Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 166: Lara Maiklem

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

Lara Maiklem is an author and a mudlark. She told me there’s nothing she likes more than kneeling on the banks of the River Thames for 5-6 hours at a time, scanning the mud for tiny treasures which are twice daily being given up by the tide! Lara shares her fascinating finds on Instagram, where I've been following her for a while. Her favourite finds include a Tudor shoe, part of a Roman sword and some tiny gold beads from a necklace which she thinks must have broken as someone was boarding a boat on the river hundreds of years ago.Lara told me how mudlarking gave her peace and alone time when she moved to London, and how, when their twins were small, her wife used to send her off to mudlark, knowing she’d come back ‘a nicer person’! Living near the Thames myself, I think I might try mudlarking too, as I’m still hopeful of finding Mickey’s PJ Masks watch that he threw in the river near Richmond a while back!Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Sophia Lusbexter and welcome to spinning plates, the podcast where I speak to 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. Good day. It is, what day is it, by me Thursday already, what? This week is flying. I just dropped off the smallest two at school, and I'm going back home to get changed because I'm off to see Giovanna Fletcher today to do her

podcast, which would be lovely, because Trana was a guest on Spinning Plates a while back, kept in touch since then so it'd be really nice to see her and i cannot go to see her dressed as i am because i'm wearing it's just too crazy i basically i had a really quick shower and washed my hair in that hour of seeing sort of getting the kids up and then getting them out of the door which i think is a little ambitious and then with hair still kind of like soaking wet i've thrown on i'm looking down at myself it's actually funny i've got like pale pale pale trainers, that's relevant because I would have normally put dark trainers on with the rest of the outfit. So they're kind of pale color trainers. Then my new Palazzo jeans, which look, they are

pretty fabulous, but they're like properly wide. You know, like we're talking full on flare. So that's a lot going on in itself. Then, uh, roses shirt that I got when I was away, like a secondhand one. So that's quite loud. Then, don't worry, I kept going. Blue belt, okay, bear with me. Maybe if I didn't have everything else, that'd be right. Then a kind of very bright pink cardigan. Then, final flourish, another pink, a baby pink, satin baseball jacket. Oh, dear.

So, hey, at least I didn't just go for black, but I just, I am aware that I look. It's just quite intense. It's sending out a lot of messages, and none of them say, I know what I'm doing. So I'm going to go and get changed, have a coffee, and go and see her. And this week has been very cute, actually.

Well, actually, I said that, and then I caught myself because it's been cute in terms of what I've been up to. I've had lots of family time. I've been in every night. Just been spending lots of time with my kids. I miss them so much when I was away, and they're being so adorable.

Big and small, they're all being lovely. And so I just kept myself very close. to home and any work I've been doing has all been within school hours as well so I feel very centred with all that but yesterday was a sad day and I'm sorry to go from my ridiculous outfit to something very sad but one of my cats got hit by a car yesterday morning and she died so I think we are a little bit reeling from that because I'm sure any cat owners out there will understand this feeling um you know I didn't spend all day every day surrounded by the cat but they were just sort of like they'd do their own thing.

I'd do my own thing and we'd like reconvene, you know, meal times and come and sit on our laps or come and walk across the kids' home when they're trying to do things. You know, they're just sort of around. And so one of the kittens, Ash, who'd literally just had her first birthday, I'll really miss her. And also she was really close to Jessie, my nine-year-old. So he was really sad yesterday and had to come home from school early.

And yeah, he's feeling it the most, I would say. but it matters to all of us because we're a cat household and there's always that kind of cat energy and yeah so I'm sort of getting my head around that and it's sad isn't it

it's just a sad thing the only good aspect I suppose is it was very quick and I don't think she would have been very well what was happening and and also thank you to whoever handed her in to the vets I really really appreciate that

anyway sorry to bring you down with that but in happier times I've got a lovely quiet weekend at home and then next week I'm home all the time as well until Friday when I go to North America I've got my gigs there which actually I'm quite looking forward to and I do think it'll fly quite quick because it's only six shows and it's like 10 day trip

so I think it'll just I think it'll just rock its way right onwards anyway talking of like cozy weeks and not going up too much like I'm doing I'm really fascinated by my guest this week, by her hobby, because I think it sounds incredibly mindful, but also fascinating. So Laura Meeklam is a mudlarker,

which in and of itself is just such a satisfying thing to say you do. I'm sorry. I would love to be able to say I do mudlarking. It just sounds pretty incredible, doesn't it? Anything that's got lark in it there, and larking about, always associated with fun times, and mudlarking is literally walking along the banks of the Thames or the river or wherever you find yourself

and looking to see what has been washed up, what's come to the surface. And Laura does not use any tools, she doesn't use metal detectors, nothing like that. So she just walked very slowly, looking at the ground and seeing what she can see. And of course the Thames, this stretch of wildness running through London, as Laura coined it herself, is every time the tide moves, it churns everything. So new things come to light. So it might be tobacco pipes,

apparently are a really common thing to find first off, but also you might get an engagement ring. You might get a bit of a clothing. You might get a bit of pottery. You might get something from a printing press. There's all manner of things that get churned up from all different times of London life. So there's history right there in the mud.

And Laura's written books about this, but also really appreciates what it does for her mind. Oh, sorry, this is a really noisy spot, isn't it? Waiting for the lights to change. And I think it's actually not entirely dissimilar to Anya Garden Ferry, who we had as a guest previously, because she found mindfulness in her, in growing her garden. And I think for Lara, the process of looking to see what stories lie

that air washed up by the water is another way of being mindful. calm as well. So I really think that sounds really delightful and gives her just everything she needs to recalibrate for her lovely life with her wife and her twins who are a boy and girl and they are 13. And apparently when they were small, her other half would be like, I think you need to go out and do your mud larking to kind of get your brain back on track. And we all need those things, don't we? We need that time. So how special that Lara's turned something that she enjoys, that brings to that piece into something that she involves with other people

so you can do mud-lucking trips with her or yes, read her books. Anyway, her voice is lovely as well, very calm. I think you're going to find this a nice calm experience listening back after the jangle of my visual description of what I'm wearing. You probably need something calm.

