Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 78: Dawn O'Porter

Episode Date: October 24, 2022

Dawn O'Porter is the writer and broadcaster with the sharp bob, vintage clothes and brilliantly witty turn of phrase. We’ve met lots of times over the years and she’s always the best company. She's married to comedian Chris O' Dowd who she met in LA, fifteen years ago. Since then they've shuttled between America and the UK, bringing up their two boys Art and Valentine. She told me how having babies has made her more productive - getting more writing done and having more ideas. And so it seems... Dawn has multiple projects underway: her new book Cat Lady has just been published; she has a new clothes collection out with @joanieclothing, and when we spoke, she'd recently helped put on Flackstock festival in memory of her great friend Caroline Flack who took her own life in 2020. Because her sons were so little at the time that Caroline died, just before the pandemic, Dawn explained she cried in cupboards for months so they wouldn't see her upset. She also talked about losing her mum, aged seven, and how that hit her recently when her own little boy turned seven.Dawn and I had a brilliant conversation where we moaned about some stuff, laughed about others and both concluded it’s good to acknowledge all the good things in life.. and it’s good to wear fabulous secondhand clothes no matter what you’re up to - even if it’s just the school run. Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis Bextor, it is produced by Claire Jones and post-production is by Richard Jones Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. It 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, I speak to you from just outside Westfield. I know, it's all glamour. I'm about to meet my 13 year old he's on half term and he needs new

football boots yeah gets sexier doesn't it this chat I've tried buying them online but I keep getting it wrong and having to return them and he needs them for school so we've come here he's going to meet me in a minute I thought I know what I can do it's past the time I can talk to you how have you been what have I been up to this week actually you know what this week has been pretty extraordinary I've had very little work this week and I've flipping loved it oh my gosh I've actually been managing to get on with some other bits and bobs I've been like a lady who lunches this week I've just come from a lunch with a very good friend of mine, Nikki Palmer, who often works for me doing my hair and makeup, but she's also a friend.

So we just met for lunch. That was nice. I went yesterday out with my mum to a little tea party for actually a previous guest's clothing company, O'Pioneers. Clara, who I spoke to, when was that? Probably the third or fourth series so her shops um doing really well their business is three years old so well done to her for doing that through the

pandemic very impressive beautiful dresses as it happens what else have i done oh i went to another lunch on tuesday for another very clever friend of mine called ella who has a clothing company called yolk so we had a lunch to celebrate that. Honestly, my advice to everybody, make sure you have friends who are really good with making really nice clothes you like. It works out well, guys. What else? I've done bits, little bits of work, but it's just been really nice and leisurely and I can really recommend it. But I guess the best kind of leisurely is when you know there's work in the diary, right? The week after next I go to Australia for a couple of weeks. So that's quite a big deal.

So it's actually been really nice being home every night with the kids and doing the school run and all that stuff. So I see lots of them before I go away. And someone who knows a little bit about going away is this week's guest because she's over in London this week. Dawn O'Porter. She has been living back and forth between LA and the UK and she's here at the moment because she's got a new book that she's come out called Cat Lady which is sitting at home on my bedside table ready to be read and I saw her actually yesterday I think it was on her Instagram she put a picture of herself on

a plane drinking some champagne saying I'm going to really miss my kids over the next two weeks I thought that's the attitude I'm trying to try and have that with me for Australia too going there for some festivals but honestly what a lovely thing to talk to Dawn I've actually been trying to get her on the podcast for a while because I know that whenever I ask um who you would like me to speak to her name comes up a lot so I was very keen to get her to say yes and initially she was like I'd love to talk to you Sophie but I'm not doing podcasts right now you know what sometimes you just gotta hang in there stay in the game don't take no for an answer be really annoying and eventually yes she came around for a conversation and then some lunch I really really like Dawn I've liked her since the day I met her

and I like the stuff that she does I I remember seeing her do a documentary about Dirty Dancing years and years and years ago before we met. I thought, that woman seems cool. And, yeah, she's always really good company. Very, very positive, upbeat, industrious, funny. And her writing is great. Same sort of stuff, really. Witty and sharp. And we just had a really good conversation about so many different things we

spoke about caroline flack and what it feels like to grieve someone you love very much as a friend that's just a very tricky thing to go through isn't it for anybody oh the wind's getting up it knows when i'm recording my podcast introduction i'm hiding around i'm loitering that near the automatic doors of westfield um and we spoke about raising your kids when you're traveling transatlantic i don't know how you write with young children and actually dawn told me i can't remember this is the chat i think it isn't she says i am partly responsible for the fact she's got kids at all because i remember meeting her out one night we were in the same bar and she was saying to me she was we were both a bit tipsy and she said when's a good time to have babies and i was saying there is really no right time so if you're thinking about

it probably best to get on with it she said she thinks she took her knickers off that night so you're welcome dawn happy to help with uh a little bit of family planning when needed. So anyway, I'm going to go inside now because Kit's going to be here any minute. So I'll leave you with our lovely conversation and I will speak to you on the other side. Well, it's really lovely to see you, Dawn. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. I am good. And I'm trying to answer that way when people ask me rather than list all the small, annoying things that are actually going on. I kind of want to know the small, annoying things.

Well, I cut my finger really badly this morning when I was tidying up toys. Oh, on a toy? No, ripped it on the wicker basket. Ouch. Yes, absolutely awful. And you know when you catch it and, oh, that wasn't too bad, and then you look down and it's literally like blood everywhere. Was there a bit of wicker sticking in?

A bit of wicker sticking in. Ooh. Got that out. And so dealt with that, which is fine. I also lost my suitcase the other day at Gatwick Airport, which was very stressful. And it hasn't turned up? Hasn't turned up.

I genuinely think it was stolen. Really? I'm trying to be zen about it. It was one of those situations where I've just been up for a week in Scotland. I'd packed pretty light, so luckily I haven't lost loads of my vintage clothing, which is frustrating because everything's a one-off.

You can't really replace it. But my hair straighteners, I feel like, stop looking at me because my hair's awful because I lost my beloved hair straightener. That's a 15 years that I'm actually going to have a memorial service for. Can you not find a replacement pair well the brand had worn off

years ago so there is I've got no idea what they were they were random given to me by a friend and just perfect and nothing else will do my fringe like they did quite little thin ones they weren't that thin but they were round but not not in a like tongue way. No. They were just, they had this little curve in them which with an air vent along the side which I think just did the perfect bob under and so no,

modern hair straighteners don't have this air vent. I'm going to have to find investment and set up my own hair straightener company. It's the only solution. This is how your next business venture comes into being.

It's the only solution. So that was rather stressful but when you're trying to find the positives in life, which I'm really trying to do at the moment, is my kid's little kind of blanky thing that he's slept with since he was a tiny baby and literally cannot sleep without was luckily in his backpack. Okay.

