warm and supportive and kind to all the contestants as well. And actually, I think in a weird way, that kind of had a bit of influence on me today,

because, you know, like everybody else, I've been spending loads of time indoors, and the weather's been a bit murky this weekend too. So I started the day, I was like, OK, I'm going to put on my jeans and my top and no makeup and la la and then I thought actually no I'm gonna I'm gonna actually put on some lipstick and I'm gonna put on um a dress that you know makes me feel a bit more perky so I put on a gold sparkly one which you know pretty bold choice to be quite honest with you but just about get away with it as a daytime thing I think and you know what it did honestly lift my mood and um I'm by no means suggesting that uh everything can be solved with a bit of color and and you know putting a nicer outfit on in the day of course not but I do think that when you involve color in yourself and or at least attention to

detail or wear something you love it does make you feel like you matter a bit more than you did when you just sort of chucked on anything that was lying nearby and didn't really think about yourself too much but hey maybe that's just me so anyway I'm sat here with uh with my cat Rizzo a cup of tea a room that's a little bit quiet away from the noise of my house which has been quite challenging the last few days everybody seems to have projects on the go and it's busy everywhere but yeah I'm really excited to listen back to the chat I did with Sophie because not least we we laughed so much even when we were discussing really personal tricky things like Sophie's desire to have a second baby um that you know eventually she just realized wasn't going to happen even though she tried for a long time to

lots of different fertility options um but even through that she was uh laughing about about the way it all happened and i think that is a woman after my own heart really it's uh it's healthy to be able to reflect on these things oh can you hear that in the background mickey is shouting my name mommy mommy i better go anyway see you on the other side lots of love enjoy so i've actually been a fan of you for a really long time uh i used to watch the great interior design challenge well done you don't know how often that's miss said oh did i say it right yeah you did not the great british yeah exactly it always gets people so confused well done 10 out of 10 um yes i used to watch that and i think i've always been someone that's really excited about interiors and for me my house is i think

probably the same for you a complete extension of me and i think you were the first person i saw talking so excitedly about colour and giving it a proper a properly sort of grown-up take rather than colour being what wacky people do if they don't know how to mix shades of grey and beige and things so it's such a treat to be in your house because I'm basically just eyeing up everything all the time it's like a sweetie shop isn't it it's my sweetie shop but it's glorious and happy and the thing i didn't quite get completely from instagram is that the the big there's a sort of an extra star of the show which is all the stuff outside the window i mean how beautiful is that yeah yeah you don't sometimes in summer i'll share my garden but yeah usually my instagram is just focusing on the

inside isn't it but um yes that is we're East Sussex. We've got five acres outside. Five acres? Yeah. That means there's bits of your garden you probably haven't really visited yet. Well, a big part of it is a meadow. And then we've got a bit of an orchard. And it's all a bit rambly. And there's a pond and a willow tree. And then luckily for us, we're then surrounded by 100 acres of woodland, which is open to the public so we can go beyond our garden and into the woods so it is a slice

of paradise here for sure and actually when we bought the house funnily enough it was for the garden and the surroundings because the house itself was very very beige and so you've been four and a half years but you moved from a two-bedroom flat so this is a big shift yes two-bedroom flat no garden to a four bedroom house with five acres yeah it was a bit like gulp but it was really interesting how it came about because my husband and I were actually renting our house we'd put on Airbnb in Brighton which was a fantastic little money earner for us so we rented a two-bedroom flat while we rented out our four bedroom house to save that was the sort of plan and that took us about six years and then we were house hunting and at the same time my parents had been through a divorce

and were having trouble selling our family home in Warwickshire but then and so my mum was renting down here and then actually that sale went through just as Tom and I were looking and then I just was like well you're looking for somewhere in the countryside outside Brighton and so are we and actually how about us looking together and sort of pooling our money together and that's how we've ended up with five acres but that's how we've ended up with our house for me Tom and Arthur and then you notice when you arrived the very modern annex next door is where my mum is and and actually when we bought this property that was a really ugly carbuncle of a kind of garage situation so we completely remodeled that got planning permission remodeled that and

then she moved in there oh so how does it feel having with you I mean do you does she come like over to the house all the time yeah no yeah well we had to look like have some really serious conversations about obviously living next door to one another I mean I've she come over to the house all the time? Yeah, well, we had to have some really serious conversations about obviously living next door to one another. I mean, I've always had a really strong bond with my mum and we get on really well. And she has been and continues to be enormously supportive of me as a working mum, especially when Arthur was really, really tiny and I was away doing a lot of filming.

She was incredible. And so, you know, I must admit, I was like, oh, we could share a house. And I was like, God, childcare on site, that'd be incredible. Yeah, that's really cool. So I'm not going to deny that that wasn't part of my thinking around it. But also, it was really important that her and Tom had a good relationship, which they did. And the other thing I think that works with my mum is she is quite private. And she's not around here all the time having a cup of tea in fact I'd say that it's more likely I'll go over to her house for a catch-up she's quite independent and when we were looking for

a property she was like I want my own front door I want my own kitchen she because she knew I'd get her cooking for us and all sorts it's all about boundaries you know yeah so she was really clear with that and I thought okay that's why it's going to work because we're going to about boundaries you know yeah so she was really clear with that and I thought okay that's why it's going to work because we're going to have the you know we are in physically different buildings yeah but what has been really great is you know she is there as a backup for me when I need her to help me out she's really passionate gardener which has really helped me because I've never owned a garden before I lived here so it's been wonderful having her knowing and understanding yeah all of that so I think and then she's got us for company because she's on her own and and support so it's actually a really equal I'd say beautiful sort of symbiotic

yeah relationship yeah ideal and so nice for Arthur as well to have his or does she like to be called grandma granny yeah I think she's grandma or granny, yeah. Grandma, yeah. I was saying to Claire on the way here, I've reserved grandma as my name for the future. My mum's a grandma, so I've got digs on that, you know, like my youngest is one, so it's good to be prepared. Yeah. But I think the bond that my eldest has with my mum is really special. So for Arthur, does he suddenly just pop around there by himself?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Especially if she's watching, like, Housewives of Cheshire or something. All the shows we don't have in our house. He loves it. Yeah, exactly. And he just loves going over for a chat.

Arthur loves a chat. He's really in for, like, grabbing a barstool. And this is Arthur who turned nine. he's just turned nine yeah yeah what was his lockdown birthday like is it okay yeah it was okay I think you know as I had a lot of anxiety around the fact that he's an only child and it was a long time without seeing any other kids and I bought a lot of my probably worries around that but actually I think um I think it was fine he said he really enjoyed his birthday because obviously got me and Tom just massively giving him loads of attention he got we got really into cycling bike rides in the woods that was our big

thing in lockdown so I think we went for a bike ride picnic on his birthday it was a bit more difficult with my mum because we were obviously really at that time distancing from her because she's obviously over 70 so we weren't what was nice about the summer we had is we could be together in the garden but we weren't in fact she's still not coming in our house so we're still being really careful but we were able to socialize outside but yeah I mean it was it was it was interesting wasn't it lockdown yeah it's quite weird to think back I mean obviously it went very much not over everything I appreciate that but that actual lockdown bit that there's weeks on end of life being totally turned upside down looking

back on it it's so strange isn't it even now it's like it feels like um such a I don't know if you had this I kept thinking have I just dreamt this whole thing is this really happening and particularly here where you said you know you're in this lush uh you know area the countryside so presumably you're not necessarily feeling like you're in thick of it it's not like you're like buses going past and life happens so you probably weren't really seeing a massive shift outside your front door it's really interesting actually you're so right and i think that had positives and negatives i think one of the positives were that a lot didn't change for us other than we weren't going out to school or to work or me going up to London that was different but we weren't seeing anything differently because we're really isolated here I mean you've arrived you've seen the farm track that we live at the

bottom of yeah there was no listening to anyone banging pots on a Thursday evening here you know so that wasn't so great you know maybe it would it there's a lovely feeling of community my brother lives in Wimbledon and he just has discovered his whole street and they've got a whatsapp group and it was actually a really incredible time to know your neighbours if you lived in that kind of situation so yeah for us it could be quite isolating but then the beauty was is we didn't have any anxiety of seeing lots of people wearing masks or feeling like we had to distance from anyone because there's literally nobody here apart from us yeah it just always keeps it quite abstract I think it's quite hard to tether it into your own reality sometimes and even where we are um we would go to I live in