So sorry for the busy road. I'll see any other side. It's so nice to meet you. I've been following you for a while and I think this is part of my heart that really loves the idea of just foraging and exploring. And I think, I don't know if you've noticed this actually, I feel like at the moment with the world that can feel a little bit discombobulating and heavy. There's two things I think that come out of what you do. One of the things I think, think is the sort of, everyday joy of just looking around you and finding these little nuggets and all those adventures. But I think also it's such a hand back to history and other

people's stories that there's a reassurance in sort of your line in stories and history as well, like sort of this two shall pass kind of a feeling. Absolutely. I mean, I'm mudlark to escape first and foremost. It's just, and you can escape in the middle of the city. That's what I love about it. Oh, that's nice. You can be. somewhere else, away from everything else, with everything going on around you. But it is pure escapism. And yes, you're absolutely right. It is a form of time travel.

And I find the past incredibly comforting because it's that knowledge that it's all happened before. You know, like you say at the moment, it is really discombobulating, great word. I love that word. It also sounds like it feels, doesn't it? It sounds like it feels, you know. Everyone feels out of sorts. Everything's going wrong and everything feels wrong. And if you look back in the past, it all happened before.

You know, people have been through worse. People have done it and been through worse and come out the other side. And it gives you, it gives me anyway this sense of comfort that, you know, we're going to get through it. And it's okay. And, yeah, so escapism and comfort is what I get from it. And I guess as well, some of the stories. you're uncovering are the untold ones, not the broad brushstrokes of history that we can find in books, but these more sort of everyday tales, a moment when something slipped into the

water. Yes. And then the next person to touch it is you. That's quite a magical thing, isn't it? It's absolutely magical because, you know, history is filled with forgotten people, ordinary people. It's only the, you know, that really the sort of famous people and the, you know, the kings and the queens and the war monks very often that got. streets named after them and statues in the, you know, at the end of the road, it's the ordinary people like you and me that would just live their lives, contributed a little bit and and then vanished. But sometimes they might have left something as simple as a, you know, a Nacchoo behind with their footprint in it. And, you know, they've left something of themselves

to say they were here. You don't know who they are. You don't know how that shoe got lost. But, you know, there's something. And that, again, is really comforting as well, that the fact that, you know, however ordinary someone is, they leaving, everyone's leaving little traces of themselves all the time behind. And, you know, maybe some point in the future people will find those little traces and they'll be remembered somehow, but not remembered because their names don't live on. We don't know these people's names, but we know that we're here. Yeah.

And that's important. And I like what you said about the way it sort of flips your view of the city as well, like being run by the river in London or if I'm lucky enough to be travelling on the river, You know, we've done a few, like, boating holidays and that kind of thing. And it gives you this really different view of a country. I think I know what it looks like pretty well, but suddenly you discover this other sort of more tranquil, time-travelling kind of a feeling. Time travelling.

I mean, whenever we have, my wife's from Canada, so we get visitors from Canada all time. And I always say to them, when you're in London, get on a boat, go for a boat. Yeah, that's a good tip. Because you see London from such a different perspective and angle. And, you know, London's only there because of the Thames. It's so, so important. Hundreds of years ago, pretty much almost everybody in the city would have had some connection to the river, whether they were working on it or even selling clothes to the people who worked on it. Everyone had a connection. It was so important. It brought the world to us and sent us, for better or worse, out into the world.

And it's such a, it's such a dynamic, mysterious, ethereal place that even Londoners, even, even, Relatively few Londoners really experienced. And I don't know why people have sort of turned their backs on the river a bit. Less so now, people are starting to rediscover it. But certainly for a while, people certainly did turn their backs on. It was dirty and it was smelly and it was irritating to get across from north to south. And that's how people saw it. But it's so important.

It brings nature into the city. You know, it brings this streak of wilderness. You know, you really feel the weather when you're down there in the way. that you do want a more or out in a field but you're right in the middle of the city but there's no there's no buildings around to shelter and it's just the most wonderful place to be I mean I'm smiling so much while you're talking because

firstly I think the way you describe it is so evocative is making me like literally want to go walk down to the river I mean I've grown up happily in pretty close proximity to the tenants for my whole life and for me whenever I go and do we have our like our family river walk when we walk over the two bridges would go like down to Hammersmith Bridge this big loop

and I always feel very settled just by seeing the seasons change I think there's something so instinctive in your sort of in your humanity just to see the seasons and be at peace with the shifts and there's no such thing as sort of bad weather so long as you dress for it it's all just sort of weather and happening and I wonder if I suppose you're saying about you know the the the association with the Thames in a city like London has shifted over the years, but that's also part of this moment of history as well, I suppose,

and the stories that will have come out of this time for the future too. Yeah, yeah, quite possibly. I mean, it's, the river is also, it's absorbing us all the time, and that's what it's done. It's been this great big sort of vessel that people have, have generations have poured themselves into, and that's, you know, that's what I find. When I go down now, I find rubbish, you know, the stuff that people have lost or dropped or thrown away. It's been a great big rubbish dump.

And people say to me, is it going to run out? And yes, the antiquities will run out. There's it. There is a finite amount. But every single day we're adding more to it. Unfortunately, the stuff that we're adding to it's plastic. You know, it's not harmless. Our ancestors' rubbish was bone and, you know, ceramics and wood all break down and go back to where it came from.

But what we're putting in is breaking down to microplastic. And it's not going away. you know our ancestors threw away clay pipes um 20 years ago people were throwing away cigarette ends now we see so many vapes oh vapes i bet you do because they're full of heavy metals and you know it's not just the vape the plastic of the vape it's what's the little battery thing's made of as well you know it's all going into the river so when you first discovered this escape what was going on in your life at that time um i moved i grew up on a farm just outside London.

So it's a funny old place because it was... I know that's hard working but is that as idyllic as it suggests? It's hard work. I grew up in a rather strange farm because I was 30 miles as the crow flies to London

so I was in the shadow of London but a long way down this concrete road in the middle of nowhere and when you're a teenager and you're sort of you just don't want to be there but I had too much older brothers

and they were away at school and so I really grew up on my own in a fairly remote place although it wasn't remote, with just the dog for company. And so I really like my own company. And I've wrestled with that a little bit because you're not supposed to like being on your own.

I think when you're younger. Yeah, I think when you're in your 20s, though, you feel like a bit of a widow. You know, you're supposed to want to be with people and, you know, sort of out and, you know, and I love being alone. And so when I moved to London, although I was really excited to be in the city finally,

I was searching for that solitude that I got on the farm and I looked in the gardens and the parks. I looked out on Hampstead Heath, but nothing felt sort of quiet enough and there were just too many people. And then one day I was waiting for a friend by the river and I just realised there was this huge expanse of nothingness. And I could go there whenever I wanted to

and there was a wonderful path and I could walk for miles along this path and then one day I found myself at the top of some river stairs looking down onto the foreshore and thinking, well, I can go down there as well. And it felt a bit naughty going down there because, you know, is it safe? And lots of people say that to me, is it safe?