And so as soon as I realised that, the whole stress of losing the other things just kind of drifted away a little because I just realised that that would have actually been devastating yeah so um that's one of the other little things that's going on but I'm trying to be positive about and then what else um my I keep pulling a muscle in the back of my leg and my child care this week I'm alone with the kids this week and because we travel so much I my um childcare is always uh temporary and usually actresses who are resting okay and trying to earn some money how do you find them i find them great they're exactly my energy i mean literally how are you finding oh i find them on that bubble app

oh okay yeah i usually find people on the bubble app and um which i think is amazing and um because i only back here for a few months so it can't really commit to anybody yeah so this amazing girl has been um woman sorry has um been babysitting for us this summer and she's fantastic but she's an actress and it looks like she just got a job so it means she's leaving on tuesday instead of friday and just that so i've now got to work i'm so happy for you which i am because it's absolutely lovely but um I mean this is this is the reality of being a working parent isn't it you you think you've got it all sorted and then something will remove itself from the perfect plan and you've got to somehow piece

it all together again definitely so just a little bit of that this morning but mostly just upset about my finger yeah the thing that you could have done without the finger yeah you're feeling like oh come on yeah but actually but even as I'm saying all that I'm realizing that I'm at a point going through a really lovely point of my life where nothing major is actually wrong everything's really good and that's kind of unusual and very nice feeling that is a nice feeling and it's good to actually sometimes remember to like actually notice that yes because otherwise life just gets very busy and you're not really thinking about it and you look back and think actually that was a

really nice bit yeah and you've got another book coming out i've got another book coming out at the end of october and um it's called cat lady and it's the it's very weird i don't know where this woman came from inside of me um but she is she's living the life she's supposed to live, and then she ends up living the life she wants to live. Okay. That's the best way to describe her journey. She has a bit of an epic meltdown that was really fun to write, and there's a lot of love for our little furry friends in it.

Oh, how many cats does she have? She's only got one. It's not that the story is necessarily about her and her cat, but she finds a support group for people who are grieving their pets. And she goes there before her cats even died, and they don't know that. But she kind of becomes, it's essentially about finding your community and a group of people that she never thought she'd be friends with who kind of pull her out of the rut that she's in.

But we lost our dog earlier this year, and I lost my cat in 2020 and it really tears you apart like it's absolutely awful and you feel a little bit like you've only got a couple of weeks that you're allowed to really yeah like go into how sad you are about it when I'm potato died in January and I still like Chris and I can't talk about it it's still like absolutely devastating but I was already writing the book about pet grief and he died within that time very suddenly and but it really validated that this is um is it you know this is just a really devastating thing that happens to people whether you're on your own or you're part of a family um and so I just wanted to kind of do that

in the book and like honor that grief a bit yeah and it felt very therapeutic to write about it yes and to acknowledge that it really can be for some people totally devastating yeah really huge and when potato died my friends stepped up enormously they're like one friend I'm gonna Rebecca Bacon do you know Rebecca Bacon Richard Bacon's wife she's she's a great friend of mine she's out in LA she came and sat with me for two hours in my kitchen and let me just talk about my dead dog and when she left I was like god that was that was a really amazing thing to do that not many people think you need when something like that happens. And I was like, you do, you need a friend to come around and let you talk about your pet that you loved and missed for like two hours, because afterwards you feel lighter, but you don't get

allowed that so much when it's just a pet. Yeah. And I think sometimes when a pet's died, you feel like you've got to say, oh, sorry, I know I'm being, I know this is a lot, but actually it was a big part of the family. So I feel like you've got to sort of put these parentheses of it. A little bit. And you should be able to get the day off work and you should be able to like have a moment because it's really, really sad. So I kind of, I like the fact that I've written a book where I acknowledge how that is for people. And I think people who are reading it who have pets will go, yeah, it's really hard um but it's also a fun book and it's also um ridiculous but my character is just a bit bizarre I don't know where she came from inside of me but she was just sitting there

waiting to come out so yeah yeah it's quite funny that isn't it when there's like this whole world in there and you're like oh that's a part of me I didn't really know was in there I know but how brilliant to be able to set that free. I think that's, I mean, my mum wrote a book, she's written a couple of books of fiction, but the first one she did was about a murderous girl in the 1700s in London, and it's really dark. It's really gory, and you wouldn't think that of my mum.

So I quite like that, like, oh, there's another side to you. I love it when people that we know, like personalities that we know from the TV or whatever, write fiction, and we see that they've got this kind of dark side within them I find that that's my favorite that's my favorite when someone that you think you know write something really unexpected yeah and this alter ego kind of comes out in what they write there's nothing more exciting because a lot of the time when you know someone off the telly and you see they've read a book you just presume you're gonna see them in it yeah continuation yeah and so is this your fifth work of fiction now okay is it my fifth work of fiction uh paper planes goose cows so lucky yes my fifth fiction

great i think it's my seventh or eighth book yes um and does the process change each time my process is that i'll usually start writing about two and a half months before it has to be in. And I will go through literal hell and have more self-doubt than should be allowed. Call all my friends, scream and cry down the phone, say I can't do it. I fucked it this time. My career's over. It's absolutely awful. And that's the first month and a half. OK, that's how long left? Two weeks? About that. And then something clicks where I and a half. Okay, that's usually how long left? Two weeks from my start.

About that. And then something clicks where I'm like, actually, I think I love this. I think it's really, really great. So then I start to get really on like this kind of just fairground ride of fun writing. Absolutely love it. And then I'll get my first draft over to my editor

and I'll just wait for it's working or it's not working, essentially, as that first note. And with Cat Lady, the process was really quite intense. Chris was away for the whole four months that I was writing it, and Potato died, and it was just... Everything was fine, but there was a lot against me. It seemed like lots of things kept going against me. So when I first got that note back from my editor saying,

I think it's really good. After that, it's an absolute pleasure. But that first like brain fart draft of all of my books is literal torture for everyone around me. I turn into a crazy monster. I find it so stressful. And I always think this is the book that's going to end my career. And you're thinking, why have I done this to myself? Yeah, absolutely. And I think with this one, this is my book that's going to end my career and you're thinking why have I done this to myself yeah absolutely and I think with this one this is my first book

when I had one character usually it's a multiple you know cast and I cut between them all which essentially you're writing two sometimes three little stories that you weave together which is kind of easier but this time it was all Mia it was all one person that's a whole book where I can't all through her eyes so in first person and it's a harder thing to do right and so literally as I'm kind of halfway through I'm thinking I can't do this I'm gonna have to make one of the other characters and make them a first person character as well and I just didn't give in I didn't give in and I got to the end now I just honestly I love it I think it's the best thing I've ever written oh well I know

which if you'd have spoken to me in February that was not what I was saying isn't that crazy the creative process is a really strange one isn't it it shouldn't be easy and sometimes you know sometimes you think in this life I can work like that for say five to six months a year and then I get a few months of not working so much and then I'll you know have a month I live an amazing it's an amazing job you are in control of your hours I can always be there if my kids are sick. I can always pick them up from school. I can be very present at home as a mom. It's an amazing, amazing job. And it's right that it shouldn't always be easy. So when I go through the creative process like that, and I find it very hard and I find it very stressful and I doubt myself in the way that I do suffer from

terrible insomnia when that's happening. I do think think to myself this is just part of the job yeah you've got to take this as well as knowing that over the summer holidays I won't have to work very much which is an amazing position to be in and I like that acknowledgement of like yeah it's it's okay that it's going to be hard sometimes that's completely fair and right yeah I think it's quite good to have that attitude yeah rather than thinking why is it not just coming really simply I don't know there's a sort of falsity that everything lots of creativity is actually just a really sort of effortless thing right actually no there's lots of stuff where it's the self-doubt and the and the bits where you reach a bit of a block and you have to try something else and thinking how do I chip away