Chiswick so I go sometimes to the high roads and actually it felt still quite busy with people getting food and that kind of thing but one day Richard and I did a cycle ride through Soho and that was really crazy yeah it was completely empty you know we took photos of ourselves Piccadilly Circus not a soul that was that was when it was eerie yes it was definitely eerie but also well I suppose I don't want to use the wrong word and think I'm no thumbs up for pandemics I'm definitely not but it's quite exciting because you're aware you're seeing something so unusual so you know going through Chinatown going through Leicester Square it was like being privy to something really unique and you know seeing London through a different way as well so it was kind of quite sort of I don't know I suppose just a big shift in what the norm is but I think as as things were

tried to emerge back into some sort of normality those are the bits of London that actually still I don't know I suppose just a big shift in what the norm is but I think as as things have tried to emerge back into some sort of normality those are the bits of London that actually still that feel quite sad now because there's not that kind of footfall sort of little gift shops you'll see people in there waiting to you know serve people but no one's really doing that kind of thing yeah it's interesting isn't it the whole for me on so many levels the slowing down element was the positive that I took from lockdown and seeing everybody else slow down because you know we just rush through life at 100 miles an hour I certainly do and sometimes don't feel like you're coming up for air and while it was massively confronting at

the beginning trying to get your head around juggling work homeschooling and trying to recalibrate the fact that you can't just do everything like things are slowing and stopping and what does that look like and what does that mean and obviously there was lots of anxiety that came up with that but then when because it did go on for so long you had to surrender to it didn't you yeah definitely and I think when I did that and I was like okay my focus is today whatever hideous homeschooling lesson got sent down the internet you know it was just like we're just gonna deal with that today um I think in actual fact has been so good for me to have that yeah just to slow down and then slowly build but I mean you say

you're slowing down but then you said this week you've brought your third online course but you did one during lockdown as well and that sounds like it's a lot of work and passion yeah yeah so um you know part of my part I've got lots of different I've sort of got an umbrella business if you like which is in colorful interior design is the umbrella and then I do lots of things within that underneath there's you know the blog there's a podcast there's brand collaborations and then the growing part of my business is is these online interior design courses which really came about through I was doing workshops I mean I'm just like basically I'm just mad passionate on people having really colorful happy homes if you want one you know if you're wedded to gray and it gives you all the squeals like absolutely there are plenty of people who are going to help you with that.

But if you're someone who loves colour, finds it really joyful, then I can help with that. So I had been running workshops for the last four years, some in Brighton, some in London. I'd get people together and we'd mood board and I'd teach them loads of stuff. And it was just such an awesome day and very much about building a community of people with a shared passion as well and then I was getting all these messages you know would I come to Sydney would I come to San Francisco would I come to Copenhagen you know to do these workshops and I was just thinking you know again being a mum running a business having a family like no that's just not really on the card sounds great but it's not going to happen and so I started thinking to teach online launch one last year that did really well and then did um color psychology for interiors is

something I'm really into was planned to launch in April and obviously I've been working on it since October the year before these take me ages to write and produce and then you know obviously lockdown happened and I was about to launch this course and it was a really challenging time because I kind of had to stay focused on the course launch because I was like it's here I need to get it out there um but not knowing whether it was a really inappropriate thing to do while everybody's dealing with a global pandemic and I'm going hey let's talk about interior design it felt very I felt very uneasy about how whether it was the right thing to do and then I thought do you know what people are locked in their houses and I know this of course is going to

make them feel good it's going to be an uplift yeah so it's up to them whether they buy it I'm just going to stick it out there and if people want it brilliant and that's all you can do and actually it did really well because it is what people wanted. They wanted a distraction and, um, and they wanted some content that was going to be positive and uplifting. So, you know, actually it was, it was brilliant, but I'm not going to lie. The whole thing was, yeah, like you say, with the timing of it. Yeah. It's quite hard to sort of pitch the, well, to second guess the tone sometimes, but I think, I think your instinct is just right and when they say one uplift but also so many people have been really looking properly at their houses and especially if you're someone that's maybe got a really long commute that means you're out most of

the day and you're only really at home at the weekends there might be lots of things you wanted to do in your home or felt like you haven't really even made your home have that much personality or feel like your place yeah this has been a real year for thinking right what can I do here I mean I don't know the same for you but in our house we did loads of sort of home improvementy things or going through cupboards we hadn't done for ages or organizing stuff there's lots of that that went on down during lockdown and I really enjoyed that actually and to properly sort of giving my home a little bit of TLC really yeah even just an edit like you say you don't have to go out and spend loads of

money and kind of completely redecorate. Sometimes going through the cupboards and drawers and thinking, right, why is all this stuff in here? Yeah. It can be really, oh my God, it can give you such a butt. Don't get me wrong, I hate it. I'm a natural hoarder. Are you though? Because this is a very tidy house. I have just had a big, I've just had a big session.

I think you have to do it every year. For example, even all those storage units that you can see behind um on top of there had become a mountain of lego boxes and like it's like a running theme with me i know and it was just always loads of toys and i've got all that storage underneath so it took me a whole day this is the thing it is time consuming i emptied all those cupboards and i was like okay we don't play with that that board game we've never played in four years. You know, just all those sorts of things. And just thinking there isn't room for all this stuff. So some of it's got to go.

And then now the Legos. You're quite good at it then when you start going with clear out. Yeah, I'm kind of one of those people where I have to let it get so bad that I'm absolutely wigging out. And then I go in really hard. You know, like some people do. Apparently some people do like a little edit every month. They'll do like a run to the charity shop every month just getting rid of bits no I'm not that methodical I think I'm half half really I've got always got a pile behind a sofa in my sitting room and this morning was fun because I'd put

there a couple of weeks ago some little yellow wellies that um I thought Mickey might wear but he didn't seem to enjoy wearing them I thought well I'll just they're in good condition I'll pass them on. And I put them behind the sofa and then he found them. He's got a bit obsessed with shoes. Mickey's only one. He found them and he's like,

and wanted to put them on. And one of the wellies was filled with water. And my thought was that it was my 11 year old kit because he's prone to doing like the odd quirky thing around the house. So finding him like experimenting with putting water in a shoe would just not really surprise me.

And as an indicator that I thought, I'll just bring it up at some point. Like that's how many things I probably got to talk to him about like that, you know, daily. And this morning I was sat in the sitting room and I heard drip. And I realised that the welly had actually just caught a leak that's coming through the ceiling.

No way! That's above where all that pile is, yeah. So the welly had just become the receptacle. So it wasn it's actually a leak in my my ceiling wow that's that's what i've left behind today so thank you for having me into your lovely warm dry house there's not a leak falling into a child's welly um i've always got a path to charity shop and um my house is in a perpetual state of it's it's going to be when I've done that I'll get that room done and I've been there over 10 years now I'm sort of trying to acknowledge the fact that there'll probably be a never finished finished state in my home but do

you feel like here I mean to the outsider looking in it looks like everything is pretty much as you want it you know it looks absolutely beautiful what I can recommend is if you do an online course and say you're going to film all in your house it's a really good that's what I need to do me and my husband have been really busy the last few months just you know even just all the bits that never the trims that never get put on the bit of furniture that never gets a lick of paint you know we've done all those jobs that are always put off to tomorrow so to be fair you are seeing it as best, but actually,

um, the, I'd say the old part of the house is done. Um, our bedroom isn't, which is above the living room where you're sitting here. That's an absolute car crash. You'll never see that on Instagram.

It's still got the Artex ceiling that we take some pictures for the before. Yeah. No. Yeah. So I'll take some pictures before, but yeah, it's, it's, it's awful.

And actually we have just got planning permission to knock this through and do an extension. Oh, wow. So that's what we'd really like to do. And actually, we did kind of feel that when we bought this house, we had this kind of idea that we'd love to extend. Because as you've seen, there is all the lovely view at this end of the house. But what do we do? We live in the kitchen, which looks over the cars and it's north facing and it's the smallest room in the house um and that's where we live so you're going to move the kitchen we're going to move the kitchen down wow so this will be open

plan kitchen diner with the views of the meadow and the orchard and all the things that you want to look at which the house offers no picture that that's going to work really well the house has no views at all at the moment so that's going to be that's going to be really big and how much of this house is is your husband and arthur do they they get excited about um yeah so there yeah i'm taking a lot from that pause yeah my um tom does have opinions he's you know some husbands are like oh whatever darling whatever makes you happy he's not that man um he has said quite a few times when we do the extension categorically no more pink anywhere he's like done with it i love i know well exactly and i've taken your mantra pink isn't neutral well this is it pink isn't neutral so yeah clearly we're gonna have pink in the extension but he just doesn't know how i'm gonna slip it in quite yet actually no richard said that about our kitchen and i just

did it anyway and he really likes it so it's fine that's it i mean my office is this very strong house hackney wallpaper on it and when that design first got launched i got the scent swatch and i just showed him i was like isn't this the best thing ever and he was like over my dead body he was like no way that is he he actually thinks that that is hideous it's a bubblegum pink background i know like psychedelic chintz florals through it heavenly anyway i know not to give up on a dream so it just got kind of shelved and then obviously when it came down to do my office he didn't he couldn't really call the shots on that so I did it and all I'd like to say is he loves it he thinks it looks absolutely brilliant and sometimes you and this is one thing I think he's really learned living with me is you do have to see a vision come together at the end you can't