You know, shouldn't we go down there? You're allowed to. You know, there's a river gas, suddenly going to rush back in. And I went down and I found a clay pipe stem. And I knew what it was because I grew up on a very old farmhouse and we had a midden in the garden. And so I dig around in this midden and fine clay pipes and bits of pottery. I don't know what's a midden?

Well, back in the day when people didn't have a, Their rubbish collected, most houses would have had a dump out the back, and they just chucked all their rubbish into this dump, and it gradually sort of moulded down into the soil. Okay, and that's a midden. And that's a midden. Much nicer. It's a much nicer word than done. It's a much nicer. So dump midden. And so I knew exactly what it was. And I thought, well, you know, if this is here, there's going to be more.

There's so many people. It's got such history here. So I started going back, and every time I went back, I found something different. And it became my obsession. And it also became this, this, this just this wonderful empty space to go to. amazing I suppose it's like it must have struck you as quite strange that it meant so much to you and resonated and gave you what you needed and yet so often you were there with just a handful of other people taking their dog walks or cycles whatever but it's not as populated as all that is it often those places no it's not you know you can go like you go to high park and it's rammed you know it's full of people and people kicking kids and dogs and people kicking balls I went to whopping on Monday and I think I saw two people people. And you could see all the way around to Canary Wharf and there was nobody. And it was wonderful. Yeah. I think also we're culturally, we are better at acknowledging that, you know,

that introverted solitude, the people who need to be away from it all and giving space to that. I only recognise that about myself, relatively recent. I love my own company as well, which trust me is quite hard to come by sometimes. But I'm really good on my own. Really good. It is a really, it's a real skill. It's a skill. It's a skill. It's a skill. I'm trying to teach one of my children, particularly at the moment, because he's not good on his own. He doesn't know what to do with himself and he's on his own. And it's so important because, you know, we're all going to spend time on our own, whether you like it or not. Some people love it. Some people don't like it. Even the people who don't like it, you know, learn

to love it because, you know, you've got to be friends with itself. You've got to be good with yourself and, you know, being on your own is brilliant. I think so too. So was the, just getting my chronology, this moment with sort of walking off the path. This is before children. was it? Well before children, yes. I was living in Hackney at the time and then I moved to Greenwich so I was right by the river then. So then I could indulge this passion and I was a very pretty area as well. It's very nice. Yeah, I was very lucky and I was working in Hammersmith so I could get down to the river at Hammersmith as well. And so yes, this was before, well before children. My father died and the river sort of came into its own then really. I was, I was,

I had a difficult relationship with him and I had a lot to work through. I'm not one for talking and it was something that listened. And I went there and I talked to the river and it talked it through and it listened and came out the other side. Okay. Then we had children and I found myself at home with two little people who couldn't talk back to me. And you know what it's like. you know with kids it's it's great but it's lonely um it's a difference between being alone and being lonely um so i was stuck inside these two lovely little you know maggots uh that couldn't talk to me

i call them maggots too yeah they are and they um and that's when i started i thought well i'm finding all the stuff i could get away on the weekend i've got a really i'm really lucky i've got a great partner who lets me go off and be on me up my own and knows that when i come back I'm a better person. I'm a nicer person to be around. So on the weekends, I was able to escape and have a bit of me time. And then, of course, I had all these objects to sort of fiddle with in nap times. And then I thought, well, I'll start putting them on Facebook and sharing them with other people, not expecting, you know, many people to sort of tune in. And I sort of tapped into a group of people with a similar interest. And it was brilliant sharing stuff. with them and I'm a firm believer in sharing these objects because it's our shared history and these objects do tell wonderful stories and I think everybody has has a right to hear about them and not sort of to take them home and hoard them for me or put them in a drawer and forget about them they need to be out there and and shown to people so yeah that was a

great way to share with other people so how quickly into your first of you know bits of foraging and they'll refer over the river and the riverbed. Did the word mudlock make its appearance? Because it's a brilliant word, I like saying it, I have to say. It's a brilliant word. And nobody really knows where it comes from. The first time it gets mentioned is the end of the 1700s in written form. And they were a group of thieves, basically,

that would wait for the other thieves to throw things off the merchant ships waiting to unload their valuable cargoes in, Wapping, round Wapping in the Port of London. And they were the lowest of the low. They really were the ones that picked up the packages and took them off into the taverns into the black market. Then in Victorian times they were they were mostly women, children, old people,

people really on the fringes of society who the only way they could earn any sort of money was to do these dreadful jobs. And if you think the river at the time, they had actually closed Parliament because it got so smelly. It was called the Great Stink and it was just a moving sewer

and they were wading around in this with no shoes on looking for anything they could use or sell and there are some really quite beautifully written pieces about them because the Victorians had these sort of social commentators so we're a bit obsessed with poverty and quite sort of voyeuristic about it really so we know a lot about them and what they did

and what they looked like and what they were called and so moving into the 20th century it started to become a hobby around the time of the Second World War and then of course metal detectors came in sort of 1970s I don't metal detect at all I just searched by eye

and so I think the word mudlark I haven't managed to find anywhere explaining why they're called mudlards but I think it could be because the tides we rely on the tides because we can only search the river when the tides low and the tempts is tidal It goes up and down twice a day.

I think it could be, and the tides come at all different times of the day, and it changes every day. So maybe people saw people out very, very early, up with the larks, playing in the mud. So that's maybe where it came from. That's my only theory. I like the idea of that. And also, when you were talking, I was thinking about how, again, I was sort of magical that you could go to a space on the riverbed, and then the tide comes in, the tide goes out, and it's completely refreshed.

It's a new space again. Absolutely. It's like a big washing machine. It kind of, yeah, just sort of renews everything that's there. So you might go down there one day and find nothing, come back the next day and find the most incredible thing. So if you were on there now, what would it look like to the casual observe? It's just like you're walking very slowly and just looking at as you go. You're not even moving things with your hand. You're just, no, I don't dig. I don't scrape. There's no need to do that. Because once you start digging and scraping, you're disturbing the force, you're damaging it. And, you know, the most important layer is the top layer for the invertebrates. the fish. And so, you know, I don't do that because there's no need. I tend to stick to a fairly small area. I often kneel down. And I'll, I search for five to six hours. And literally just sort of on my hands and knees, walking very slowly, you learn to read the foreshore. You learn the sort of places where it's eroding or washing out or where things are likely to wash up. and I have my favourite places

and so you know I just yeah I just spend five to six hours really doing something and nothing and it's about yeah it's about so much more than the searching there because in my head I'm yeah processing

processing my week so yeah I suppose and I think people who could relate to that feeling maybe like runners and that kind of thing because it's a solitary but you're in the process of doing you have a purpose as things you're observing but you're letting the thoughts come and go And it's such a healthy way to, it sounds like you know yourself very well in terms of what you need.