and make that make sense to where I need to get to exactly and also you feel like with every book that I do I feel like I got better and I think the fact that I go through a torturous process every time shows that I'm I'm not taking the easy route on any of this and I'm pushing myself as a writer and I think once you've got to the point where it's just kind of very easy and you're not you don't need to try anymore I don't know if I'd be writing my best stuff um so yeah that's my process and am I right that when you first became a mum that's the process you're in but for the first time you're writing your first I was no I'd already done two fiction books before that so this but that was my first

like proper grown-up fiction right so I'd done two young adult books before that based on me and my life in Guernsey so easier because I had just so much I had a lifetime of research to put into those ones the cows was my first grown-up fiction book and I signed the deal for my first like two book grown up deal with Harper Collins and launched my closing clothing business on the same day when I was seven months pregnant with my first child and And at that point, because the baby hadn't come yet, I felt like She-Ra. I was like, I am incredible. Look at me. Businesses, book deals, babies, just I am smashing it. The baby comes out and that book deadline is seven months later the business was one of the most impossible things I've ever done and like I thought I mean I

just it was I was literally breastfeeding art I used to call my bed my office had him on my boob whilst having my phone or computer like working on the the other hand, begging people for investment for my business whilst also like then switching to a Word document to try and write a chapter of The Cows. It was so hard. Again, I'd still have moments of being like, I'm amazing, look what I'm doing. But then I thought, why am I doing this?

This is all so unnecessary. Why am I being such a martyr? So when I was pregnant with Valentine, when I was seven months pregnant with him I closed the clothing business and I treated that what I thought was a failure and it is a failure but it's okay that it's a failure I felt that was the strongest best decision I'd ever made in my life and so then I just had the babies in the books to worry about and everything got a lot easier but like that but with art I just remember him being a baby and me just I had him with me the whole time but I was just working all the time yeah but I suppose as you

say you you had the bit with the pregnancy where you were feeling kind of invincible so you just think oh and this feeling will continue yeah and it's and it does a bit. And I think, you know, when you've got the second one, your life is kind of already a mess because you've already got another one. So you just know what you're capable of a bit more. But before you have your first baby, you're so determined. I had such an identity crisis when I was pregnant in terms of, well, I didn't personally,

but I felt that everybody else gave me an identity crisis. But just all they would talk about was the baby because I was so visibly pregnant. And obviously when you're in the public eye and you've announced your pregnancy, it's all anybody talks about. Every interview that you do, everything. And then you've got walking down the street

and people just constantly, when are you due? How are you feeling? What are you having? And I was just like, I just want to get a t-shirt that said on the back, don't ask me, when am I due? What am I having? Because I just felt like I've got to get a t-shirt that said on the back don't ask me when am I due what am I having because I just felt like I've got all these other things going on in my life and all

anyone wants to talk about is this bloody baby and I because you haven't got the baby yet you haven't identified yourself as a mother and so I was still identifying myself as someone who just launched a business and just got a book deal and I just I didn't want to just talk about the baby all the time once the baby's come that changes a bit because then you're just you have you can see what how your life has changed by the time you have your second baby I'm like my identity as a mother is as much or even bigger than what I used to be before and I'm fine with that now because I love being a mum yeah and the balance of it all is the fun bit um so I I didn't care so much about

my career and my achievements when I was pregnant with Val so letting the business go was like how can I make my life better and then I what I also did with him is I took it's very difficult when you're self-employed to get maternity do maternity leave you have to decide not to get paid um and but I. I took six months off with Val and literally didn't answer work emails and just said no to everything. And so now when my friends who are, you know, in my position of doing my kind of work,

and they're like, oh, just carry on after I've had the baby, I'm like, you don't have to. If you can afford it, obviously, everyone's in a different position, but if you can give yourself even two months of not stressing about work, then don't be be a martyr about this because you will still be able to pick up where you left off but with art I didn't give myself that time at all I was just like no I'm gonna put the baby out and just crack on with my business and my books and yeah be She-Ra and She-Ra

failed She-Ra lost that battle I mean She-Ra but she's having a really big meltdown yeah she was really upset a lot of the time it's interesting what you say there about that identity crisis because i really understand where you're coming from with that and i think there's a lot about motherhood that's so i'm gonna say this wrong probably fetishized about this sort of like what's supposed to happen to you and and how you can feel like you've totally lost yourself and all you are then is just like the baby's mother yeah and i think pushing back against that you get this sort of rebellion of like i'm still me i just happen to be having a baby at the moment but can we please talk about all the other stuff or

or talk about none of it but don't just just obsess about this impending... Yeah. But do you think some of your awareness of that was also because you're figuring out what it is for you? Totally. And I also think, but from my experience of that, was first baby, don't talk to me about this baby. I'm more than this baby. I don't care about this baby as much as I care about my career.

So just ignore the bump and just ask me questions about my business that is the thing that I'm proud of second baby like can we just talk about the baby I'm so excited about the baby it's great ask me about the baby work what what what was that what was that I mean if I was like you and had five by the time the fifth one came along I'd probably just be like pure 1950s housewife don't talk to me about work I am just so happy being a mum but I feel like it for me I I had such negative you get fed such negative connotations of motherhood sometimes in terms of that it will end something for you some things will become

unachievable it's going to really get in the way of your creativity you're never going to have time to do anything you're not going to be able to think about anything but the baby it's going to change everything and actually that isn't what happens I did feel like now I'm more I'm more productive than I was before I had my kids in terms of work and you know I'm through the baby bit which is helpful but I'm more productive now I get more written more done I have more ideas I've got more grip of my career than I did before I had my first kid like having babies has only made me better at what I do and so in a way I am everything that I feared like I wanted to be when I was pregnant with my first just in that kind of quest to not let go of myself before I think I missed out on a little bit with

my first baby of just being so determined to not let go of the dawn I was before I had him and like I said with Valentine I was just more just kind of like just gonna be a mum for a bit yeah but I think that's really um I think that's a really understandable thing all that because you're right that there's there's this impending feeling of like, when this baby comes, I'm going to lose part of my ability to focus on what I love, to be creative about it, to still make unbiased decisions about what I want to do, because if that's the fire in your belly and what's been your motivation,

that being threatened is quite a scary idea. Yeah. And you don't know what's on the other side. You're like, well, this is just happening. I'm on this ride. And am I going to find myself easily on the other side? I think I definitely felt like that. But it took me longer than you, it sounds.