just pass judgment on a swatch of you know wallpaper it's then how it's all you've also got a bit of a trump card it's actually your job just had to wait to this vision comes together i love my mum my mum's so brilliant so my mum considering you know i am an interior designer right for like 25 years love her judgment so when the wallpaper went up and then i got this really crazy fantastic painting it's really big and i love the fact that it's a very full-on painting against a very full-on wallpaper like that's purposeful oh I love that painting it's great but far too much against that wallpaper she just totally tells me how it is you're like mum people pay me for my opinion actually she's always like no you've made you just you made a mistake there clearly and she does that quite a lot and now I used to annoy me

and now I just let it roll yeah what about Arthur what does he have to say he has really strong opinions so yeah he does and he designed and decorated his bedroom oh cool which um was brilliant he was actually five when he chose that scheme and what did he go it's atomic red oh wow um about the same color as your cardigan like really super bright red the flaming orangey red and what i love about it is when we picked the color he was like on all four walls mummy i was like oh my god he's my protégé yeah i love it and then he chose a gentle sky which is very pale blue for the ceiling oh it's got a ceiling paint as well and again that was his idea i probably would have just done it white and not thought about it but he wanted that um and then interestingly I was away with work recently

we had the decorator here and I what Arthur's room just never got finished the doors being just primed white and I'm painting all my UPVC windows at the moment trying to sky the fact that they are UPVC windows it really works actually if you paint them they don't look plastic anymore it's brilliant we will get around to replacing them at one point but this is not not until the big renovation happened so i wanted to do his windows black and um and it was all going ahead i know i had i got the phone call i was like i don't want my windows back mummy and i was like oh but you know it'll help blend in with the black and white tree wallpaper you've got and it's you know and i was trying to justify it and he went no no it won't because I like the fact it's all light and bright and the

black will kill the sunlight and the white just reflects the light back into the space wow how old was it was this recently this was recently this is age nine now that's very impressive but he like really understands so I was like okay fine yeah you're right the white window will help like the room feel lighter so yeah we'll go with that and does he get involved in like his you know how other things like what he wears and that kind of thing is he one of those he's less interested actually he's less he's never been that interested in what he's wearing his big thing's comfort nothing woolen nice comfy waistband he's good to go yeah he's and but he does wear colorful clothes he doesn't wear black or navy or khaki or all those boy colors i found one particular brand of clothing very good for him and he gets everything

with bowden he's basically a bowden boy because they just do really good bright colors don't they yeah and they do a really comfy waistband yeah they really know what boy is like it's true so yeah i'm sure that'll change as he gets older. But he does love colour. We just did the little shower room, which is opposite his bedroom. That was all just white loo, white basin, white shower. And I've made it into a rat room. And it's got yellow tiles and really crazy floor tiles, but a pink loo and a pink basin. And he was so up for that.

Oh, good. Which I think is really lovely. So I'm really pleased that he's not doing their pinks a girl's color yeah story he really likes pink as long as it's like a good bold pink yeah no my boys are like that too actually so he had strong opinions on that but I got the green card and then I did a wallpaper in the bathroom and he wasn't happy about that but I said sorry I like it and I am actually going to push back on this one you've got to pick and choose your battles haven't you and a family home yeah so no I have I have got quite two quite opinionated boys in the house yeah but I think if you know be interesting if you ask Tom I think generally he likes the homey vibe in here he likes

the colour yeah um but when we do the extension I am going to let him own that a bit more and actually that's his vibe anyway all the architecture and what windows we're going to have yeah the soffits and all the cladding like he's going to get like really into all of that stuff yeah it's funny whenever you do anything like because I loved all the interior stuff of like wallpaper and soft furnishings and sofa because I get very excited about that but if we've ever done anything kind of more structural, I suddenly find myself unable to remember what height I like a wall, you know, light switch or whether or not I want skirting. So I'm like, what do people normally have?

I suddenly can't remember what the norm is. I'm just like, I just want pretty much what normally you'd expect. And then I'll work within that. Yeah, because that's not of interest to you, those architectural details. No, I'm slightly the same. And when we did our hallway, we had to put a new staircase in. And I was just like lusting over floor tiles and wallpaper um you know paint chips and because we needed to build a new stack I had no idea how much detailing you could on offer you had when you put a staircase in and

that was and Tom just like was just having such a ball with the carpenter going oh we could have this curve here we could have a continuous oak handrail there and this detail could go here like that because he just loves woodwork and carpentry and all of that stuff so that's you know that's brilliant that's a good balance isn't it yeah i was just like i want something that i can put my bright print stair runner on that was like my only sort of yes and do you source secondhand things and vintagey things or is it completely like you is it more like new stuff or actually nothing already yeah you can say lots of old battered stuff in here yeah I mean I like vintage anyway um because I think again I'm really integrating a homely home rather than a show home

and I for me old things just make somewhere feel rich and warm and homely and I think I've always been brought up around old batter bits of furniture and and it is old batter bits of furniture I'm really unpretious with my stuff like one of the reasons why I've got a footstool not a coffee table is because that's where the karaoke happens and the cushion fights and you know the kids love jumping on that and um I don't have loads of like standing lamps and beautiful vases around the sofa areas because this is where the Nerf gun battles happen so I think you know it's really important not to I'm a little bit precious about the sofa I'm not gonna lie Arthur likes walking on it in bare feet and I do find myself going look dude new sofa just no actually yeah I'll

leave a mark what's your karaoke song just out of interest mine yeah you said mentioned karaoke you're standing on that oh it would probably be something like i'd do it my way or some big like it's fun was it very appropriate as it happens some big power ballad somehow i'm absolutely the world's worst singer according to my family they can't argue with my way because you're doing it your own way um so you mentioned you've been interior designing for 25 years so this is something you've been doing since pre-baby did you always want to be a mum at some point yeah yeah and interestingly I think I did sort of because I used to work in magazines and I went freelance in 2005 and I think even then I was thinking oh freelance career is going to be a really good thing when I come to have kids you know I want

something that's going to be flexible so I think I was thinking all the way back then of being self-employed in order to try and create a career that works around having a family and then I met my husband in 2007 I think and I proposed to him after seven months oh because I was like right you're nice I'd like to have your babies let's go I was a bit like that how did you propose I don't think I've actually yeah too much about that yeah I um it was a leap year um and it was February but it wasn't on the day you're supposed or you're allowed or supposed to say yeah exactly bizarre concept when you actually break it down it's a really interesting concept but I think what happened is I knew I wanted to get married I knew I wanted to marry

him I'd obviously pretty confident that he felt the same and there was obviously all these conversations about it being a leap year going on in the media and I think I was like this seriously are we having this conversation in this day and age yeah but we're allowed one day every four years where we can kind of make the biggest decision of our you know one of the most biggest decisions of our lives so I think that was running in in the back of my mind and then I kind of think yeah I did definitely think yeah I'm gonna do it and we'd gone up to London I can't remember why we were in london we live in brighton but we've gone up to london we're on primrose hill which is really close to where i used to live in london and i was like yeah i'm gonna go on the

bench you know the like real like movie spot i'm gonna pop the question and we walked at the top of the problem so we just got stopped tom got a phone call and he was turned around went crap i'm supposed to be in brighton for a meeting we gotta go and it was like oh okay and I remember thinking oh that's such a shame yeah anyway pelted back to Brighton got another phone call on the train the meeting got cancelled or postponed so the whole thing was a bit like that and so we ended up in this pub together in Brighton around the corner from where we live and I was a bit deflated. And I was like, I'm still going to do it. I just asked him in the pub. And it was our local sort of, you know, local to where we lived. It was lovely. Just like a really rainy

February, whatever, Wednesday. A couple of old boys in there. And Tom just thought this was the best thing ever. He was so thrilled because he's quite a disruptor. He loves anything that's slightly anti-established, like how we're supposed to do stuff. So he thought this was wonderful and bought everybody in the pub a drink. But it was very interesting then when it came to ringing our dads because then Tom was like, okay, well, you've now got to ring my dad and ask for his permission. So I was like, yeah, okay, I'll do that.

So I ring poor Tom's dad in Bath going, hi, Sophie, can I have permission to marry Tom? He was just like, he got really freaked out and thought I was coercing Tom into some marriage he didn't want to be in. It all went a bit weird. So apart from that, it's just really interesting what other people's, you know, especially that generation, their expectations of the man should ask.

Yeah, it took them much longer to get their heads around what was going on because even when you talk about like that is such an old-fashioned idea that that's the way around everybody kind of anticipates yeah maybe this is like one of the you know another thing that needs to be sort of spoken about a bit really because as you say it's such a massive decision we're so for you know marriage being equal partnership you, it's such a massive decision. We're so for, you know, marriage being equal partnership. You know, it's not all about taking your husband's name and having a traditional role. That's completely shattered. That's a thing of the past.