And the people around, do you mention your partner is good at just saying, okay, off you guys, I'll see you, so you come back. Sometimes I get, just go away, go to the river. Yeah, yeah, I'm not very good at doing nothing. Some people can just lie in a hammock, do nothing, sit on the beach, you know, I can't do that. I'm too busy. My mind's very busy, so I find the only way to calm my mind a bit is if I'm active, then I can let my mind right. a bit. And while your children were little, is your, am I right? You're in publishing? Yes, I've always worked in publishing. So, yeah, I worked in illustrated books. Amazing. So is that like children's books

or any other elements? And children's. And I also worked, I also did some copywriting. I've worked for the Royal Mail doing special edition stamps. And then I did a very big, big project with Kiss, the rock band, went on tour with them. Did you? Yeah. What did you do on? What role was that? I went on their monster tour, so I know it's really random. It's really unexpected. I wasn't expecting Kist to feature in this conversation at all, I know. I know. I'm glad they have.

They wanted the biggest book. They wanted the biggest book in the world. And so we went and took pictures and we had it, I had it bound. I was, the biggest book in the world. Well, it was the monster. This way, this way. It was huge. It was like, it was massive.

It was like a coffee, you could use it as a coffee table. That was the big thing. Yeah, it was massive. Have you got a copy? No, I never got a copy. Oh, what? I never got a copy. I mean, I have to, at this point, say, it's not my kind of music.

It could be a great table. It could be, yeah. I mean, it was bound by the same people who bind the Bibles for the Vatican. Oh, wow. So, it was, yeah, it was a mega book. So, yeah, so I did that. That's incredible. Sorry, I just, we will move on a minute,

but how many copies of this enormous Vatican, and the same bounding, binding book, is there? Are there? Very few. I think, gosh, it was a while ago now. I think there were only 3,000 produce. Oh, that's very more than I was expecting. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

They were very expensive. I didn't. They put them on a shelf in the book shop. No, wait, they were special order. Yeah, I can imagine, yeah. Now, okay, we finished the book. Now we need to make the biggest book shop in the world. Yeah, yeah.

So, yeah, so that was the last job I did, actually, before I stopped and went, I took time off to look after the kids. Okay, so that's what you did when the kids were little, you were like, right. So for a while you were full time with the little ones and then your weekend sort of spent with your time for yourself. Yeah, yeah. I mean, my wife and I played tag throughout their lives. So one of us has always been at home for them. That was important to us when we decided to have children.

So, yes, that was my turn being at home with them. And I absolutely loved it. It was great because you get to stop work. And you're not worry about work and stuff. All you have to think about is feeding and routine and everything's so routine. And all the stuff in their world. Yeah. So what age were they when this was happening?

They were one. Oh, let's on. Yes, I took over. She went back to work and then she got made redundant just as I got a book deal. So then we swapped over again. So it worked really well. And this was your first book? My first book.

I never wanted to write a book because I was quite a reluctant author actually. Really? Yeah, because I. knew too much about writing but it's bloody hard work writing a book and you know you don't get a great deal out of it you know everyone thinks I'm extremely rich now I think because I've written a book but it's not like that or it's just really hard work and it was blood sweat and tears and I nearly said no my agent contacted me and said

look there's a good book in this do you want to write one and and I nearly said no because I wrote I was working on I'd always worked on illustrated books When you do illustrated books, you just have to cut down the text to nothing. And it has to really work with the pictures. I suddenly had to write this proper wordy book. So it was really hard. I found it really hard. And I wrote it three times.

Actually, before I got the final one, right. Just because, yeah, I suppose if you're, it's also just getting into a different headspace because that wasn't really your relationship with what you were doing. So in a way, you're letting people into something that had provided you with something. thing that's really personal. Yeah, she did say that to me. Are you ready for, are you ready to let people into your world? Because this is going to change things for you and it has. And it's changed the foreshore as well, because it has made people more aware of a hobby that was until then quite niche, quite small. But I think that's really good because it was already becoming, you know,

the cat was out of the bad. People were starting to come down in greater numbers. There was a television program already out. So I was seeing more people come down and I thought, you know, I wanted to write something gentler than what was already out there and also just to tell people that it's important to do this responsibly and record what you're finding and be gentle with the foreshore. You know, it's be kind to the river. It's not just somewhere to go and, you know, salute and dig into and take, take, take. you know it's there's more so it than that and I wanted to put that across in my book oh and I think

you really have I really get that from from how you talk about you know your relationship with mudlarking and the river and your your role within all of it and also I actually didn't realize until recently you need a license if you're doing it responsibly so when how did you know that from the beginning or is that something's been introduced later well I mean I've been mudlarking now for over 20 years so sort of to begin with there were so few people people doing it. If you were just searching, you know, eyes only, it wasn't a big deal. Then they tightened up the rules in 2016 and then they've tightened them up since then as well. So yes, you need a permit from the Port of London Authority because you're effectively going down onto private land.

It's much debated who owns the foreshore, but legally the Port of London Authority do and you need to have a permission from them for a permit. But there are 4,000 permits, active permits, and 10,000 people on the waiting list now. Oh, really? They've closed the waiting list for now. I didn't realize that. I mean, also, it's funny because when I was emailing you, I mentioned that my 9-year-old had been going on these trips with his school. And he said, it's really in vogue or it's very trendy or it's, you know, very on brand at the moment. But I thought it was really, I had such a nice feeling that he was doing this because I thought it would change his relationship with his area as well.