I felt like the first maybe couple of years, I felt like I was still finding myself again in terms of how do I make sure that all that stuff that was so me is still part of my life now, even though I'm also Sunny's mom. So I found that really tricky, actually. Yeah. talks, you define what it means to be a runner. Whatever your level, embrace it. Journey starts when you say so. If you've got five minutes or 50, Peloton Tread has workouts you can work in,

or bring your classes with you for outdoor runs, walks, and hikes, led by expert instructors on the Peloton app. Call yourself a runner. Peloton all-access membership separate. Learn more at onepeloton.ca slash running and i wonder as well because i've i've read a lot of times you talk about your independence and how you felt like you had a lot of independence through your childhood and your upbringing so it's obviously something that's a really massive part of who you are yeah so that being that tree being a little shaken as well it's true I mean I was I was because I lost my mum when I was very young and

so then I was raised by my aunt and uncle which was great but they weren't my parents there's just one step removed on the fact that they you know how independent you are from them from like an earlier age which I you know the time might upset me sometimes but now I think is great but um oh I was going to lead on to a point there and I can't quite remember what it was but I do think um oh but I but I so I was always that way and even up until I think I had a heart when I was I had a heart when I was 36 and up until about 33 I didn't know if I wanted kids I was very much like I don't know if I can kids. I was very much like, I don't know if I want that. I want to, you know, I like my independence. But then I suddenly, I think I must have been around 10, 35,

and I just woke up with this, like, I need to fill my womb. I have to have a baby. Almost like I was bored of myself, and I didn't, and I just fulfilled or got to the end of the line of like what I could possibly bring to my life and then just needed something to come from somewhere else and it would have been it was my cat in my 20s the last time I got that feeling but then as you kind of hit your mid-30s I was like oh it's a baby I think oh my god I want a baby then it was literally like knickers off impregnate me I need a baby I suppose that's being broody and it's yeah it is but it was I couldn't believe how physical the broody feeling

was it was not oh I think one day I'd like to have a kid it was like it was it was animal instinct wow yeah I don't think I've ever really had that feeling because I had I had my first one I wasn't really expecting to be pregnant yeah so you never had that feeling of needing or wanting one but it was yeah I remember my sister was the same she was like suddenly god I need to have a baby so I really wanted art I really wanted my baby so much but I just hadn't quite worked out how to not be the person I was before but almost as soon as he was born I was like okay I'm all of these things now fell into all the roles very comfortably and I've spoken to a few people now who they've lost a parent when they're young and it's affected a lot of different ways and for some of them it's made them feel like

they've sort of not got a map of what like motherhood that style of parenting looked like is that how you felt I really didn't it's really I feel like maybe it should have affected me a bit more than it did but I've lived with my aunt and uncle since I was 10 and my auntie's like you know just feels like my mum I was we were very much a family of four um and so I had that figure in my life I think she's such a massive influence on me that I I don't feel like I was missing that influence. I don't feel like it wasn't there in my life. Also, my sister had kids a couple of years before me, also weirdly two boys. And I'd spent so much time with her and her kids that I felt like I was just moving on from that. I didn't panic about it. I feel like I am a very maternal person.

Whether my mum had died or not, I think I would have always been a very maternal person. And even if I didn't know if I wanted kids, I've always had a maternal kind of sensibility about me. You don't have to have children to be maternal. No, not at all. Some of my most maternal girlfriends don't have babies. But I do think that people ask me a lot actually if when you got pregnant did it really did you miss your

mom did you start to and i just really didn't time the only time that i really felt it she died when i was very young she died when i was just before i was seven so i don't have like memories of her so i don't i've never i've never missed her it's not like you miss that person you feel a gap in your life and you wonder like what was supposed to be there but it's not an actual when my friend's parents have died as older who have had a lifetime with them they miss them I don't have that feeling so it wasn't like when I got pregnant I wish that she was there it was it's a different kind of grief it's a different kind of emptiness that you have so I had my when I had my kids I had my auntie and my sister

and I feel like I had everything I needed um but the only time I ever really felt it was this year my eldest art his birthday is two days after mine on my birthday this year he was the exact age that I was when my mum died and I kept having these moments I was looking at him just going I always thought I was a little girl and that it all you know I remember I remember it very clearly but I I think I just thought I was younger and less emotionally mature and I look at him and I'm like god you know exactly what's going on like yeah if that happened to you now, or to me, so what would happen to him,

he would be absolutely distraught. And you realise, so I just realised what trauma went into my body at that age and what kind of got buried. And it came up a bit this year. I was like, oh, God, like just seeing that's exactly the age and that's what I would have been like.

Yeah, because six, seven, that's, yeah, you are's what I would have been like yeah because six seven that's yeah you are I mean they say show me a child of seven and I'll show you the the grown-up don't they so there is a lot that goes on sorry it's I've always found that phrase a little bit I don't actually remember where it's from I think it's from um it's not George Orwell but it's someone like that I'll find out yeah but um it I've always found that quite a scary one as well because it means that you it's possible to sort of bugger up quite a lot of aspects of parenting very early on yeah great can I have a little extension on that please there's some things I haven't quite got right yet but um I think it's interesting those things um when you do look at your kids

and it holds a mirror up to the age you were when certain significant things happened I mean I haven't lost a parent but I had my parents um divorced when I was little and I was an only child when that was happening so all those ages I've got my memories they're sort of like little fractured memories and some of them probably aren't real memories they're sort of cobbled together from photographs and stories I've heard and sort of made into something that may or may not have really even happened. But when you see your kids that age, you're like, oh, that's, yeah, they do take a lot in. Yeah, and you would have taken it all in. But obviously you can't hold on to every memory in your life,

but it still goes in, all the things that are happening. You said something really brilliant on Instagram last Christmas where I always really stress about Christmas. It really, really stresses me out. It means so much to me. i'm like a planet in you know february like where are we going to be what are we going to do what family can we be with blah blah blah and it's always about christmas day it's always christmas day and you said on instagram you came from you know uh have you allowed to say broken home or is that a really terrible so i think that's what you said or you came from family uh parents that are split up so Christmas was more than just a day and the

Christmas period because you obviously wouldn't be able to spend Christmas day with both your parents it totally changed my like stress factor about Christmas I'm like so the last year we went to Ireland to be with Chris's family the week before we just did Christmas and then we spent Christmas day in our house in London not with everyone and I for the first time ever didn't feel like I had like failed by not being in a thousand places at once on Christmas day oh well I'm glad yeah I was thinking you have to think of it as a season yeah rather than there's a day because there's too much emphasis on that day and I don't think anything brought that home more than the Christmas we had the year before last

where London was in the area where we weren't allowed to suddenly see anybody. And so we had Christmas Day here, just us and the kids, and it was basically just as if we were having a Sunday lunch, and it was really pretty miserable. And at first, you had that instinct of just, oh, just pack it all up.

What are we doing this for? Why have I bothered with the decorations? This is rubbish. But obviously, you know, it was fine. We got through it. It was all, you know, it could have been a lot worse but it's like you have to have that um it's a season but thinking over why why is Christmas why had it become so significant do you think I think I think because I remember my mum's last Christmas I think I just associate it with I mean maybe there's a there's a morbid side of me that

it's just like you don't know what's going to happen the following year so you've got to make the most of this day where people come together I think there's something kind of deeply ingrained in me that it's a really important day it's family family memories the photos the just all the the moment where you will just come together and I love it and also basically I love it I love the food I love everything about Christmas day I love everything about Christmas day I love cooking it all I love spending five hours in the kitchen I love all of it and I just need to I think so there's that and then there's just you know my family's my my parents my aunt and uncle I call them my parents are in Guernsey my My dad's up in Scotland.

I love friends' Christmases as well. We've got all of Chris's family in Ireland and then my sister in Bristol. And I just wish we could all just be together. I just find it very... I just want to spend good Christmases with all of them. Yes. But it's never going to happen that we're all in the same place. No, spread it out. Spread it out. Yeah. So I think I just get very kind of,

are we with the right people? But we're lucky, I think, because that sounds like both of us actually have a very positive association with what the essence of it is. I love it. Because I love it too. And I love that feeling of everybody being together. Yeah.