And obviously you can go have it however you want it, but that's not the expectation anymore. But we still have this last remaining thing of the expectation is that you're going to be asked. And I know so many women have complained so much about they've been in a long-term relationship and everything's great and maybe got a kid and it's still you know but I'm waiting oh he's not into marriage so we're waiting for that and it's like you just wouldn't hear it the other way around yeah no and also I think as well one of the reasons why I did it is I was probably at that time in my life where low everybody was getting engaged you know suddenly everyone drops like flies don't they yeah and then the next year's just the summer of weddings yeah exactly it was around that time but so many of my friends whinging that they oh I can't he's

he hasn't asked me yet I want him to ask me and just like I was just like seriously this is this is nuts because these women are successful empowered awesome and are they whinging because their boyfriend won't ask them yeah it's a bit pants it is I mean obviously we're all open to the idea that whether or not actually getting married is for you that's completely a different topic but waiting for this sort of auspicious day when they're gonna ask in a certain way is really really old school I think with my family we had the bit of that was unusual about Richard and I as we found out we're having a baby very early on um so the marriage actually came I think uh suddenly about 14 months by the time we got married but the bit was that was really

weird is that I'd only just started dating and then I had to tell people like my dad that I was I was pregnant and my dad's first words when we said we were expecting a baby was so you've had sex then yeah i think i think it was shock about um yeah it's quite immortalized that now it's like yeah sorry dad it's definitely definitely happened yes once yeah that horse is bolted yeah he went and then he went a little bit loopy and then he started asking like Richard where he went to school and all this kind of thing I think he was like in total shock he was I remember he was like rubbing his hair like this at the same time I think it was like a self-soothing sort of rubbing himself like to reassure himself yeah life was still gonna be okay even if his daughter was knocked up but um yeah it's quite funny have you got any sisters or were you the so from my family

I'm an only child from my mum and dad. And I was on my own till I was eight. And then my brother and sister and my mum, so I was born when I was eight and 11. And then my dad didn't have kids till I was 17. Right, right, right. So you were his girl at that time. So yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I thought my eldest turned 16 during the lockdown. And I think my dad would have loved it if he'd had an equivalent for me at teenage like a four-year lockdown would have been great my dad sounds quite similar I'm not gonna lie it's like he didn't mind me dating people he just didn't really want to know about it no no yeah that's fine with me oh that's brilliant yeah it's a whole multi-layered thing isn't it I mean I think my dad had a really it took him quite a while to get his head. And I, you know, I wasn't 16. I was 34 or something. It still took him ages to get his head around it.

Yeah, it's quite a bizarre kind of thing. It doesn't have us like, yeah, like enclosed in amber. Like you're going to stay at this certain age where innocence, nothing can touch you. So when you when you found out you're having a baby were you working at the time using all your yeah so we um so we so so we got married the year after the engagement and then I actually fell pregnant on honeymoon honestly I was like let's get this done I was sort of not it that sounds really awful no it doesn't it was it was not you wanted a baby it was yeah I was just really, not, that sounds really awful. No, it doesn't. It was, it was not getting this done. Just when you wanted another baby.

It was, yeah, I was just really clear that this was what I wanted to happen. And as is quite common, miscarried that pregnancy. And then fell pregnant with Arthur very soon after that. So it was all sort of, you know, everything was going to plan. I was working in TV at the time, but not on camera so much, off camera, working on an interior design program, doing all the room reveals. So it was quite a punishing, it's a really punishing schedule to be involved in, you know, away from home alone, lots of traveling up the M1 really really full-on time um and then arthur arthur came along and yeah

i i stopped work um for well i kind of told myself i give myself a year off and my mum was quite heavy on me about this about how you have to make the most of these opportunities and embrace motherhood and she's my mum didn't have a career after she had me and my brother right so um she's really passionate about about that so well and I kind of get it I kind of knew where she was coming from and I did really listen to her and this whole like you know as every mother's heard they grow up so fast you know that was always really drummed into me so I thought right I'll give give a year and I again being freelance it was okay I could do bits and bobs I mean I remember hilariously got asked to do 60 minute makeover um on screen designer which is a show that I'd done

I'd kind of dipped my toe into a bit and I thought okay yeah I need to do this like this is an opportunity I need to do this and we've got a we've got a motorhome at the time Tom and I and um I took my mum in the motorhome yeah a little motorhome took my mum in the motorhome with Arthur I was breastfeeding and just did that classic thing of running in and out for feeds doing a bit of filming and mum sitting in the motorhome with him all day so we made it work but it was looking back on it it was insane because I just didn't even know my mind but it was good fun how was Arthur then three months oh yeah um and yeah and then there might have been another couple of smallish things that that came in but yeah it wasn't until and I breastfed him for the first year so it was really

that was the break then that um he didn't go to nursery or anything but I could do bits and my mum and my mother-in-law as well was really hands-on they would sort of cover me for bits and bobs so it was just slowly working part-time I suppose really and pretty much until he went to school actually okay just keeping that balance of yeah four years yeah yeah I think with the work when they're little as well you sort of try to emphasize because that's obviously who you were before you had a baby and then sometimes some of it feels completely fine and natural other things you think this feels just a bit wrong and I don't really feel like this is quite where my head's at

right now because you know I completely forgot that I did interior design challenge when he was two it's such a blur isn't it I've just said you, did I not work for four years? Oh no, I did. I did that TV show. Which must have been a big hit. Yeah. So that was interesting. So I basically, oh, that was it. I'd actually decided to give up interiors after having Arthur. Oh wow. Yes, I had. I thought, oh, I'm just, you know, cause it is quite, I was doing much more sort of styling work. Giving up interiors to do something totally different. Yeah. To do something totally different different and this friend we'd met me and Tom had been to holiday um traveling in India and we met this guy called Dr Kamraj who's a yoga teacher and a naturopath and he came and lived with us for a bit in England and then I was organizing yoga retreats for him so he'd come

over and I'd organize his yoga retreats and I just loved it it was really nice it was a totally different thing and I was like yeah I'm just gonna I'm gonna get into that because I can organize a venue and I can actually do yoga yourself yeah I was doing yoga myself a lot then and I was just really interested in that whole scene so I thought I was gonna do that and then BBC2 rang me up and like we're launching this new show will you screen test for it and to be honest I've been screen tested for so much over the years of which nothing ever happens so yeah I just always say yes and I go along and do my 12 and then either hear from them or not hear from them but that one actually did end up with a

commission with me and Daniel judging it and Arthur was two I think or coming up to two um and so that was super challenging because that was a 14 week filming schedule away from home for three days and usually three nights every week um and I think he'd sort of started part-time nursery by that point but I had a childminder come to the house at seven because my husband had to leave work at seven so she'd come at seven have him till nine where either my mum or my mother-in-law or he'd go to nursery and then he'd do that and then they'd have him off in the afternoon and then my husband would put him to bed and it was quite a massive logistical nightmare and looking back on it it

put strain on all of us put strain on my husband he actually hated it when I was working on that show because the other thing was I'd come back and I'd be so tired because I'd been in a pair of high heels for three days just you know talking constantly so I'd feel completely like an empty vessel and then you know I think my my mum and Hilda never moaned about it but it was asking a lot of their commitment at that time which they were happy to do I don't think they'd be so happy to do that now because they've very much got their own lives but at that little time they were happy to support me doing that but I found it yeah I found it really tough and so I did design challenge

for three years and then I had to be like oh that was it then he was about to go to school and those 14 weeks are through the summer and I thought actually I don't want to do this anymore because I won't see him in the summer holidays and he is growing up really fast so I'm glad I did it for those three years it was cool I loved it was a brilliant program but yeah I don't I don't think like I'm glad that's not my life I've just always been away from home. I'm glad I've now got a career that's much more suited to my terms. Yeah, I was going to say, it feels like you've carved out exactly what works for you.