It does. You'd be surprised how many children. There's an organisation called the Thames Explorer Trust and it's non-profit. He probably went down with them. It's quite likely he did. They do a lot with schools. You'd be surprised how many children in London have never been to the river, haven't been to the river, let alone go down onto the river. They don't know anything about it. And it is. It's our city. It's so important to, you know, to interact with it and be involved with it and touch it. well on that topic if it's something that's represented your your need for your own space is it something your family have come on with your children have any spend any time with you down there they have no interest in it come on stay tired my whole family that's what happens with kids it's so I mean yeah yeah it's just absolutely the law of the land isn't it yeah yeah if we're into it I'm rolling oh the eyes roll back in the head oh god no she's looking for something oh we're gonna be here forever have absolutely no interest. My wife has absolutely no interest. It's the dirty brown stuff I bring back. I get it out of the kitchen. So I have the spare room. Spare oom is mine where I have my

stuff. So how do you keep the things you find? I curate very carefully because it's really easy to bring back too much stuff. And to be honest, you know, how many clay pipes do you actually need? How much of this stuff do you really need? And as I understand it's one of the most common things to find is that right quite common yeah and pottery and stuff like that and so what i tend to do is i i i sort of i there's certain things i collect um if i find something that's better than a version i've got then i'll swap it out and um i leave loads there and i take loads back so i've got a really nice little printer's chest um it's got 18 drawers in it and most of the stuff i bring back is small because i'm a bit of a miniaturist i like to look for the tiny tiny things sort of the beads and

the tiny little sort of book clasps and things like that so yeah there's something so i suppose as well and amongst it you can feel first you feel like you've been really clever to find this tiny little thing in amongst it all but also there's something about the the sort of delicate exchange of that that's really pleasing i think of something very small it was just a little part of something once upon a time and now it's find its way to you yeah i like i find that very satisfying well also you get weird situations where I found these little gold beads and I also found these little um they were hand drilled garnets like fairly rough garnets but they've been polished and hand drilled so they're quite early um and I found a couple and then I kept finding them every time

I went back to the spot until I had quite a few so obviously somebody's necklace had broken maybe you know they're walking down a gangplank necklace broke sort of scattered into the water but I was pulling them out of the mud so bit by bit over about six months oh wow i found quite a few of them so you know you have weird situations like that where you're like these things are so tiny but the river's weird like that it'll move the biggest thing overnight and it'll leave the tiniest tiniest thing there for months and you were telling me before we started recording that there is it 250 different species of fish in the water as well it's very alive the the river and it's getting so much better because they've just opened the super sewer which is a huge relief because

Because until then, whenever it rained in London, the sewers would get overwhelmed and they'd let it go, raw sewage into the river. And it was pretty grim. And so now they've opened the super sewer, which is an absolutely huge tunnel that runs underneath right out towards the east. And hopefully now they've done that, we'll get some more wildlife coming back. So, you know, I've seen porpoises under the Millennium Bridge. And, you know, I saw a, I went out for the longest night when I was writing my latest book. Because I thought, you know, I see the city at really strange times of the day because I follow the tides. But there was this little sort of three hours between about one and four that I hadn't spent time by the river.

So I thought, I'm going to do the longest day. And I went up onto London Bridge to watch the sunrise Just as a seal came up And it was just magical Yeah, and there's loads of folklore about seals You know, Selkees that's sort of shedding their skin And walking on the land And there's one from Shetland where they come out in midsummer

And shed their skin and walk as humans And it just felt so, it was so magical It was such a magical thing to see And how are things preserved when you find them What's it like? I mean, are things getting eroded? Are they shifting a lot? Do you have to work hard to identify what you're looking at? Well, one of the reasons we find so much is because the river is eroding. It's always eroding. So rivers in their natural state are a V shape. If you look at any river, it'll be this sort of V shape. And what they did with the Thames was they built up these flat platforms in the 18th and 19th century called barge beds. And these were to allow the flat bottom barges to rest on at low tide so they could load and unload. And what they'd do was they'd pour loads of waste and rubbish and building spoil, anything they could get their hands on into these barge beds and then cap it off with chalk. And then they'd look after it because it was a working environment.

And every time the river started to eat into it or a board broke, they'd fix it and fill it up again. And then in the 60s and 70s, the barges and the ships stopped coming. And the river started to eat away at these tips, these rubbish tips and scatter the contents across the foreshore. And so that's one reason that we find so much. The clippers, we shouldn't really have clippers on the Thames. I don't know if you've ever seen them. If you've ever been down on the foreshore when one's gone past, the wake they leave is quite incredibly aggressive. Apparently they were going to use them in Sydney Harbour, but they decided they were too destructive.

So we got them on the Thames. So in that respect, we are losing a colossal amount of archaeology because these boats are just eroding constantly, constantly, constantly. We're losing a medieval jetty at Greenwich at the moment. We've lost Saxon fish traps. We've lost the most incredible archaeology. It's just washing away. So, you know, just walking along, you can generally spot huge amounts of stuff if you know what you're looking for.

And that's the other thing. Mud barking, I always say, is 90% luck. You're in the right place at the right time. But knowing what you're looking for, because I know I've walked across some really good stuff before I knew what it was. and that just comes with time I was going to say I mean it must be incredible

so you say there's a 20 year long relationship you've had with this all the things that have come out of it and I suppose when you started it just gave you what you needed for your head and it helped you with grief but then as time's gone on you've got all this wealth of knowledge about history

was that part of your life beforehand as well knowing so many moments yeah I've always loved history you know like I say I grew up in a cheetah farmhouse and it's just that sense of living in, we're so lucky in this country, you know, we are surrounded, we take it for granted, we're surrounded by such, you know, such a wealth of history, we're walking on it, there's barely an inch of the land that hasn't been lived on. And it's just, we live with it, and I just, I love history. So, you know, to be able to go down there and actually, you know, reach back in time, every tide is incredible. That is incredible, yeah. I mean, I've, I wish I could retain information better. I've done walking tours of London. I love here. all the stories. I also went to an amazing exhibition about public executions in this country and particularly in London. And I think as well, and I think of the Thames, I picture as well,

the sort of the things that have been displayed there for big crowd, you know, the sort of gruesome parts of the history as well, which I actually find really interesting, exciting. I do too. And you asked about preservation. Mud is anaerobic, which means it doesn't let oxygen in. So if something falls into the mud, you know, even 2,000 years ago, so long as it's surrounded by the mud and the oxygen isn't getting to it, it's not going to degrade,

even if it's organic. So leather and wood and even material is perfectly preserved. So I've recently found something really excited. This gets me excited. This is my level of excitement. I found a Tudor shoe, right? That's really exciting.

That's great. It's brilliant. And it's perfectly, you know, really well preserved, so well preserved that somebody has made some little cuts on the front because I think they've had a hammer toe. So it's just made it a bit more comfortable. What does it look like? It's like a slip on.

