Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 20: Róisín Murphy

Episode Date: December 21, 2020

Musician Róisín Murphy can be a creative ‘bag of baldoons’ - a phrase her mum uses to conjure up what she’s like when she’s working on multiple projects. She is also mum to 10 year old Clodagh and 8 year old Tadhg. We talked about savouring every moment while your children are little. And I learned a lot about elaborate bedtime tucking-in routines, which I’ve been practising on my boys ever since!  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, 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. Hey, hey, my little podcats. How you doing? I am speaking to you from London. Well, everything's a little bit gloomy we've had we've been members of a new club

I don't know if you've heard of it, it's called Tier 4 Tier 4 is the club where you can check out any time you like but you can never leave yeah and I love to see people, it's very exclusive except if you live in London in which case there's millions of us stuck here,

unable to do the things we want to do for Christmas. But hey, I'm not too petulant. I'm going to keep all stoic and positive and all that stuff. Yes, yes. I'm speaking to you from Saturday night. We did a kitchen disco last night, a Christmas one. It was really fun and silly, which has been nice to do. I am again being a bit risky. I'm recording this introduction well. I have got Mickey

next to me. He's helping me unload the dishwasher. Is that a well-advised activity? Probably not. Anyway, last week, at the end of last week's episode, I said that this week it was going to be the Nervo sisters with me, but for really boring reasons, it's not going to be them. That conversation will come, and it is a really good one, but it won't come now. So I have happily swapped it for a conversation I had really recently with Roisin Murphy. It sounds funny I, I've met Roisin lots of times over the years. I think she's brilliant. I love her.

But I, when I asked her about doing my podcast, I thought she was going to say no. Um, not because she doesn't like me. All right, McMox. Um, but because I wasn't sure how much she wanted to talk about motherhood publicly because I haven't really heard her talk about her kids too much. She has two children a

boy and a girl um I think oh golly no no okay my blooming brain I think that they are something like 11 and 9 or 10 and 8 oh golly Mickey um anywho I messaged her and she said yes immediately which was lovely it was so nice to see her again i haven't seen her for ages and um yeah she spoke so warmly there's so much love there and she's also so funny she's such a witty woman and uh there's my favorite bit maybe of any of the podcast chats um in a personal way where i said to her oh when you're interviewed do you get asked a lot about who you know who looks after the kids how you handle the childcare and she said no but then i think i'm a bit scarier than you and they really made me laugh because actually i do find her a little bit intimidating but only because she's whip smart you know and you get that with women you just think oh you're gonna say something if

i say something daft she probably wouldn't i don't mean the mean way i just mean when you know someone's really on it anyhow i'm, I'm wittering on. What's the other thing? Oh, golly, I have to warn you. This is embarrassing. I have to warn you about swearing. I swore. What the challenge?

I never swear ever, really, in real life. Occasionally. Not so you'd know about it. And apparently I said what my kids would call the F word and the show word. I can only apologise. So, yeah, if you've got small ears knocking around keep them away because it turns out this podcaster has a filthy mouth i swear like a sailor i didn't even know it um anyway enjoy i'll see you on the other side i normally make myself a cup of tea don't know but i'm not going to tonight it's saturday night just found out i can't

celebrate christmas time i'm gonna going to have a Negroni. So I will see you in a bit after the chat with Roisin. And yeah, I'm actually really happy to end on this one. It's a happy way to end my 20th podcast episode.

See you in a bit. Bye bye. Roisin, it's really lovely to see you. I feel like we haven't seen each other for quite a while, actually. Not face to face, no. In real life. I'm wondering if you even had had a baby when I last saw you, actually. I had one baby.

You had one, okay. Yeah, I actually had Clodagh over here one day. Ah, yes, okay, yeah, I mean, she was really tiny. Yeah, that's right. That's right, okay, so that sort of pins it down a little bit, so it's probably, so she's ten now, isn't she? Ten. So it's probably about nine years ago, something like that. Mm-hmm. And since then, you've also had a little boy, as well.