Love big family Christmases. And it's making me think, when you said about memories and the sort of morbid undercurrent of memory-making, not in a naff way, like, oh, let's make a memory, because I always find that makes me seize up and then I can't do anything. Yeah.

But just in terms of wanting every day to end on a good note, because I always feel like, well, what if something, I don't know, I think I've always had this feeling like, what if there's something really awful about to happen and we're in the concentric circle leading up to it yeah I want to make sure that all the days as far as I'm contributing to it end on a good term massively I do that I was I and just on the other thing but as you because you asked me that question I think about why Christmas is so important I definitely Chris always kind of lasts me because I'm really obsessed with traditions

so I try and create traditions all the time so I had this idea once for birthdays it's like right I definitely, Chris always kind of laughs at me because I'm really obsessed with traditions. So I try and create traditions all the time. So I had this idea once for birthdays. I was like, right, what we're going to do on birthdays, we're going to have a birthday tree. So those ever birthdays, we're going to have a tree in the living room and we'll do what we do on Christmas where their presents go under the birthday tree.

Okay. And I just thought that would be a really fun thing. We kind of do that. It never happened. But I'm always trying to create these little, because I'm trying to get my memories. It's too high maintenance, the tree. It is, but my memories of my mum are very, very, very sparse.

I don't really remember much. So I think there's a part of me that wants to keep creating memories and traditions for my kids so they have loads of things to remember, which is not, it's kind of a waste of time because they'll remember, they're having a great life and they'll remember all the lovely things. But what did you say just now? I was saying about that sort of slightly morbid undercurrent of wanting every day to end in a good way they're having a great life and they'll remember all the lovely things. But what did you say just now? I was saying about that sort of slightly morbid undercurrent of wanting every day to end in a good way, just because you don't know what else is out there.

My friend Josie and I last night went swimming in the ladies' pond in Hammersmith. Oh, very nice. And it was just, I mean, it's the most glorious thing. In Hampstead. So in Hampstead, sorry. No, not Hammersmith. No, no, very different. If you find a ladies' pond in Hammersmith, don't go anywhere.

Stay well away. So we walked like 20 minutes through Hampstead Heath and then found the ladies pond at about six o'clock at night. Had to queue for about half an hour, which was fine. And then we got in and we just kind of jump into this freshwater lake and swim around with all these ladies.

It's the most wonderful, wonderful gorgeous heavenly thing to do in london and we're just so lucky that we get to do it and so i've never done that oh you must do it it's just glorious well next time i'm over let's go because it's just so glorious and anyway so i was i said josey and i were then kind of walking afterwards just feeling very lucky that we got to do something like that and i said it's really important some days because you don't know what's going to happen shit can hit the fan at any point whether it's to do something like that. And I said, it's really important some days because you don't know what's going to happen. Shit can hit the fan at any point, whether it's to you or someone that you love. And it can just, you know, change the next few months or the next few years or the rest of your life in a heartbeat. And I was just saying, I'm really at a point

right now. And right now I can say this with total conviction and as honestly as I can, that if it all ended for me tomorrow, everything was a storming success. Like I've done everything I ever wanted to do. I've experienced like extreme highs and extreme lows, felt pain, felt love, done all the things that if it all ended tomorrow, if we've got the news that just ended the fun, then it's all okay. And so I like like it's too much pressure to say to yourself to try and feel like that every day but it's really lovely when you can get to the end of one day after doing something lovely I had a really stressful day with my kids yesterday once your kids saying it was fucking awful I'm never going again um so I was so annoyed

I was too hot both kids moaned all day. We do summer holidays. It was so miserable. And then I text our babysitter and I was like, can you just come at 5.30 so I just get the fuck out of this house? I'm losing my mind. And she said yes, and Josie and I went and jumped in a pond. And so I ended my day feeling really great. But if my day had ended four hours earlier, it would have been really awful. But I'm really trying when you have one of those beautiful moments, no no matter how it comes your way sometimes it's just that you go to wait

trays such a go to sainsbury's or wherever you shop um for chicken kievs and they've got them that's a real win because i have gone to buy chicken kievs before and they haven't got them and that's what everyone wanted for dinner and it's really annoying and really stressful and i'm trying that when the good things happen to go, this was a good day. And just like, cause I have a tendency, I think I'm a positive person,

but I can get really, I can get really stuck up and into the, all the bad things and stressful things. I can get really hung up on those. And you hear yourself when someone says to you, how are you just listing all the bad things. Yeah. Actually actually I'm definitely like that as well I don't think that means you're not a positive person I think it's probably just

your way of well I think it's my way anyway of like dealing with stuff get it out my head share it have someone go oh yeah that does sound annoying yeah um I don't like it when I've had something stressful happen to me and I tell Richard and he's not really properly listening no but husbands can be like that that's what girlfriends I need the appropriate response please and it's not as much that you heard me you've got to listen yeah thank you um but I just need to offload it really yeah yeah no I think that's really important I think offloading is really important but sometimes a friend that hasn't I haven't seen in months will just text me and say how you're doing and I just like list shit things I didn't need to do that to you

I could have said oh I'm fine'm fine, a few annoying things, but generally everything's great. Unless something's genuinely awful. But I'm just trying to focus on the more positive things. I moan about stuff all the time. But I don't think that's a bad thing. Please don't let that be a bad thing. It's not a bad thing.

And it's not. And we're all up against it a lot. And it's not a bad thing. I just think it was just a nice moment last night when I'm like, I ended my day not thinking about Kidzania hell. I ended it thinking about the nice thing that happened that day. Trying to make that what my day was about, as opposed to literally wanting to walk away from my children in Westfield

and leave them there. Kidzania is a funny concept, isn't it? Mini versions of businesses. I'll tell you our experience of it. My eldest, oh, bless him, queued up for 20 minutes to get into the pilot thing. Yeah. But it's only eight allowed in and he was number nine.

So then they said, oh, it's going to be another 20 minutes. And I just said to the woman, you're talking to a seven-year-old about casually sitting on this bench for 40 minutes. Do you not see the problem? Like, why aren't you all saying, we're going to be a while, but go to thing or they go to that thing that's really fun they were just like no sorry computer says no attitude the whole time yeah and which I get

because if I was surrounded by children all day I would be the same like literally hundreds and thousands of children running around I just it's not the one for me when we went I've only been um I think I've been once and I took at the at the time, Kit, he's 13 now, so he must have then been about little, six or seven. We walked in and I said, you can be every possible job, every possible occupation. And he looked around and went, can you be a criminal? Brilliant.

Absolutely brilliant. Probably, yes. Let's do it. No, it's a weird place. I loved the idea of it. I think it's an amazing concept. And I'm sure some kids go there and just have an absolute bore. I loved the idea of it. I think it's an amazing concept and I'm sure some kids go there and just have an absolute ball.

But you were not having it yesterday. We were not those people. And differently, how do you find travelling and moving home with your small people? It's got easier. So how long has LA been home? 15 years.

15 years? I've been there for 15 years and I met Chris there 14 years ago. Oh, wow. So it's... I thought you'd been dotting around a bit more than that. Well, we go back and forth all the time. Then we got met Chris there 14 years ago. Oh, wow. So it's... I thought you'd been dotting around a bit more than that. Well, we go back and forth all the time.