It's a bit like the ones you get in Morocco now. You know, it's a nice sort of comfy slip on. So a flat shoe, to be about a flat. Nice. Inside the shoe was a piece of fabric. And I've looked at it now under a magnifying glass. And I've sent it to this incredible woman called Sally Pointer, who is, she's a living, his archaeologist. So she does, she actually sort of does the archaeology to see how it was done and how it was made.

And she knows loads about fabric and weaving and things like that. So I've sent a picture to her. But I think. it's a piece of the stocking that whoever was, I think it's a piece of stocking. Yeah. I really do think, I don't know. I'm waiting to hear back from her. But if it is, then you start wondering about why is the stocking still in the shoe and where's the rest of the leg?

I was going to say, was there a, yeah. But I did find a leg bone in the same spot. Oh, a few weeks ago. Did it fit into the shoe? Well. Right size. Yeah. Yeah.

So maybe it all goes together. Who knows? Wow. I mean, there must be, I mean, there's stories in that, yeah, on that riverbed. And I suppose I should ask some things that I know I would kick myself, I didn't. So what is the oldest thing that you found? Do you think? Well, this is, I suppose it's hard to tell with some of it.

Well, I mean, obviously the oldest things are fossils. Like, we find fossils. The oldest man-made things are prehistoric flints. Oh, you found this like that. Amazing. Actually, for finding prehistoric flints, it's really good up here. Yeah? If you're going to find the best ones are in West London, sort of Chiswick around here.

So you don't find a great deal else. You might find a few sort of Victorian bits and bobs, but really it's good for prehistoric up here. I have no idea. Yeah. So, yeah, so prehistoric flints. And then you get into Bronze Age. I've got a Bronze Age all, so for making holes in leather. And then into the Romans.

And the Romans left behind an awful. They were a real messy lot. Romans and Victorians, I think, probably sort of left behind the most rubbish. So you find a lot of Roman. I mean, I've got a complete Roman pot. A complete pot? Wow. Complete pot.

I've got a sword chate made of ivory. So it's the hard bit from the end of a, you know, the sort of sheath you put a sword in. So they always have this hard bits of it. Yeah. Yeah, so that's from an auxiliary soldier. And, you know, I've got things with Potter's fingerprints for 2,000 years old and lovely tiles with catpour prints where they've run across the tiles.

and sort of those little moments, sort of 2,000-year-old moments caught in time. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. And have you, the people that you've been introduced, have you been introduced to this now network of people that can support your findings? And you mentioned this lady that's helping you age, this, you know, analyze this bit of fabric. Is this a whole sort of world that keeps unfolding from?

Yeah. I mean, I've met the most interesting people. And, you know, once you start doing something like this, my interest, are very far-ranging. And, you know, I'm pretty much interested in everything and anything. But then I meet these people who've devoted their lives to something like medieval pilgrim badges or, you know, sort of I've got another friend, Rebecca Struthers, who is, has a PhD in horology. And so I sent her, I found a pocket watch on the foreshore as well on Monday, sent her picture of that. And she came back, told me exactly when it was made and where it was probably made. And so I've sort of gathered. I suppose I've collected these sort of group of people who do really know their stuff. And it's brilliant because, you know, I can access them and they can help me. As part of our permit, we have to report anything over 300 years old and of historical importance to the Portable Antiquities Scheme,

which is a project run by the Museum of London to record onerless objects. I love that. that are found in fields and beaches and rivers in England and Wales and they've got well over a million objects on this incredible database that's free for anyone to look at and it's really, really important

that people do that because that's how we learn how people were living and what they were doing and about the past. So you go to a Fines Liaison officer and you report your stuff and they have access to a whole network of museums and curators

and professionals in that department. Yes, there's this sort spider web of interesting and interested dead people. It's very reassuring that, I think, when people have really dedicated to learning complete amounts of knowledge about these very specific areas. Yes. I'm so glad. Thank you for doing that. Thank you for doing that. And they're so specific, some of them. Yeah. I mean, it's incredible. Yeah. But then I think probably as well, a lot of these people that are devoted themselves, they're probably kindred spirits and that thing of liking their solitude and being able to go

deep into things as well. Yeah, very. It's the way that's a lot of us tick, I think. You know, you need to have this space that you can give yourself. And I'm I'm thinking if you with your, you know, when your children were small as well and needing that space, I think, you know, I know that your children might not take on exactly the same hobby, but I think what you're showing them is about the necessity for balance in yourself and recognising what you need because it's easy to lose that, I think, particularly when your kids are little, you feel like you're supposed to, if you're not at your wits end more often than not, then you're not, you know, that's part of what we associate as being like raising them. when there's more. Yeah. Sort of losing yourself a bit, really. Yeah, it's really important. It's really important to carve that time for yourself.

And it's really important to give your other half time to do that for themselves as well. Yeah. And you really are better people for it. Yeah. And your calmer and nicer. Well, talking of calm, I was thinking, I bet you when your kids were small, they loved you reading that you've got such a lovely talking voice. Thank you.

Thinking when you're reading in stories and they were small, it must have just been so, like bedtimes must have been lovely. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we did the Harry Potter Illustrated ones actually through COVID, which was, which was, yeah, they still remember that. So, yeah, hopefully giving them some memories. And do you still love books as much? Love books. I've always loved books.

Yes, I've always, ever since I was little, I've loved books. So, yeah, and I've always worked in books. And, you know, now I'm an author. So, yeah, no, it's good. And is that something your kids have maybe taken on? I don't know about you, but I'm a bit of a soft touch with buying my kids books at the weekend because when I see they're interested in reading, I get excited. Absolutely. There's one thing that we never say no to is books. Okay. Yeah. So, you know, they can have, you know, we send no to a lot of things. But if, you know, if it's a book,

they can have it. So, you know, the longer they read, the better. And they love books. So that is one thing that I like that they like. Yeah. But, you know, to be honest, I don't want them to like mudlarking. I don't want them to come with me. No, I can sense that. It's yours. Yeah, it's fine. And I really, that would defeat the object if they were there, bothering me. So, yeah. Yeah. Well, also, I think if it's your private world and it means you know its context completely, then bringing along people who don't share the passion. You're not interested in trying to woo them with it because it's giving you what you need. So you don't really need, I don't know, an element in there that's about trying to sort of explain it. It just is. It's just the thing you're doing. Thank you very much. Yes. Yeah. But it's obviously also introduced you to this whole other world. And I was looking on your Instagram where it told you sort of the things you're up to. And they were saying, I want to ask you back because I didn't actually understand exactly what it is. You're the first woman in history, and it was something to do with Dura and Southwark, and, like, I need a bit of help with what it is. Yeah, do you know, since I wrote this book, I've become sort of, I've been given some great honours.