I have, yeah. Ah, and you've also had a really exciting, because you brought an album out this year, a brand new album. It's been exciting. It's been, you know, a chocolate egg, a toy and a surprise. How, I think actually you've done something pretty extraordinary with bringing your record out, because I think most new music has really had quite a tough time with it this year. But your thing seems to have really actually pushed through and become part of something

that people have embraced really warmly. I mean, I heard it on the radio tons, and I know it's in a lot of... You said that today it's actually been in Marx's one of the albums of the year? Yes, yeah, no, Nimone has it as album of the year on Six Music today, which is lovely. And, yeah, it's been good. I mean, I am missing the live element now. This is really coming to the point

where the promotion would naturally start to tail off and you'd start to rev up your touring. And you would take a record, which the record was very dear to my heart. You know, I've been working on this record on and off for 10 years. Started it after my album Overpowered with Para, who I've known since I was a teenager. And, you know, it would normally go off on another journey

and you would tell another story with it through the live thing. And it's now that I'm starting to feel that emptiness, you know. Yes. And I wonder as well if you felt like me at the beginning of lockdown. Just I've always I didn't realize quite how much of me was wrapped in my work, actually, in terms of when it was taken away. Just really struggling to feel like I had a space that was my own. So obviously when you went into lockdown with your,

is it just you and your two kids at home? And my partner, yeah. Okay, cool. And so did you feel the same sort of craziness of not having that gap for yourself? I went a little crazy into myself. I went, I ran into creativity, which is what I've always done since I was a kid. You know, if there's any kind of drama in the family or anything like that I went to the other side of the house which was a

big old house no carpets half of it freezing cold no central heating but massive so I could go to the other end of it and and just dive in and and I think that's what I did in lockdown and maybe my children think I'm a little mad you know because they they're the ones that are now seeing how obsessed with my work I am because they're seeing me do it yeah um hopefully there's an upside to that that they can see somebody passionately in front of them pursuing their dream and their vision you know to the well to the very nth degree that that I possibly can do things I do them and they're seeing that now every day because it's pretty much the hub the home yeah I mean

so up until now so your little boy's eight and your daughter's ten up until now how much of that your work were they really sort of privy to do you think not not that much I mean I did did write a little bit in the last few years I've started to write at home a lot more. I got on Ableton. I can kind of do a few things there now. And enough to record decent vocals at home. So I would say in the last two years, they've seen me do a lot more of that. Although my partner, Sebastiano, is also in music, and that's how I met him.

So they'd seen me and him playing around with bits and pieces but now they see it they see how it's every day for me and and they see me kind of getting some results maybe and hopefully that's good maybe they are a bit jealous of my work um you know they they're not that interested in my work. Are yours? Are your children? No. Go on now, they're not. Are they led on? They're not anyway. No, they're very much not interested, I would say.

Like, often quite vocally. Yeah, no, mine will go out of their way to tell me. I get told off especially badly for singing. Yeah. I have pointed out it's what I do. I know. It doesn't really make much difference yeah exactly but no it goes down pretty badly actually um almost every time in fact embarrassingly

during lockdown that's how i smashed my phone because i turned to music so quickly so early on just to get through the domesticity and the tension really you know don't get me wrong like you I was on lockdown with all my favorite people but just the monotony of you know laundry and feeding folk and keeping the house tidy I was just singing my way around the house all the time and one time I was doing particularly what I thought was very good rendition of Rizzo's song there are worse things I could do from Greece and as I was getting near the end, my 11-year-old was getting more and more like, can you stop it? Can you stop it? And I was like, I've just got to finish this song.

Got to nearly the last note and he went, Mummy, shut up! And I just slammed my phone down and the whole screen shattered. Oh God. I know, but it was just like, you don't know what this is for me, what space I'm being given just by doing something other than folding T-shirts and emptying the dishwasher. So when, because I saw a lot of your performances this year from your home

and they're brilliant and you get all dressed up. Do your kids not normally see you get dressed up like that for work? They see me getting dressed up now. And in all fairness, they know there's an awful lot of clothes in the house there's more clothes in the house than there is of anything else but maybe maybe lols there's more lols now yeah they're kind of funny lols aren't they i don't mind the i don't mind them either i like the little shoes the fact that she's still playing with dolls i mean she's to 10 she'll be 11 in a couple of weeks ah and if i walk past the room and she's in there playing