I'm quite surprised to hear you nearly stopped doing it because I would have thought it's something that is so inherent in how your home life is, not just your day job. Do you think that was partly like just just did you feel like any sort of I don't know doubts about your confidence about doing it when you had a baby or is it just more that you just thought I'm not sure how I can make the interior designing as it presents at the moment work for me with a with a small child oh you're talking about when I decided to give it up all together no that actually to be fair the giving it up all together was because I'd been I'd been an interior stylist at that point

probably about 15 years and I'd really done it like I'd done every photo shoot for every magazine all the brands I was getting really bored of it actually and it was getting up at five going to the flower market packing the car going up to London sitting in the Blackwall Tunnel for 45 minutes you know it was um and also it's such a wonderful job and I remember when I loved it and it was so creative fulfilling and I sort of after having Arthur I was thinking I'm not loving it finding it knackering and then I've got to unpack the car at the end of the day and I've been doing this a long time and I just need to yeah the love's gone I really felt that the love for this

is gone and that's not good because this is a creative job and there's loads of people who'd love I kept thinking that I just kept thinking there's loads of people who'd kill to have this job yeah and I'm whinging about it like that's just not good it's time to have a refresh so really that I just fell out of love with it and interestingly I haven't actually gone back to styling so even though I'm still working with interiors it's morphed into something else and Instagram's arrived and that's allowed me to have my own mini magazine platform if you like so yes I'm still creating content I'm still sharing my knowledge of interiors doing lovely pictures but I'm the client if you like I haven't got some miserable editor going well actually we've decided that we're not going

to go with Scandi on the cover this week we're going to go you know and just being you know it's just annoying sometimes when someone else is pulling the yeah strings I love the fact that I'm not completely my own boss and what's interesting as well with working with brands on Instagram and brand collaboration from because of my stylist background that I'm they're not giving me the brief they want me to create the brief so it's exciting yeah so um so I I've found a new career if you like and that and rekindles my love for what I was gonna say do you think you love it as much now oh yeah yeah yeah and and I think before when I was a stylist you know I'd have to do new ways with neutrals I'd have to do whatever it was it wasn't about me and my love

of color or taste it was just like whatever the editor wanted and now what's happened with social media is it's all about playing to my strengths yeah and I think when you do that when you have a job that really is the full expression of what you genuinely authentically love and are good at then you're just even better at it aren't you so I sort of feel on so many levels that I'm better than ever that what I'm doing and able to share genuinely what I know about interiors without having to fit into anybody else's expectations it's brilliant and it's thrilling and everybody's doing it it's great you know it's not just me it's like everybody's doing it it's wonderful yeah kind of new realm

of ways of passing on your knowledge and inspiring people no it's so true exciting when you phrase it like that as well you say like the way that it can be much more I mean you get people that haven't that find their own voice of like on things like Instagram in a way that new jobs new opportunities that just weren't even there before and it's like that sort of magazine community thing that can form where you can cultivate that but do you think do you think you would have always found your way back to interiors anyway well when I got the job so so it was all ready to to ditch it and try something else and then design challenge came along which did give me a whole new you know that was a whole new thing a whole new craft working in tv and me and Dan loved seeing these new designers and they

were so inspirational and innovative these are people who weren't trained in design who were given like 750 pounds or a thousand pounds to completely remodel a room we were just like wow you know they're awesome so I think that really rekindled a big passion and then interesting it was my tv agent said to me oh you know Sophie I don't necessarily think the future's in telly she was very visionary I think the future's in youtube or instagram and this was when instagram was really it was around but nobody was really using it so I was like oh okay if you so. And I sort of opened up a YouTube channel, which I've since, that kicked to the curb because Instagram for me is so much more immediate and easy to tap into because I'm not into editing or I'm not a tech geek. I just go on stories and it's out there

and then it's gone and then we move on. But yeah, so it was interesting that that's what she said. But yeah, so it was interesting that that's what she said. That was where the future was. And I think for me, for sure, she's right. I've never been busier. I've never been, my business has never been more lucrative since I started up my own Instagram and that whole world. So yeah, and it's empowered so many people, hasn't it? It's empowered so many mothers who can do what I set out to do have

that perfect balance of being present for your kid being able to do the school run and then sit at your desk and create a revenue for whatever whatever it is yeah I've got friends who are fine artists and painters and they've always been scrabbling around and suddenly they're selling work directly on Instagram it's awesome yeah I've discovered so many people like that on Instagram and I love it it's like I get really excited about all the possibilities of what's out there I know these people who are really talented and have these sort of cottage industries where they buy you know you buy from them direct and follow their work and it's really nice and you know sometimes you'll buy something from I don't know an artist on Instagram

or for me on things like eBay and Etsy as well and And you get like a little handwritten note that comes with it. And I just love that kind of love that goes from one place to the other. And like you really feel like you're actually tapping into something that's more than just buying something. And I look at a picture on the wall of it. Oh, yeah, that was from that girl and found out a little bit about her life. And it's really nice. It's super nice. And it's always been there.

But now we can hear the story, can't we? Because it's not going via a department store or via an art gallery, which takes the soul out of it. We are exactly having that conversation directly with the artist or saying, well, I love this, but could you do it in this size or in this colour? It's super, super exciting. It is.

When I knew I was coming to see you, because I was thinking I haven't actually spoken to many people who've got one child. And I thought it was by choice. And then recently I saw on Instagram that you've just had a birthday and it was quite a big milestone for you because it was a sort of like in your head. It was when you were going to officially sort of stop trying for a second baby, if that's what the fates had in store. And I thought that was one area of our lives for some reason everybody feels they're allowed to make very personal comments it's always about kids and I mean from the moment I had one it was are you going to have another and then you're having another it's about what gender it is and people make these really sweeping but incredibly personal

comments and they do it really from the get-go and I thought for you that must have been really tough when you've had your first baby and then everybody starts asking when they get to like two or three about having another one yeah it is tough and I think what we need to do more is share that it's tough you know these conversations are tough because I'm sometimes amazed that women as well women to women are still coming out with these really blunt inappropriate insensitive questions 100 i mean from my point of view as you've probably gathered talking to me already is i my life has just been going to plan up until up until this fertility issue you know i very much like found the man got him right tick ring on finger next and you know I suppose um you know and I you know and I got my dream tv job I was just like winning at life totally you know it was it was everything was really peachy

and as I said you know there was an unfortunate miscarriage but I was told that was so normal and then got pregnant again really easily like I had no idea what was coming I just thought everything and I was going for three was my number I left it too late to have five so I probably would have started earlier who knows because I'm quite greedy I just love more more more give me more joy kids are great let's have loads of them I love cushions I've got loads of them you know I'm a maximalist in all areas of my life so I just want I just really wanted the crazy house full of loads of kids and chaos. I just thought that was just the dream.

So I had Arthur and actually, you know, typically it was quite a traumatic birth. So I was like, oh, I'm not rushing into number two just yet. Let's recover from that, shall we? You know, so it really was probably 80. He was 18 months at least before I was even able to consider going again and also I was working in my dream tv job so then I did this crazy thing looking back now crazy thing of trying to time my pregnancy to work with filming dates I don't think that's that crazy well you know had I known what I'd have known I'd have just gone for it but I was just thinking oh you know I really need if I'm

gonna get pregnant and I'm gonna keep working in the on design challenge then we need to time it this way but I just thought that would happen and then it kind of didn't happen and again I wasn't worried because I was thinking clearly I can just have one when I want one and then I think I was 37 37 and I went to my GP and sort of said oh you know it's not quite happening and honestly it was oh even now she just sort of said to me what do you expect you're 37 like of course you're not getting pregnant and she just made me feel like such an idiot like wow. Yeah, she was so blunt. And then was kind of like, well, the NHS aren't going to do anything for you because you've already got one.

She sounds brilliant. She was really brutal. And I just felt so humiliated. And I just thought, what have I been doing? I've been doing this timing thing of doing, you know, and thinking I can have my cake and eat it. And, yeah, I'm 37 and I should have been a lot more on the case with this no but what was she talking about I know so many women I've got

a girlfriend that had her first baby at 39 I've got another one first baby at 43 yeah this is not the life we're really living well that's that's as it turns out isn't it it's everybody's fertility journey is completely different and everybody's so one thing is for sure, no matter what is going on with you, that is not a helpful response. No, it wasn't helpful. And so naturally I left that surgery that day. I was like, I'm deregistering from here. And then went to a fertility clinic

and he sort of gave us some statistics of 20% chance. And I was like, oh, that doesn't sound brilliant. And, oh, it's a lot of money. And then I went to see a natural fertility expert who was like, you're fit, you're well, you're all good. There's some hormonal imbalances we can sort out. We've got an 85% success rate. So I was like, okay, I'll go with you. So for two years, I did natural fertility work, which meant a really strict diet of no alcohol, caffeine, sugar.

It was very dietary based. You did this? I did that really strictly for two years and looked amazing. Lost loads of weight. My skin was like a 12 year old. Honestly, it's a harsh diet but yeah you look amazing wow so what's that no alcohol no caffeine no sugar yeah no fun yeah and i'm clutching my and no sugar no sugar was literally like no honey no natural sugars no

ketchup yeah i think i was allowed strawberries and blueberries thank you so much and I suppose I just felt really I always kept a really positive attitude that it would happen and was I aware of people asking me maybe maybe not but at the same time I just had no doubt that I was going to get pregnant so I still just sort of maybe had a niggly worry but I was just like yeah you know this is going

to happen we are very much encouraged as well to think that your own mental take on it is part of the picture yeah may or may not be the case really I mean being positive is always a good thing for anyone but you're also encouraged to think that's maybe going to be the thing that might help you oh I tell you the one I've just remembered now the bit of advice used to really wind me up though oh when you stop trying it'll happen oh my god how unhelpful is that so unhelpful what do you mean unhelpful is that yeah yeah I remember that one a lot if anybody's said that to anybody in the past never say again it's really unhelpful because you know you literally in your late 30s you know and this is now rolling into my 40s now this was this would have been happening um you know I'm like I can't hang around you know I've done that

I've done that oh it'll happen I've already been in that zone that didn't happen that didn't work so now I have to do in the trying a bit harder phase so I was in the trying a bit harder phase and trying not to get stressed, doing things like not working in telly to try and not have that insane stress. But still continuing to work because I was thinking I'm not going to put all my eggs in one basket. I'm not going to give up working just for this. You know, it's a balance, isn't it? You're a rounded person. You need to have definitely other things in your life. And I remember thinking that I'm not going to give up my career for this because I think that would be a mistake

and it would have been because then I'd literally been left with nothing and then um oh god this is like with any fertility story it does go on so the the natural thing didn't produce anything and I think they basically the ladies basically said to me, oh, you know, they started feeling like they couldn't do anything more for me. So then I hit Harley Street with a massive checkbook. I said, take all my money. I'm going to try IVF. And did one hideous round of that. So my beautiful, natural, clean body just got pumped full of, you know, everything.