Yes, let's go through them because I think it's good to share it. Right, so I'm a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, which is amazing. Which is brilliant, and that was established at 1707, and they have their HQ in Burlington, a Burlington House, which is where the Royal Academy is. Beautiful. So that's amazing. And that's a whole other network of people with very specific interests. And, you know, really clever people. Like, I'm about the only person without PhD who's there, I think.

And I'm really proud of that because I'm a lowly mudlark. And really, you know, the mudlarks historically were the people who are finding the objects and these sort of gentlemen and tickaroons were buying them off these, so poor people. And then holding them up and pretending they were theirs. You know, they never went searching for them. So I am the first mudlark. in history to get in there which is great

I'm also an associate brother of the Artworkers Guild which is great and they're based in they have a really lovely hall in Bloomsbury and that was established by William Morris

so I'm very very honored to be part of that and now I am I was the first woman juror for the king's for the court lead of the Kingsborough Southwark now the king was Henry

the 8th it's really really old And basically they would take this number of people out of the general population and say to them, right, you're in charge of making sure that people aren't selling rubbish beer, rotten meat, and that people are behaving themselves. And if they're not, you can form a court and you can punish them. And it's still there. And we have to go and swear in every year at Southern Crown Court in front of a judge. And we do fundraising and things like that. So, yes, and since I was sworn in, there's now a couple of other women, so it's good.

It's coming into the 21st century. Yes, quite slightly forward. But what role does that? Sorry, you said it used to be for keeping people on the straight and narrow, essentially. Yeah, it was, yeah. So, you know, I have a sort of a nominal sort of, I can, well, it would be nice if I could. I was the aleconnor last year, so that means that back in the day, I would have gone into the tavern ordered a pint of ale and then poured it on a bench. and sat on it in leather trousers and if I stuck then it was bad beer and if I didn't stick

then it was good beer so you know it's weird stuff like that but but now it's a bit like the guilds in the city in that we just are fundraising a sort of charity fundraising I just love I feel like it's uncovering so many layers to to the city as well though which I absolutely love I mean that you're so right when you said we're so surrounded by history and I suppose it must make you think about what you're leaving behind as well and now you've got these titles that have helped move things on and left your mark with your name association with these things, but also about the physical things that we leave and what the mark we make and our role rubbing alongside the nature that's around what's built up. Absolutely. And, you know,

sometimes I do, I don't know if you do it, but you leave little things, you know, so if you're doing some, if you're doing some DIY in the house, don't you write your name on the sort of back of the plasterboard or sort of like sticker sort of note in somewhere or just something you know something for people to find in the future when you're not here yeah um i like that i like that thought me too me too behind i suppose it's sort of linked a little bit to the sort of um i suppose a slightly humanist sort of version of things as well because it's my understanding the what's gone before and the people that follow in a way that i think's quite healthy i find it comforting i suppose for some people they might not but for me i can find the comfort in that yeah i mean we occupy such

a tiny part of, you know, space and time. Such a tiny space in time, but, you know, and so irrelevant, really. We think we're so important, but really we're not. So, but, you know, if you can find your importance in that tiny piece of space in time, then great. True. And as your children have now turned 13. Well, firstly, have you found it with twins? It's quite, I've actually got a twin brother and sister that just turned 27.

Right. Yeah. So I know that when, when you have twins in the family, I suppose, especially for my stepmom, I think she obviously always wanted to be a parent, but it's it means that you're suddenly, you sort of skip straight into like family life very quickly with like a bigger family. What's it like as they grow up? Well, you know, I won't lie. I cried when I found out we were having twins because, you know, that wasn't part of the plan. And, you know, as babies, you're firefighting with twins and you just don't really look up. You just get on with

it, you know, and well, everyone else is doing sort of meeting for coffee and going to swimming lessons, you know, you're just, you're doing one nappy after the next. And they have been brilliant kids, though. They're super calm. They're super lovely. They love each other. They don't fight. That's lovely. And yeah, the other thing, I think, with twins, we're always very aware that we're doing everything at once. So, you know, they left primary school. We're not going to go through that again. They studied secondary school together. You know, everything we do double at once and it's over. So we're very aware of that. And we're much older parents as well. We didn't have children until we were at 40. And for me, that was the right way to do it. You know, I got a lot out of my system

when I was younger. And I was ready, but I was ready later. Oh, yeah. So, you know, and it's been, it's, it's, it's been brilliant. You might actually find that you mentioned that one of your children finds it it quite hard to be on their own but actually you might find that that sticks because I was speaking the other day to a lady that was part of a boy girl twin and she said she can't really be on her own for longer than a couple of hours because she's just, you know, was in the womb and they were kind of all close and with her brother and she just feels that that's in her nature she's just not meant to be on her own like that. You might be right. You might be absolutely right. Yeah, he just can't bear being. He has to be very social.

whereas my daughter is more, you know, she's happier on her own. So, but no, and, you know, like I say, they're great friends. And I feel like we've done a good job. We've raised two kids I like spending time with. Oh, I think that is it. That's all you can do. That is it. Yeah.

And also I think I've got, I had my last baby just before I turned 40 and a lot of my girlfriends had their first and only babies then. And I think there's a lot of benefits that can happen because you know yourself so well and you're so ready to embrace what being a parent is about. And then also when you have your kids, it's like there's no other version of reality, is there? It's like there's always going to be that person at this time. That's just how it all unfolded. So I think there's lots of lovely things that can happen with that.

And you're right about the, I recognize the firefighting aspect as well when they're little. I think that that was definitely something I could see with my brother and sister. Yeah. But then you get to an age where that stops. Yeah. And then you've got this little family, you know, there's four of us and it's great. And does your weekend, five, six hour walks, does it always give you exactly what you need? Yeah.

That's so lovely. Yeah, yeah. And I am a better person if I can get away. So I know that. Everyone knows that. So, you know, everyone just lets me get on with it. So, yeah. What do you take with you when you head out?