with doll dolls you know and it's that she makes them talk to each other and they're like you just hear a mumbling these little and and then singing in there and the you know and she's in there for two three hours sometimes with this doll house and the dolls and all the little yolks and i love it i just sometimes stand outside the door secretly listen and I I know this is so fleeting yeah well you mentioned you haven't got a tv as well does that go as far as like no ipads no devices at all not at all have you managed that no I mean not at all they do have I think no there's nothing I was like oh my goodness that's phenomenal I wish but um but no, we have an iPad.

They both have, now they both have two computers from the last lockdown. Their schools made them have to have computers. You know, those really kind of like ancient computers they have that are really heavy. But they, yeah, they get a fair amount of screen, especially since these lockdowns. Yeah, it's kind of the way things are, isn't it?

And going back, what was happening in your life with your music and everything when you had your first baby? When I had my first baby, well, I... What was going on with my music? I kind of just backed off a bit after I had the first... Because you'd released your second album, is that right? Your second solo album. My second solo album. I'm trying to think back now.

Yeah, that was Overpowered. So it was the end of Overpowered, and I got pregnant, and I went to Ireland for nine months and stayed with my mother. Oh, while you were, like, for the pregnancy? Well, I have a little house there, so actually my mam stayed with me most of the time. So I had the baby there, and then I stayed nine months after she was born, and she kind of taught me how to be a mammy.

Oh, was that quite instinctive then, just to go back to... It really was. It was like an animal going back to her nest like and you know i really needed to be i mean i remember saying to me matt my ma's classic anxiety she does have worries like so when i rang her and i said i'm coming back to have this baby here and it was really a late decision in the pregnancy to go back and do it there and she was like oh but Jesus, why can't I? I won't be able to. And it'll be, and I said, you know, ma, you were there, like you were there

when I bought the house, mammy, you know. This is the reason I bought it. I mean, this is for this very kind of moment in my life that I have this little place I can hide in, in a Vulcan and in the hills and you can help me get through this. moment in my life that I have this little place I can hide in in a Vulcan and in the hills and and you can help me get through this and um actually she came to life you know as a as my main helper um my partner at the time Simon who you probably remember the artist he was working during that period with um kanye west and rihanna as creative director so he

was coming going backwards and forwards to la a lot and we just lost contact we just lost he lost connection with us as as a as a family and he was lost in that world for a while and and we broke up and we've been together for five years so it was a very hard time actually but it wasn't you know what i say it was a hard time it was kind of quite strangely smooth breakup he was very good about breaking up there wasn't any of this like you know drama about. But it was hard in the sense of accepting, having come from such a family-orientated background, to accept another kind of model to the one I expected as a family. And when I met Sebastiano, and actually when I had my second child,

although I was extremely happy to have Clodagh, I felt so completed once I had this unit that was very solid. With Sebastiano? With Sebastiano and Tighe, my son. When Tighe came, that was the happiest time of my life. And I didn't do much music when I was that happy to be honest I was ridiculously happy I was endorphin happy going around like floating for about two years after I had the second child so did that feel quite different after you'd had your daughter then well you know

the second one is easier anyway you know first one, there's much more anxiety. What does this do? You're turning it upside down trying to figure out where the manual is and how does it work? And having Sebi the second time as well, having someone there with me in the nights when you wake up and the baby was comparatively just so much easier to do. Yes, it does. It must change everything. And I guess, I mean, it sounds like you and Simon had a very sort of peaceful breakup

in that you could, you know, you knew it was for the right reasons. But it's always a sad thing because you spend that five years building together an idea of something. And then, as you say, you have to sort of adjust. So was that whole time when you were back in Ireland, that wasn't with him there, you were just with your... He was coming and going a little bit, but it was really protracted, sort of just breaking away from each other, to be honest. Previously, I mean, you mentioned when you bought the place in Ireland,

you sort of thought it'd be possible that might be somewhere that you go back to when you're having a baby. Is that something that was already in your head, being a mum? Do you think you always thought you'd be a mum? I always thought I'd be. And are you from a big family? No, there's only two, me and my brother, but we're from a massive extended family on both sides and we're very involved with all our cousins and so on. with all our cousins and so on. And how does it feel when you bring a baby into the world in a very different situation to the one that you had for your own child?