There was a... Then we got married 10 years ago next week. Ah, congratulations. And thanks. And... But we were back for about a year and a half, two years around then, in the middle. But I first moved there 15 years ago. And, you know, before that, before we had kids, travelling was great.

Who cares? Mm-hmm. Before that, before we had kids, travelling was great. Who cares? But then as soon as we had babies, I did my first trip with Art from there to here when he was three months old, and that was to do a pop-up shop for that clothing business. So I went straight into travelling with him, working with him.

He was a really easy baby, so it was kind of okay. But you know when they're that age, you've got a whole suitcase of baby paraphernalia, like eight bottles because you couldn't possibly buy anything there yeah and all that stuff and that was hard and I had some flights with him where it was just awful and he screamed the whole way and then they start to walk and so it's just up and down for the entire 10 hours yeah and some really soul-destroying times with him but also some really great ones so he's now an amazing traveler

oh that's good um i'm just focusing on the literal travel bits to start off with then valentine came along and i did my first flight on my own with him when he was um with them both when he was six weeks old and art was two and a half which was weirdly fine because the baby's easy yeah um you've got a toddler then there was one flight when i think it was valentine just kept on taking the glasses off the man sitting behind us he just wouldn't stop and there was nothing i could do but be physical with my baby until the man just gave him his glasses it was horrific i've had like people come up to me and swear at me because art won't stop opening closing the blind it was driving this woman insane i've spilled red wine over a lady i was drinking the red wine which was like i'm having the red wine on this flight

and um so but now we're through now like the anxiety connected with actual yeah but they're pretty good on a flight now which makes the whole moving around thing a lot easier so that's the literal travel stuff which is now i feel like we know, I don't have to have water bottles with me. Just buy it like we can, you know, everything's just easier. And so but then you're dealing with like the actual the packing where we just said last year we did six months in London. The kids had to get the kids into schools and do all that stuff. And it's hard. It is hard. I do feel incredibly lucky that life is so active.

And while the kids are small that we've been able to carry on, Chris will just randomly get a job in Toronto for five months. So we're just moving to Toronto. So what's dictating the moving around? Is it Chris's work mainly? Mostly Chris's work. Because you can work wherever you are. I can work anywhere, which I'm so grateful for.

I don't do any TV or anything like that anymore. And so as long as I've got my laptop, I can be anywhere. So last year in 2021 2021 we did Toronto for five months and London for six months and then yeah we just it's a it's a lot it's hard now the kids are getting older it's psychologically harder on them like Art really missed his friends last year and I felt really bad and that was the first time that's ever happened yeah usually it's like oh we're going here we're going here and they don't really care he started first grade in London did six months of first grade there,

and then did six months in America, and it was hard on him. So now, but we couldn't travel separately because of the pandemic. You know, it's still like two weeks isolation on either side, so we all just had to go. Usually if Chris gets a job somewhere, I stay home with the kids,

keep them in the school that they're in. And it's hard that Chris is away, but it's much easier on me and the boys just to stay at home but the pandemic obviously made that really hard it looks like all of that is done now yes so I'm again I'm kind of I go between two feelings with all the traveling like in one way I feel incredibly lucky that life isn't boring in another way it's exhausting but I do think in the next few years we'll probably pick a country um whether it's there or here and to do a lot less traveling yeah um which I really look

forward to and I'm 43 the kids are older school's more important to them I'm done with living out a suitcase um you know we've done that we've done all of that while they've been small with we always find local childcare which because we've never done the kind done all of that while they've been small with we always find local child care which because we've never done the kind of traveling with a nanny thing so we always our child care is always being quite patchy usually like i said employ actors where you could lose any minute but it also gives us the freedom to be able to yeah go away rather than you know messing with someone's job we don't want to have to take people with us it's just not who we are yeah so it means we've done a fuck of a lot of parenting and a lot of different places and um i'm really proud of that i'm really proud that the life that we live

the kids have had us and um but i'm also tired i am getting tired i'm looking i want to i want to get my roots down you you know you can move into a house and just know that you're leaving it in a few years and therefore you don't really get into the walls no i know that feeling very well yeah it's really nice when you can get into the i want to get into the walls now i'm feeling so that the next few years are going to be about that decision yeah i come into your house now so like just to set the scene for people that are listening i'm sitting at sophie's dining table it's the most fantastic house I've ever been in there's ornaments everywhere it's kind of creepy in places lots of dolls faces but there is just this family is embedded into the walls of

this family or is it me well it's you but it's also well you know you are you are the family but you you couldn't if you moved out of this house, the next person just has to accept that it was always Sophie Ellis Baker's house. And no matter what they did to it, you're, I nearly said germs, but your aura will forever be here. I think germs is accurate. I just think, I can't move, look at all this stuff.

You can never move. It would just be, can you imagine? That dresser is already like two boxes full of weird dolls when we last moved it was 10 years ago and um no a little longer actually 13 years ago and i promised myself no moving for at least a decade well you told me when you did my podcast the other day that your mum has been in the same house since you were 11 yeah so that do you have that feeling of i'm not leave that's what you want yeah and i think this is a family home so i want to I like I like the fact that here I can do something and enjoy it for the full lifespan of you know the wallpaper or a carpet

and then think and I'll really enjoy that because it's gonna I'm gonna be able to be here for long enough rather than it being like oh if I do it whoever moves in next will get it for longer absolutely no I think that's right so my my aunt and uncle's house that I got bought up in Guernsey is this beautiful cottage on the cliffs in Guernsey that they bought 60 years ago as a two-bedroom place that they have kind of built themselves into this gorgeous cottage and it is the fact that I get to go back to the house that I grew up in is so special the idea that someone else lives in that house or that it isn't part of our family just absolutely destroys me. Yeah.

And I want that now. Can I ask you a little bit about Flakstock? Yes, please. How was that? It was absolutely incredible. So we put on a festival for my friend Caroline Flak because she loved festivals and she loved dancing and she loved singing. And it just felt like the right tributes. Natalie Pinkham, who came up with the idea

and texted me and said would you be up for helping and i said yes but i really meant no i was honestly found the whole thing a bit too soon very heartbreaking and terrifying like how the hell are we going to put on a festival it's no joke it's a big deal yeah i've seen the fire festival documentary i was like no this is this is not this is terrifying but then she asked another like more people and there's more people came on i was like it's okay we can do this we're a connected group as long as we get funding and we can pay to have it put on properly yeah then i think we can do this yeah that's so smart actually yes and so um mcdonald's actually was our main sponsor they They gave us 300,000. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that. I'll check.

But I think I can. Which got the cost of running the festival sorted. And as soon as that was done, and I knew that, you know, the toilets would be there, just all the infrastructure of it was secure. I felt a lot better about it. How many people did you have? I think in the end we had about 4,500. Oh, wow. And it was on a Monday, started at 4 in the afternoon and finished at about 10 30 at night so as we expected until about like

seven o'clock it was a really lovely crowd but not packed and everyone came in the evening and it was it ended with ollie murs singing sweet caroline it was the crowd was unbelievable it was the most incredible energy. I was on stage quite a lot because I couldn't get off it. I just kept, I went on with Ronan Keating and everyone sang Life is a Rollercoaster, which I don't know if I'd appreciated that song as much as it deserves until that moment that everyone in the place was just having the best time.