What's your equipment then? Just like a basket and your wellies? I have, yeah, I have a waterproof backpack. And I've got my knee pack. and I've got bum bag and waterproofs if I need them and a bottle of water and that's it that's it yeah well on your travels if you're

oh actually before you finish wrap up I did want to quick go you mentioned arts and crafts my house is actually from that era arts and crafts time so I would really love it if you I know you've talked about it before but I love the story about the dove printing press just because it is very near me it is so the Hammersmith Bridge so for anyone that doesn't know that story

it's quite a good one because it involves It's quite dream. I was actually telling my nine-year-old way to school. So, yeah, well, you share it because I think I will just be regretting what you say otherwise. Okay, well, it is a great story. It's one of the best. It's the story of the Lost Thames type. And it happened in Hammersmiths. And there were two men, Emery Walker and Cobton's, Coddons, and they got together and they started printing press. And they were part of the Arts and Crafts movement. They knew Willie Morris. And so a part of that was that they wanted to produce the most beautiful type that had ever been produced. And they wanted to produce these books on their press and every single one bound by hand.

And so they produced what they called the Doves type. And they called it the Doves type because Copton Sunderson's house was right next to the Dove Pub, right on the river. And Emery Walker was really a businessman. He was very pragmatic. and Codden Sonson was the sort of arty side of things, a little bit obsessive. And this obsession grew and grew. And the two men produced this beautiful type. It was a sort of defining moment between the more sort of Gothic Victorian style and the more modern paired town style.

So it really is a beautiful type. And they did really well. They printed beautiful books. Cobden Sonson would only have the books, print books that were worthy of the type. So, you know, Wordsworth and Shakespeare and the Bible, most famously. And they rubbed along fine for about nine years. And then, Constance was getting more and more erratic and more and more and more obsessed with this type. And Emery Walker had had enough.

And he said, right, enough's enough. I want to split everything. I want the type. And I want, you know, to close all this down. And Cobbner-Sundsen can countenance this, you know. This was his beloved type that he'd put everything into. And so this little old man in the midst of the First World War, he was 70 at the time, dumped a ton of lead type into the river at Hammersmith and he'd sneak out at night with pockets full of it and little bags full of it and empty. He had a special place where he didn't think anyone could see him cut, you know, from either side on the road. And he dumped a ton of lead type into the river and it was gone. The only bits left were Emery Walker had just a few pieces that he'd set a Christmas card for his wife. but it wasn't enough to recreate it.

The dove's type was gone. He'd achieved what he wanted to achieve. They went into a protracted legal battle, but nothing came out of it. And eventually, Cobd's Sonson died. His ashes were put in a little nook at the end of the garden overlooking the river. And then there was a huge flood in 1920. His ashes were washed away into the river to join his beloved type. Fast forward to the 1990s,

and a man called Rob Green comes along. He's a typographer, and he reads this incredible story. And he decides he wants to recreate the type. So he gets some ephemery, gets some printed material. But when you get a metal type and you press it into paper, it fuzzes. And you can't produce a clear digital copy. So he decided he was going to go and find the type itself and recreate it that way. And there was a woman who had read Cobden Sonson's many and quite crazy diaries that he'd written during this time.

So he'd given lots of hints and tips. about where he'd thrown it, how much he hated Emery Walker, why he'd done it, how furious he was. And so Rob Green went down and the PLA, the Border London Authority had said, if he found any, they'd send in divers to help him look for more. So he found a few pieces on his first time down and the PLA came in. And I think in total, I can't remember the numbers off the top of my head. I'm not good with numbers, but I think it was about 60 pieces. Out of a ton of lead type, they found 60 pieces, but it was enough for him to recreate it.

digitally. And so he did that. And I interviewed him for my book. And he let slip. It was of where the type was. So I thought, oh, I'll go down and have a little look myself. So I did. And I managed to find an F and a comma. And when I found the comma, it was the only comma in existence. So I was like, very pleased with that. And we used the, we use the Dev Doves type of my book. So if anyone wants to see what it looks like, we used it on the cover. And we used it on the cover. And we used it. used it inside. We tried to set whole pages in it, but it just, they only produced it in 16 point with no, no italics. And so it was a really weird type. It was very beautiful, but weird. So it didn't work in incomplete pages. So we've used it just for the quotes at the top of the

page. But that's lovely, because you've got a nod to it. There's a definite nod to it. And then when I wrote my second book, Mudlarking Year, I discovered there was, there's another type that Charles Ricketts threw his matrices for his own type called The Vail into the River at Chelsea. Yeah, and he did that before Cobden Sonson and the Doves type. So I think that might be where he got the idea. Wow. So there's another type in the river. That's so crazy.

And then throwing their type into the river. So we've used the veil type in that book. So, yeah. I had no idea about the other bits of information. Yeah. Why is it with people deciding to throw away whole typefaces? Well, do you know what? The river is a great place to go and get rid of things you don't want.

Oh, true. good point we find an awful lot of things that people don't want down there oh yeah but the murky the murky things yeah yeah yeah including engagement rings and wedding rings so quite a lot of those yeah yeah maybe sometimes done in a kind of dramatic gesture and then thought actually i shouldn't have done that usually by bridges but then i also found posy rings 500 to 600 you do posy rings so people have been doing it for for generations it's a great place to go to get rid of what you want including all your negative thoughts yes yes let's bring it back to the poetry of it and um one thing i can think of if you're ever must be sort of down towards a richmond way uh Mickey threw a PJ

masks watch off a little ferry there I've a little while back so if you find that I'm gonna keep my answer thank you so much you're welcome you're welcome thank you calm. See, I told you. It's a nice feeling, isn't it? Also, I think, you know, we live in a world that talks a lot about your mental health aspects, and I think it's really nice to hear about all these different things that people can do and ways that you can access that kind of reset, that sort of calm. Also, I suppose when you're finding things by the river that tell stories about other people's lives, it's a good way of kind of, I don't know, you can keep me in step with history and humanity, really. What will we leave behind? Definitely the PJ

Masks watch. That'll be something that some mudlarker will discover in the future. That's funny, there's a guy up ahead. He's walking his dogs and he's wearing one of those t-shirts where it kind of looks like he's naked. You know, people accidentally wear skin colours. Actually, his whole outfit's kind of that. I'm kind of staring. I have to look away. I've got change now. I am on my way to see Giovanna, and I've... I actually kept with the Palazzo jeans. I even kept with the shirt. I just changed my knitwear and my coat,

and I do feel a lot better now. So hopefully that will sort of be good for her. And, yeah, hopefully I'll have a smooth glide on the tube across town. So listen, I'll see you again next week with another guest. And I know I always say it, but please do keep your suggestions coming in. You've always given me such incredible ideas, and it's really helped.

what the podcast is, so please continue with that. I like it. All right, I'm achieved now. Lots of love. Thank you to Laura. Thank you to Richard for editing. Thank you to Claire for producing. Thank you for you for your ears. I'll see you soon. Thank you.