And that was a very, very upsetting experience. I think that whole fertility world could take a good, long, hard look at the way they treat women, especially of a certain age. Yeah. And then they basically said my eggs were too old. They actually said that. They're not uh what was it they're a bit flaccid a bit flaccid uh when she tried to put the what is it they tried to put the sperm in the egg it was all a bit it's all a bit flaccid bit old bit tough bit tough

and you never forget any of these things no the language is astonishing it's such a cold calculated i'm offended on behalf of your eggs i know so it's like come on my little old baggy eggs let's go home oh yeah so they didn't they didn't recommend it's a very intensive thing as well ivf it's it's i grew up with my stepmom having rounds of ivf and even from where i was standing the concentric circles of how it affects things i take off my hat to anyone who's gone through it actually i didn't really realize until fairly recently quite how intrusive it is yeah yes you have to have a very positive mental attitude and it was really hard I set up a little whatsapp group with some women that we'd sort of seen we were obviously all going

through it at the same time so we sort of saw each other in the waiting room and we did a little whatsapp and out of the five of us three of us were successful and two of us weren't. Was that a helpful community or was it? I think it was at the time because, you know, we were all supporting each other about these injections that we had to take. And because, you know, it's just really intense and really mad. And it was nice to be with other women who were getting through it. When it turned out that we were the two older women who weren't successful in the three younger one you know it's just so it is textbook and then I did I didn't want to be in that whatsapp

group anymore after that I wished them well but I was like yeah you know I'm done and I'm not going again so you know um so that was that and and all the way through it actually that's really important to acknowledge is you know the older woman who was older than me, who wasn't successful, didn't have any kids. And that was her last time. And actually, they didn't have much money either. And they'd really borrowed up to their, I think her partner was a lorry driver and they'd financially crippled themselves. and I really had to get a handle on how full is my cup actually it's really full I've got a job I love I've got a wonderful son and it's really important in those scenarios to be thankful and grateful and tried really hard and I think I was ultimately successful in focusing on what I have to be grateful and that's what I've always carried through. But it's a funny thing when this is the unquantifiable thing that also my husband and I will never, he'll never really understand how I feel because logically he's like, we have

a lovely home. You have a lovely job. We've got wonderful friends, got wonderful son. Why are you so upset? Like he can't't you'll never understand that and um and I think that's where women who've tried to have children will only ever really understand that fundamental basic yearning which isn't logical I know I totally get what you mean with that it's just um and you know not even all women have it either but for those of us who have it's something you can't talk yourself out with, with common sense. You actually get a bit obsessed, I think. I never really knew what being properly broody was in that way until maybe I'd had my third.

And I really got it then, that yearning, that thing of just, I can't stop thinking about this other little person that might be out there. this other little person that might be out there and and actually when I was going to have my last baby you know I was approaching 40 and I thought I did think I mean I grew up in two households that had fertility issues my mum tried to have a third baby with my stepdad and actually ended up having 10 miscarriages just couldn't carry any term never really got to the bottom of what happened she's spoken about this publicly so I'm not being really disloyal by bringing that up and then my other household my dad's household my stepmom and dad were going through lots of rounds of IVF and trying to have a baby and you know I think I thought when I saw my last baby I'm just going to try and be really at peace with this and if it doesn't happen I don't really want this to be the thing that I just latch onto and can't move

on from but it's easier said than done I don't really know what to be the thing that I just latch onto and can't move on from. But it's easier said than done. I don't really know what it would have felt like if I hadn't. I'm sure I would have had to go on my own journey with it. And I think whenever I've wanted a baby, it's like it sort of fills every part of my head. And the logic is definitely not a factor. It's like very much not a factor. If that was a factor, that was, you know. Logic doesn't really factor very much in my decision making again let's be honest with you I don't find logic that sexy no it's overrated

it really is but I'm sure that Arthur has had lots of I do sometimes worry about the fact because I have got a lot of kids and I do feel like it's not their it's not their fault that I ended up giving them four brothers and it's you know I remember when I told my eldest about having Mickey and he was really sad about it and he said there's only two parents and there's a lot of us to go around and I feel weird I feel like if I hadn't had lots I would have just had just had him I had Sonny just he was four nearly five till we had another baby and I really liked so he did have you for himself for a long time yeah yeah and I was on my own as a child till I

was eight and then continued being an only child till I was at my dad's house till I was in my late teens and I think it's definitely been a big part of who I am actually I think I still carry that only child version of me even though I ended up having lots of much younger siblings um and I think sometimes I do worry that I haven't been able to I'm sort of almost a bit jealous of the idea of having just one where you can just put that focus because for me the kids get more and more complex the older they get I've heard yeah yeah and that's why I was thinking when you said you know you took a year off when they're a baby for work that's absolutely lovely but And that's what I was thinking when you said, you know, you took a year off when they're a baby for work. That's absolutely lovely. But really, that's that's like much more for us as mums. But for them as kids, I think they benefit a lot more from having you around when they're older.

And the guilt I feel with the older ones for going to work or not being being there for everything is much more significant than any boohooing bubba I leave behind the door when they're like, you know, before they're two or three. Because I know that, you know, they'll get the door shut 15 minutes after I've forgotten about it. But the older ones will ask me questions. And this is the third night out you've been out, you know, in the last two weeks, or you promised me you weren't going to do that anymore and all that stuff. And that's, I find that much harder. That tugs at my, you know, heartstrings. And is it that they just want your presence or is it that they've actually got stuff that they need to talk to you about a bit of both I think for my eldest two they just like having me around yeah just like knowing I'm in in the building and you know sometimes

Sonny might come and hang out in the key 16 now and he might come in the kitchen and start making himself a cup of tea or I just noticed that he's I don't know got myself a bowl of cereal in the evening but he hasn't actually just taken up to his room he's like lingering yeah I think oh maybe there's something on his mind and I've got to try and sort of find the way in and um I spoke to Katlin Moran about this because she's got two girls that are in their late teens now and she said during the teenage years you have to almost um make yourself like a cow and just moo at them you just kind of turn and I thought actually I'd never thought of it in those terms but I definitely have turned myself slightly buffoonie for my eldest and I know that's like a

weird way of turning it but I feel a bit like Mr Blobby or something so I won't I'll be like this sort of like it's only me it's only mummy I'll probably say the wrong thing or do something a bit embarrassing but I'm harmless and by being this sort of harmless creature I try to encourage him to be as candid as possible so that he doesn't feel I'm judging him or just always keeping him problem solving yeah yeah but I think the teenager I think he needs me the most in a way and it's the hardest thing because he's the one that's on some little bungee cord attached to his bedroom so I sort of have to pull him down to the elastic stretching point find a way to tether him to a chair and then when I'm not looking I'll untie it and boing he's back in his room again I'll be like I'd have to pull him down to the elastic stretching point, find a way to tether him to a chair.

And then when I'm not looking, I'll untie it and boing, he's back in his room again. I'll be like, where's Sonny gone? So yeah, I definitely think the idea of having one child and being able to listen and react and play and all that stuff, there's a lot I've not been able to do. A lot, a lot, a lot.

Yeah, no, as you say, every family's unique and every situation is unique. And I have, like, I had so much guilt for not giving Arthur a brother and sister because I kept thinking he'd be so amazing. He'd be such an amazing brother and sister and he would have done. But, you know, he doesn't know that. He doesn't know the difference. And also sometimes he'd find his sibling really annoying as well.