It sounds really joyful. It was so full of love. But my thing at the start was, you know, we don't have to we're doing this for a feeling of hope to abolish any shame around people that die this way we want people to feel that they've got support that we can talk about this and as much as it was a memorial for caroline it was that too and i just feel like everything about it was perfect there was so much crying it was so

emotional you'd be having the best time and then you'd remember why we're here and I'm like I don't want to be here yeah why is this one happening what the fuck where is she why aren't we at like latitude this weekend just having a great time and um so that would that would just hit you every now and then of being like this isn't joy And then it was joy because life is life and people die and you've got to celebrate them. And you've got to put out a message of hope and positivity to people who need it. I think you're right as well about the taboo

and about making it so that it's like, you know, the acknowledgement of people who die that way and making it about hope and conversations and togetherness but I know exactly that feeling of that weird um coexistence of the emotion of the joy that you're all together but the absolute sadness of why it's a thing at all absolutely and it was um but I'm so and even on the morning when I was getting dressed in the morning I was just an absolute wreck I couldn't stop crying I was like what have we done I feel like it honestly felt like I was getting ready in the morning, I was just an absolute wreck. I couldn't stop crying. I was like, what have we done? I feel like it honestly felt like I was getting ready for her funeral again. I felt exactly the same as I did that morning.

And I was just so scared. I thought if people don't come, if it's not good, that's just going to make her family sad. It's just not what we want to do for Caroline's legacy. There's a lot of pressure as well on all of you to deliver something that has that so much in that that way that has that note of hope rather than yeah and I was like if we get this wrong if people don't come it's it's just going to be really really sad and as soon as I got to the location I said I think it's going to be okay. And this feeling of positivity around us all, like anxious.

And as soon as the gates opened, that first hundred people walked in, I was like, if this is all that comes, it doesn't matter. We've done the right thing. And they just kept coming and they just kept coming and they just kept coming. And it was amazing. And I am coming to you for next year if we do it again. Because I kept thinking about you. What I loved about it was the lineup was very specifically about people who knew Caroline so it's an eclectic wasn't the biggest names but it

was all about her and it was the most perfect lineup for the first one it was incredible but I kept thinking about you because the the atmosphere on the stage and in the crowd and it made me realize if we do do it again it has to be about feel-good bangers and that's what you're all about and I just kept imagining you in your little sequins and some ostrich feathers, just absolutely rocking it on that stage. So expect an email. I think we all want to do it again.

We all want to. But it would probably be, that one was the first one really about Caroline. We'll move away slightly and make it more about the cause, I think. Although she'll obviously, it's called Flagstock. It will always be her memory. It's her festival.

But I want to take it to everyone else a bit and just make sure that everyone there who's got so many people in that crowd, lots of people in this way, so many people had, and I want to make it about them. Yeah, yeah. No, and I'd be there, I was going to say, with bells on, but it's like I don't need them if I've got a sequence of my feathers. But, I mean, I didn't know Caroline as well as a lot of her very close friends but we'd spent time together and i think

the last time i saw her was actually at glastonbury yeah dancing somewhere in a field so i think um it was completely fitting to do a festival i'm so glad it was such an amazing success me too what lovely thing yeah um what was your sorry to go to a slightly darker side what was your memory of when when she died and having the kids? I've often wondered what it must be like to deal with, I mean, there's lots of different ways of experiencing grief. Like, I lost my stepdad, and that's one form of grief, but I think when someone's that young, and it's in such a tragic way,

it's as different, the grief has extra teeth to it, I think. So what's that like when you've also got young kids, and did you speak to them about anything that presumably they knew at the time the moment was so young at the time they're five and two and so she died on the 15th of February just before the pandemic got its claws into us all which is just so weird because I kind of blur the whole thing together now of course it's like the whole world but um I mean I got COVID on the way back to LA from her funeral on the Friday and then the world shut down on the Monday.

It's just this weird period of grief and not being able to leave the house and still being in floods of tears for six hours a day with two kids at home. And I cried in cupboards. I didn't want them to see they were going through enough school had just been shut down my five-year-old is being forced to do some weird thing on his computer which he didn't know you know school where are his friends what's going on Trump's voice blowing through the radio um you know everyone's gonna die everyone's gonna die oh my god we're all dying I was like what the kids are about to go through is so whatever is happening I'm not going to put my grief on top of them as well. So I dealt with it quite privately in a little house, in a little bungalow that we were living in at the time and somehow just realised the importance.

It wasn't a very big one, but I had a walk-in wardrobe and a mother must always have one so that she can go in there and cry. That's what I discovered. But in terms of the day itself, I mean, it was... I got the call from my friend Josie at about 7.30 in the morning, about an hour before it broke on Twitter, and just eternally grateful that I heard it from her, rather than, if I'd have woken up late that morning, I would have seen it on the internet, which is just terrifying. text him and I just said something really awful has happened can you put the tv on and just come to me and I can't imagine what he was faced with when he came into the room I was just howling um it was awful anyway it was actually Rebecca Bacon again who I um one thing I realized

about when people have experienced grief you have to call people you get a lot of texts there's two people that call me my friend Michelle and Rebecca bacon and i think people think you won't answer the phone or you don't want to talk but when and sometimes you don't but just to see that they're ringing yeah just it's like it's like a shot of love and but i answered the phone to rebecca i was supposed to be going to her kids birthday party that day and she just said look come there's going to be loads of english people there who all knew her just come otherwise what are you going to do you're going to be loads of English people there who all knew her. Just come, otherwise what are you going to do? You're going to sit at home and be on all fours wailing, which is essentially what I was doing.

And so I went to this kids' party, and I just kind of stood there, and a few English people, and everyone was in shock. And then my friend Mel was doing a performance of the vagina monologues that afternoon that was really important to her and I was supposed to be going and so I said to Chris take the kids home I'm going to go I'm going to go and do this and I just remember getting there and I was just kind of sitting in the audience

watching Mel and as soon as she'd done her monologue luckily she was quite near the front I just ran out the room and then was just there's I just got this image of me standing on the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Coinga Boulevard, roaring, just roaring. Managed to order an Uber, got home. And then I just, I mean, I was just an absolute mess for months. Yeah. Just absolutely tore the heart out of me. Couldn't believe it. I still can't believe it.

Being in London and then, you know, then this weird kind of life happens when the pandemic happened. And I couldn't work out if that was a blessing or not. I didn't want, the world had to stop turning. That's what had to happen. And I could not imagine trying to be normal and living my normal life.

Yeah. So in one way it was good that it happened, but I was you know I had two really small kids yeah and they weren't at the age where they they're at the age when they needed you you constantly didn't really one of the youngest one didn't really sit and watch tv for any period of time we had to provide activities and do stuff with them all the time and maybe that was good as well because it was a distraction but and also maybe it's quite good they're not at that age where they really

stop to take stock of how you are no my kids had no idea i've told my eldest since my friend died last year and it was really you know he asked me how did she die and i just said do you know what arty i'm gonna i'm gonna tell you when you're older because i didn't want to lie to him and i also didn't want to tell him i don't't want him to know that people struggle in that way at his tender age. One day he's going to learn all these things about the world and I think you should preserve their innocence but their naivety for as long as you can on stuff like that.