I mean, I get the impression you had quite a happy childhood from sort of whatever, and I've heard you speak about it before. Is that true? Well, it's just this kind of like, as I said, it was tricky to come to terms with it. But by the time I had come to terms with it, I'd turned it around again and I was back where I wanted to be, which was in a really loving kind of family unit.

But I'm the type of character that, had that not happened, I'm sure I would have dealt with it in my way anyway and got on with it. And I'm not sure I would have dealt with it in my way anyway and got on with it. And I'm not sure it would have been so terrible. But there was a dissonance in me about it, obviously, because I've been brought up with people who wouldn't dream of breaking up, even if they were unhappy, you know, as well, back in the day. I know.

And there's positives and benefits to that, even when you think about it. I don't know. And there's positives and benefits to that, even when you think about it. I don't know. I spend a lot of time talking to girlfriends about, I don't think there's ever an age where you should settle for something, really. And there's a difference between an expectation of happiness that is unrealistic and that's very hard to maintain

and actually just being fundamentally not very satisfied or happy with what's going on we're not built like that anyway us modern women are we that we can really in the end deal with you know i think there's a thing you have to compromise in relationships it's the hardest thing in the world um and there is an aspect of it that you hold it together for your kids. But if I thought I was in a relationship that I was just holding together for the children, I think I'd be pretty disappointed in myself.

Yeah, me too. I've never quite understood that. But, I mean, I say that as a child of divorced parents and I think if they'd stayed together, I think it would have been horrible, actually. Well, my mother and father eventually broke up too after years of arguing and not getting along. And I actually told my mother to finish it. At 15, I turned around to my mother and went,

finish it, just finish it. Wow, you just like, enough already. She was like, you've got a point, okay. Wow. And that was it. And that was when, so this is when you were in Manchester. Yeah. And then your mum and dad, did they both leave Manchester at that point?

Well, my dad went to North Manchester, so he was around. My mother went to Ireland, and I stayed in Stockport with my friend's parents, mother actually, his dad was gone unfortunately. And I stayed in Stockport with my friend's parents' mother, actually. His dad was gone, unfortunately. But they took me in and I stayed there for a little while until I could get my own flat. Wow. I mean, that's so little, isn't it? 16. I got the day I was 16.

You know, I moved into the flat. It was genius. And you never lived a day at home again after that from when you were... No. Wow. You were in your own flat at 16? Yeah, yeah. With other people? flat it was genius and you never lived a day at home again after that from when you were no wow you were in your own flat at 16 yeah yeah with other people no that's amazing i think that wins the trophy of like the youngest like the person i spoke to who's moved out of home and gained independence the youngest i loved it though sophie i mean and i was very lucky at the time to be able to go to the the hss and get the support that i needed for it and them to believe in me and not sort of think that i wouldn't be capable and i think there's terrible situation now where you just couldn't do that um at 16 now

15 i'll be put into like um i don't know into a boarding house or a foster care or they wouldn't give me there's no housing benefit for that age group now so but they gave me this independence and the thing was it all worked out perfectly all my friends were in that area i got the flat very close to where i lived with my family. And it was five minutes down the road from my sixth form college. Cool. And it was a lovely flat, you know. I had a shared bathroom. And I had to go through a shared hallway from my bedroom,

which was in the front of the house, to the back room, which had a big semicircular orange sofa in it, which was ace. Made me get the flat, basically, that was in it. And then it had a kitchen out on the back and then stairs down to the garden from the kitchen and the garden was this magnificent thing. It sounds incredible.

Oh, it was gorgeous. Loved big old Victorian house. And, oh, you wouldn't live in that area now for love nor money. It wasn't that posh then, but it was quite posh. So I was lucky it wasn't such a drama. And did you know then that you wanted to perform? Was it music already, something you were doing? No, no, I really was open to a creative life.