Oh, my gosh. I was horrible to my brother now I look back and I think, God, luckily he hasn't got a sister like me though sometimes it's you know it's like everything there's like a yin and yang to literally everything and I think this family especially you learn so quickly you know nature taught you in a really cruel way but there are you don't have a lot of control over what goes on you don't have a lot of control over who they are what they need from you what they're going to want to do you know Arthur won't even let you paint his window the colour he wants you know there's loads of stuff I can't I mean he's he's

he's got his father's kind of engineering spatial he loves Minecraft I'm sure there'll be loads of women out there like yeah we get the Minecraft I just don't understand what the heck is going on with it Minecraft is an odd one Kit's built like whole worlds in there yeah and he takes me on tours oh yes yes tours and i have to do the mooing yeah they're like the saddest cities i've ever seen because there's no people but this is an office block this is a hotel this is you know apartments to rent i'm like who are they there's no people in these little minecraft yeah josey takes me on yeah no it's it's it's it is literally another world. And it's fascinating to see that that's how his brain works,

because it certainly isn't how I work, you know. And I suppose with kids as well, selfishly, I was looking forward to the glitter and the artwork and the crafting and, you know, because that's what I loved doing as a kid. It's just never really, that's just not his vibe. And that's cool. So, yeah, you just let, you know, again again it's having kids isn't about you is it it's about them and what they're into and seeing them flourish and that's a real it is a real privilege

and I do learn a lot you know not just that white windows let more light into them that's not just the only thing you know they teach you loads of stuff don't they and for him it's to be because he's quite chilled Arthur he's a very slow chilled gentle child and I'm quite the opposite energy and you know he'll stay you know and he'll he'll call me out on it or if I snap at him too sharply to put his shoes on he'd be like mummy you didn't say that in a very kind way and I'm like okay oh you know it's good he's sort of like calls me out on um on stuff it's it's good yeah he's he's good for me it's good he sounds like a lovely boy um do you think that sometimes when when there's I think they call it secondary fertility issues when someone's been able to have a baby not very easily first time and then struggles do you think that sometimes people can be a bit dismissive of it if you've already got a child

yeah maybe I mean I haven't I haven't suffered from too much of that oh why didn't you have another one I didn't really hear that a lot people are thinking but you've already got one oh yeah yeah possibly um I interest me that maybe some people think that that was a choice I don't know I don't overly worry I have to admit I don't overly worry no that's a good thing about what people because sometimes those things can happen yeah I've got a girlfriend that had exactly that and she just couldn't have another baby and nothing seemed to happen and I think she felt like people some of her friends didn't really quite understand why it was such a big deal. When you've already got one, I see what you mean.

Yeah, possibly. Possibly people don't. What is frustrating with it is, you know, I was never told why. You know, they couldn't ever find the thing that wasn't, that was the reason. Although, and actually, I quite liked the fact they said this to me because it did make me feel better, is the IVF gynaecologist sort of said, it could be that you've got fertility issues that we haven't found out and therefore having your son is, you've been really lucky.

Oh, that's actually... Yeah, and I thought, oh, that's a super way of looking at it. So rather than being lacking of like, oh, why can't I, to step back and go wow yeah you already had such a big gift with it already yeah yeah for sure yeah because it clearly is a very complicated thing that they can't always get to the bottom of no it's very true my mum never found out what the what would cause her miscarriages ever she'd gone from finding it easy to get pregnant to suddenly just wasn't happening no she never she has a theory that it's to do with her immune system and yes rejecting the

pregnancy but um yeah i think they they were talking to me about a similar thing that what it wasn't even getting as far as miscarriage it was just all being the immune system was shutting it down from the get-go because there just wasn't no pregnancies. Yeah. But I can see, looking at this house, it's absolutely brimming with happiness and love and colour. And I feel like, do you think it's possible to have a house that is so loving if it's not so filled with colour? I know this is a controversial issue, by the way. I think anyone with an all-grey house is dead in the heart cold behind the eyes yeah did you grow up in a bright house

I grew up in a really creative house um my parents were kind of like the original fixer uppers my dad worked in the motor industry so consequently as a regional manager we moved house a lot I think we moved six times by the time I was seven wow that is a lot yeah and they would buy wrecks and do them up because my dad liked the he actually loved DIY so even though he was in a suit in the office all week he loved getting sledgehammer out and everything like that the weekend and my mum did all the decorating so yes she didn't have a career I'm using the inverted commas but she was a housewife and fixing up houses so that's what she'd do all day she'd be painting decorating but she's still wallpapers for me here she hangs on my wallpaper yeah she's like super good skill as well yeah

hanging wallpaper yeah she's very very skilled decorator and she's very artistic so um do you remember that sort of 80s 90s decorating craze for paint effects? Yeah, definitely. Rag rolling. Still pulling. I had a rag rolled bedroom. Yes, me too. I think actually mine was colour washed.

There was all of that stuff going on. So my mum was big into that. So it was really exciting watching her creating all these paint effects. It was hand painted kind of grapevines and ivy around the kitchen. It was that really bucolic 80s kitchen you know with the hops and the dried flowers you want the dried flower thing was massive dried flowers everywhere laura ashley knock yourself out all of that as well wasn't it yeah so it was a very creative home because of her and very maximalist and then there was my dad

sort of effing and jeffing because he drilled through an electrical wire or whatever so it was there was always a lot going on but I think I was kind of like woken up to the magic of the before and after from a young age of seeing that what's this horrible house they bought us to to oh wow and just like literally watching it transform in front of us because my brother's in the same industry interestingly he's he works for interior design tv shows so he does all the work and set design and stuff like that so it's clearly you know had a massive impact on us and then yeah and it is that transformation of how when you do a space up how it makes you feel it makes you feel amazing if it's all like anaglyptor and magnolia and blur and unloved and then you bring in the color and the creativity i think is a really

big thing it's not just about rolling out a new color on the walls it is your collection of art yeah your things your possessions your knickknacks it's all of those layers i call it like feathering a nest it's just bringing more um you're right it's not about the color so much as it is it's the whole thing yeah and I sort of found myself like I've always loved design but it has only been recently where I kind of realized that it's a real gift to be able to do up your house because for lots of people and I kind of want to say women because I know it's mainly women who um love my content it is this this homemaking if you like is a creative outlet and not everybody has that and I've always had that and it's really helped

through all my woes of not being able to have a child or whatever it might be being able to be creative in my home has always been my happy it's always lifted me up and made me feel good and if you've got a home even if you rent you don't have to own a home you can have this you can have this creative outlet yeah playing with pattern, with colour, playing around with how things look, how you respond to stuff, working out what colours lift you up, and everybody's got one, and it makes a massive, it makes a massive impact on us, I mean, it's been scientifically proven, yeah, they said, there was a brilliant study by by the happiness institute based in there's a thing called the happiness institute can you believe it's brilliant based in copenhagen and they did

they never have a bad day there they did extensive research into what affects our well-being and happiness and one was our mental health like literally a mental health and the number two was your home and that came ahead of how much money you earn, came ahead of what job you've got, came ahead of your social status in the world and physical well-being came ahead of that too. So I think it's really underestimated. Me too. I can literally have my mood lifted by what I see in my house every day. Just combination of colours. It has a really positive

effect on my head I can feel it happen to me I actually wondered if you might know if there's a word for that because I sometimes if I see like the way two colors look next to each other or just the color of something unexpected it might even be like one of the kids toys or I don't know something I pass or something but I feel like I can get like a lift from it yeah I wonder like a boost of serotonin isn't it yeah well I passed or something, but I feel like I can get like a lift from it. Yeah, like a boost of serotonin, isn't it? Yeah. Well, I think what's really interesting, and this is what I covered in the colour psychology course

that I launched earlier in the year I was telling you about, is we all have quite unique reactions to colour. So, for example, you know, you and I obviously clearly have a similar resonance with colour and we enjoy seeing certain colours together so for example like behind you I've painted my doors like a really acid lemon yellow I spotted that and that I'm just like that's just brilliant to me yeah it gives you something when you but I'm aware that some people are like oh my gosh why do you paint your doors yellow that's a really

hectic colour and um and so it's it's not just going these these are the happy colors although they are they are joy they are from a joyful palette of colors but going back to your sort of question of whether people with all gray interiors can truly be happy um for certain people a very chalky gray monotone is that is their happy place yes I can understand that I did just being immature I was being I did some work with Kelly Hoppin we were on telly together a few years ago and Kelly Hoppin obviously really successful interior designer so successful she's literally made billions out of the color taupe like that it is popular let's just put it that way um and she does it extremely well and she's totally carved that market that she knows how

to do the the neutrals thing and we were filming and I was wearing a particularly leery psychedelic dress at the time and she was like so far you were literally giving me a headache standing next to you she was stressed it was stressing her out wow and I thought that and I don't think she was just you know she was obviously slightly joking but she was also it's true really really hectic colors really stress her out and then I did my podcast in her house beautiful house in bays water or notting hill somewhere like it just like exquisite but and I could appreciate the beauty and the and the you know it was good design but I did not want to hang out there because it was just 50 shades of grey and I found myself making no assumptions about what

goes on yeah and I you know and I'd say this to Kelly's face it's cool I'm not saying she's got horrible house but for me her colour palette bring puts me on a downer it just so for her it makes her feel calm and I guess interior designers can talk to each other like that without offending you I don't know whether they can I'm not sure many I think Kelly can take it she's got thick skin but no a lot of interior designers are very precious but I think it's really important to acknowledge that there's not one size fits all and um and so yes I encourage bright color and pattern. And if you love it, come and jump on the fun bus. Let's go. But at the same time, if it's not for you, then that's cool too.