And so I haven't told him that detail. He knows my friend died and he knows. Also Caroline once lent me her cat Waffle to save me from mice and so my kids knew waffle and loved him so i would i talk about waffle a lot and i say my friend you know died who's and so i kind of made the cat part of her story and um but yeah i mean they never they didn't see me cry they didn't know i was really sad i mummed the shit Chris and I both parented the shit out of the pandemic like everybody did

we didn't leave the house for 12 weeks in LA couldn't go anywhere our first lockdown was like 12 weeks not a second of help but didn't go out, didn't do anything for 12 weeks with two really small children it was a really long time

and also dealing with I think for 12 weeks with two really small children, it was a really long time. And also dealing with literally the worst thing that's ever happened to me during that time. But I'm really, I mean, I felt in terms of our family, so solid at the end of that. It's like, God, we can get through anything. Yeah. Which is a lovely feeling. Yeah, that is a lovely feeling.

And actually, the fact you did get through all of that is really impressive because it's such an extraordinary time isn't it when you think back to it yeah I can't believe it but in terms of like that you know so in terms of me saying earlier on which might just sound a bit whimsical of like you know when I was saying to Josie last night we're so lucky and if it all ended tomorrow it would be okay Caroline to death has put that inside of me to be like i could live a healthy life until i'm 99 but i can't control what happens to the people i love and you can get a phone call at any point that can change the course of your life yeah like caroline's death changed the course of my life and i'm trying but people are going to die and awful things are going to happen to everybody we can can't avoid it. So how do you build it into your life?

And the only way that you can build something like that into your life is to appreciate when things are okay. Yeah. And to know that just to make the most of when things are okay. That's why I'm trying to be more positive. And that's why I'm trying not to answer questions with a cut my finger, which I did because you asked. But I think there's always something positive to get from somewhere. I feel like there really is. And I know some people feel like there isn't sometimes,

but there always is. And there's also a lot of love in the world still. There's a lot of love in the world. A lot of good people. Yeah, and I think sometimes you need to grab onto that a bit more than you grab onto the negative things. Definitely, definitely, and gravitate towards it. And some of it's

a choice in the way you're ordering your thoughts a little bit i'm not saying everybody has control over that but just recognizing it like you were saying about the negative like going through the all the things the moany things and actually going but actually here are the good things too yeah yeah so trying like i suppose keeping the habits positive exactly i say that i don't always practice it but i'm aware of it it's a very hard thing to practice and i think one of the things that's happening in society right now is that because we talk about mental health so much more than we used to we are realizing that everyone is struggling with something there is not anyone on this earth who hasn't got some kind of anxiety fear worry yeah um pain that they've dealt with and once you really understand that you understand

that we are like everyone's got a problem you can you can kind of i feel like when i when i really truly accept that i can balance my own stuff a little bit better and um and just me if when we when we are when we are hopeful and positive is a hard word because it's really hard to be positive sometimes but when we are hopeful and and positive's a hard word because it's really hard to be positive sometimes, but when we are hopeful and we do acknowledge also the good things in our life, that has a ripple effect towards everybody around you. And so that's why it's important to do it. Yeah, I agree with that completely.

Well, it's getting very hot in here, so before I set us free and get some air, the last thing I want to ask you is, are you the sort of mother you thought you would be yes that's cool I am I I think I'm really fun but I'm quite strict um but I am the kind of mother who just wanted to be in the kitchen cooking constantly and have the kids at the table and just throwing food at them and um yeah I think I'm exactly who I thought I would be And that's not to say that I don't have my faults. One thing, I'm shit at playing. I hate playing.

Really? I thought you'd be good at playing. No, I hate playing. I'm like, I'll buy it for you. You play with it. I'm going to be over here. Like, I'll do the lunch boxes. I'll prepare all these meals. I talk to my kids for hours.

Like, I don't shut up with them. I'm like, we're going to sit and we're going to chat. Yeah, I wouldn't expect you not to communicate with them. I spend loads of time with them. I take them out. I do all sit and we're going to chat. Yeah, I wouldn't expect you not to communicate with them. Yeah, I spend loads of time with them. I take them out. I do all these fun things, but I'm not good at getting down on my hands and knees and doing imaginative play with a giraffe and a goat.

It's just not where I'm at. It's limited, isn't it? It's limited. And inevitably, I'm doing the right acts and I'm getting it wrong, so then they get angry with me. And I'm like, do you know what? Fuck this.

Do it yourself. So that's the play. That's where I fail is playing. But luckily luckily Chris is the most amazing player we'll play with them for hours and so I feel like that's the balance that we have um but apart from that I I love who I am as mum and I love being mum oh that's so nice well thank you so much Dawn you're so welcome oh it's so nice to talk with you. Hey, see, isn't that lovely? I'm very, very happy that Dawn said yes, eventually.

Thank you, Dawn. And I've come outside Westfield again, so talk to you again. The football boot, Pursuit, a scanner. He wants shoes that are kind of wide fit and not too fiddly because he finds laces tricky. And I don't mind admitting that because I think a lot of kids, if they are dyslexic or dyspraxic or have dyscalculia and things like that, they find doing laces quite tricky.

I know my eldest three all struggle a little bit with that. So we're looking for Velcro, guys that would be helpful um and oh i wonder if any of you've caught the feeling while they're on tour richard's away he went away at the beginning of the week and he's away for another week gonna play london on friday shepherd's bush empire so i'll be there but um yeah i think the tour's going really well everything looks good from on the road but it's kind of strange him having been away for a fortnight that's quite unusual we haven't had very many of those big breaks for a little while I'm gonna let you in on a tiny secret part of me is quite enjoying having a little bit of quiet in the house I'm not saying Rich is noisy it's not

but there's something quite nice about only having to deal with myself is that bad well certainly I'm making the most of it let's's put it that way. Although actually I wonder how you feel about this. So two of my kids, primary kids, both had really lovely parent teacher reports back for the half term. So I was like, guys, you've done really well. You've been working hard. Why don't we have a celebratory takeaway for Friday night? And it's completely backfired. They've chosen things I don't really want to eat. One wants a KFC and another wants pizza. I think I was hoping for fish and chips.

I should have just said we're going to have fish and chips to celebrate. It's a known goal. I left it open to them. I've learned yet again it's much better when I choose and then make them feel excited about my idea. That's what I'm going to do next time. Anyway, in the meantime, thank you so much. Oh, nearly dropped my phone.

Please do give me your recommendations of people you would like me to speak to for the next series. Uh, I've got my next two already recorded for this series and really glorious chats. It's been honestly just some of my favorites, but I've also started booking in for series nine. So please send me your suggestions because as I've said before, some of my favorite people i've spoken to are not my idea so keep them coming you guys are good at this stuff and i will speak to you soon i hope you have a really good week thank you for lending me your ears and your time and i will speak to you soon wish me luck with the football boots honestly there's so many things i could be shopping in for in westfield except for football boots it's a unique kind of bittersweetness.

All right, see you in a bit. Bye. I'm going to go. On each step with Peloton, from their pop runs to walk and talks, you define what it means to be a runner. Whatever your level, embrace it. Journey starts when you say so. If you've got five minutes or 50, Peloton Tread has workouts you can work in. Or bring your classes with you for outdoor runs, walks, and hikes, led by expert instructors on the Peloton app. Call yourself a runner. Peloton all-access membership separate. Learn more at onepeloton.ca slash running.