Yeah, I think some people are quite scared of things as well, because I think if you're someone that feels happy being very demonstrative in your home about what makes you happy, even if it's quite out outlandish and bold I think sometimes that's the language you have to teach yourself not everybody grows up in a creative home my mum like she's got things we've drawn on the wall I was my bedroom at home the rag rolling but then I was still there uh the rag rolling's gone but I'd painted on the wall when I was 11 when we moved in I did murals so I did like one of like a mermaid I did a girl on a horse I did a big cherub on the wall that massive my mum kept some of them and there's a bit on the wall where she's got all of us to write down poems and so this is when I must have been about 15 16 so of course I went like I did pulp lyrics and Emily Dickinson poem it's like the most teenage thing you've ever seen totally um but it has like things my brother and sister did.

And that's been there for a decade. And I think the fact that I grew up in a home where writing on the wall was completely fine if it was something that you were committed to and it was, you know, there to be enjoyed, not there as an act of like rebellion. But I definitely do it with my kids. And if they do, actually, I wonder how you'd write. So one of my children, maybe not in the smartest move not only did you draw on the wall he decided to write his name so obviously i was like ray

on the wall that would take you going to ship isn't it well also i'm like it's not the smartest bit of graffiti you've ever done it's quite immediately identifiable as you but how would you feel about if arthur did something on wrote on the wall or what in here yeah in here oh yeah that's a oh now you see this is really interesting because I was just listening to you thinking how incredible for your mum because she's literally given you permission to express yourself in your own home and I think that is wonderful and I the reason why I think I'm I got on to wanting to because I wanted to be an interior designer from the get-go was because at age seven my mum gave me complete carte blanche to do

whatever I wanted in my bedroom and it was such an empowering exciting experience um and then continued to let me have an influence and a say there wasn't I didn't I did a mural on a door once yeah I remember doing that on a door but not on the walls as such but you know wherever it is whatever surface you're allowed I think some ownership where you're not being controlled and saying oh no darling you need to do it in this color and I'd actually like this typeface and you know it's just like whatever you want and obviously the kids bedroom is the obvious place for them to do that and I would say that yeah Arthur can wholeheartedly do it there probably not in here no I wouldn't like him to do it in here you've got to have one but they've got to have yeah no I think that's really important

to have that space to do it I think it's really really important and i absolutely one of my biggest design crimes is those hideous over styled kids rooms on instagram where okay for a baby fine but i'm sorry when your child's like five or over i mean even before five arthur was very opinionated on what he wanted for his bedroom i think it's one room in your whole house like move over fashion police i know let the kids i do find it quite funny when people have got these really like polite like beautiful like shades of like you know taupe or like there's an odd pop of yellow but it's basically a very neutral kids room like yeah just wait and they go we only want wooden toys no plastic wait i love that you know what's coming the teenage thunderstorm is brewing they're gonna get their own back yeah no I think it's

um yeah because I had that incredible experience and obviously you did too and you know what that meant to you it's just really empowering and it encourages you to be creative it tells you the thing is with children as well whatever art they create is brilliant isn't it so we can't judge it and say oh well no that's you, that's, you know, not the way to do it. So, no, yeah, I think that's really important. So if anyone was listening and thinking what's a good place to start with making their home feel a bit more joyful, have you got something you normally recommend when people ask for a bit of advice? Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of, I think there's a lot of fear around doing your house up. And while I've been extolling Instagram

as being the best thing ever it also gives people a lot of concern about keeping up and you know I've already admitted to you that this house looked like a total car crash before you arrived this morning you were like oh it's so beautifully styled and I was like yeah not 45 minutes ago it wasn't also the sort of mess you described wasn't really well for me you had like some papers out that's very acceptable but I think it's really yeah I think it's I think one of the bad things about social media and and my whole career in magazines is making people that think there's this perfect life that's unobtainable um and it has to look a certain way the other

thing that you have to do and i'm amazed this is still an issue is stop worrying what other people think it stops so many people going for that luscious color or that chintzy sofa or that really crazy artwork is like oh is that a bit much for people judge me yeah like number one seriously that is absolute insanity first of all it's your house and you're the one who's in it. Even if that judgmental person is your other half. Yes, okay. Well, there are another bit of a roadblock that we have to, there's different negotiation tools to get around them.

But I think that's really important. The other thing is to notice, like we've already sort of touched on, everybody's got really different tastes and ideas of what's nice and you're never going to please everybody. So when people are like, oh, I want to sell, i'm going to sell my house at some point therefore should i do it neutral like yeah this house was neutral when i bought it and i hated it and i can't wait to get the beige out so you never know who your future buyer is going to be so you know let's just get rid of all the fear of what other people think and then it's really down to you and you

have to do the work there isn't some you know I'm not going to give you a coloring in book of like do the walls this color and the floor this color and off you go you have to do the work and you have to really understand what designs and colors you like and you have to listen to your heart I think we live in our head so much you know is this a trend am I going to go off it I'm only liking it because it's all the feedback i hear from people it's all head fear and drop into your heart and if you like the wallpaper in my office it came through the post squeals like literal squeals of delight hairs on the back of the neck no you have to have that you have to have that thing if you're getting that kind of yeah yeah reaction but you

have to allow yourself to be open to that you know if you see that sunshine yellow velvet sofa in the shop window and you're like oh you just feel the uplift yeah you know then it comes in the voice going oh wow yeah but will you go off bright yellow you know shut that voice off yeah listen to the heartfelt one so I think for anybody who's looking to be more courageous more bold take bolder choices it's because you need to if you've got that conversation people in grey houses don't have these worries they're happy with their grey but if you're someone in a grey or beige house itch feeling something's not being fulfilled here feeling like the potential hasn't been unleashed then you've got to start doing the work and it could be a wallpaper it could be a piece of artwork it could be a fabric cushion start small I mean one of my sort of biggest tips for people who are totally stuck is take a fabric

you love okay so like this chintz on this sofa i love this fabric so much i've even got a jumpsuit in it yeah it must be very confusing when you sit yeah it's such a good it's such a good fabric but it's because the palette is the orange the pink the blue can you see all the different colors in isolation those are all the colors i love so the pinks on the walls you know the blues on the sofa over there the greens are in accessories and so it and so it goes out so celebration it's an easy way to kick off a scheme is just to start with like a hero pattern if you like well i think it's really so so successful it's such a lovely environment here are you getting hot i'm actually getting really hot now with the wood burner yeah my cheeks are burning no no me too and i've done this weird thing i'm sort of thinking half my

body off because earlier um i went into a coffee shop with claire and i looked down and my middle button had popped open and i'm just really paranoid that's gonna happen again so i've been cautiously holding on to the middle of my dress oh wow wow, Sophie is hot. She's literally stripping off. Luckily I'm wearing a really colourful bra so you'd be okay with it. You'll still come on with me. You'll be prone all the way to the end. I love it. No, I think not only have you let us into your house, we're going to have some lunch. Yeah, we're going to have some lunch. Yeah, we're going to have some lunch. So let's go and eat, because my tummy's been making really loud rumbles.

Thank you so much, Sophie. It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me. I'm going to go and open the window. Oh, I know. It's really fun. Oh, how lovely was that? Were you g along with sophie and i as you listened um it was nice to have a proper laugh actually i found myself smiling a lot and i'm sorry if i offended anyone by um asking that question about if uh colorful homes sorry non-non-colorful homes aren't aren't filled

with as much sort of passion i'm sure it's not true i think it's also just because i'm also a little bit sometimes a bit jealous of people who are able to have very sort of paired back surroundings my so much of my color in my house is derived from very strange items for a grown woman to have like oversized toys and ice creams and things like this so i do appreciate that um people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones um but it was so nice to see sophie and spend time in her color drenched house which um does wonders for my soul and my spirit as did the delicious spinach pie that her husband Tom made for our lunch that day. What a lovely thing that is. It's not often if I ask someone to be my guest on my podcast that they end up making me lunch, but I'm never going to say no to that,

am I? Thanks so much for giving me your time as I speak to you. It is the end of Sunday and the nights are drawing in, so it's pitch black outside, even though it's not actually that late. We managed a little bit of a wintry autumnal, I should say, autumnal walk today in the rain. But mainly we were quite sloth-like this weekend, just spending lots of time indoors and wearing gym jams apart from my sparkly gold dress, as I mentioned before, which I'm still wearing. Anyway, I will see you next week when I will be joined with the lovely Jessie Cave, who recently welcomed her third baby into the world. And we speak all things having a baby during this year,

what it's like to meet the father of your child and get together very quick, and also what it's like when you split up for a while which is what happened to them so i had a lovely chat with jesse i really enjoyed her company too see you next week thanks so much take care stay safe and stay sane Thank you. you