I definitely wanted to do art of some kind, artistic. If you'd asked me when I was seven or eight what I wanted to do I would have precociously said artist I want to be an artist that's cool what did your parents do were you raised by both of them working uh yeah well my mum antique dealing here and there or they'd find my mother sold paintings at Christie's two Dutch master paintings, and then the next day my father could be selling a lorry load of scrap lead. So it was a bit like that. We were wheelers and dealers.

My mum's got an incredibly good eye. She's really got great taste and is a very elegant person and taught me a lot of things just by you know we used to have books around the house about antiques and interior design and um and about paintings and because that's what she was interested in and they were just there and obviously in them days you have your your screens and that you just pick things up in the in the house and i just grew up knowing the difference between a victorian house and an edwardian house and art deco art nouveau and you know um just different styles of things and also with clothes my mother's family were always all very well dressed and there was tailors in the in the family and dress makers and so sort of brought up around people who knew the names of colors and the names of fabrics and

ways of stitching and um you know knowing what a pattern was and these sort of things that just you don't have to learn but they really come in handy do you still have a relationship with your mom now where you'll talk to her about what you're up to and the clothes and things like that? I'm very close to my mother, super close. But she's still in Ireland? She's still in Ireland, yeah. And the one thing is my mother, all throughout my career,

has been like my advocate to the rest of my family. And no matter how weird the music gets or anything, she'll still sit there and listen to it like ten times over and she'll be able to tell you why it's good and you know I remembered when I did Ruby Blue which was my first solo album I couldn't wait to play it to my uncle Jim who's like one of my heroes and great jazz musician and everything and I played it to him and he just could not get his head around this thing at all he thought it was actually a disgrace and my mother was like don't mind him right in front of him you know like don't mind him he never had the balls you've got to go out and do it for himself

loads of stick about it and he was never into that kind of wild he was never into really weird music I mean I

remember he didn't even like the Beatles at one time and all this Jim's like

anyway he didn't care because he certainly wasn't listening to any of us about music

it was pitch perfect knew absolutely everything so but yeah she always fought my corner always does always understands it always sees what it is I'm trying to do um my dad's very very very supportive but I don't think he gets it like my mother does

yeah well it's amazing how much I do think, if they're given that confidence and that support, it's like it's the joy of the best sort of set up, isn't it? And like really just pour in the love and the support and then see where it heads. Because actually it probably gave you this sort of secret armour when you were 16. I was already there, obviously, by the time I'd gone to Manchester at 12 and embraced it, I mean, maybe that was the thing. Maybe it was actually moving from Ireland to Manchester at 12. That was the harder thing.

And I took that on with gusto. Even though I had things I had to deal with, you know, and at that time the IRA were still doing things and the Irish weren't really the best looked upon. And I got a fair bit of stick, but I dealt with it. And I found through not getting on with everyone, I found the people that I really, really get along with and in a way, you know, that you turn to the weirdos you turn to the ones that

are interested in things and that aren't maybe kids who aren't so politically embroiled in like um dramas between themselves and everything I just removed myself from that in school at a certain point because I always got into drama after drama after drama after drama in every school I went to with the kids and with the teachers and with everyone so but but once I sort of got to Manchester and then I'd been I went through that sort of rigmarole again in school and then I found these guys and they were all into music and we started going to gigs and we started dressing differently and we became a kind of little tribe and within that small Petri dish grew many things

and many of us went out and did interesting things. Yeah, well, there's so much to be said for that bit of your life where you do find your other family really, isn't it? Yes. Like those friends and finally feel like yourself and a lot of that rubbish from school you just can leave it behind and just shrug it off it's just and every once in a while i don't know if you have this i'll meet someone and it's it's once in a blue moon now and i'll think oh you're still acting like school days and it's just so nice to be able to not have to think like that anymore it's what remind you of like that hierarchy or the bitchiness or think oh what an exhausting

way to live yeah so nice to leave that behind but i think that's that's out of interests you know i mean that's what i really hope for my children is that they find things that fascinate them yeah whether or not it's something that they do even, you know, because I was fascinated in music with no thought to make it, with no thought that that was what I was going to do, but I was absolutely fascinated and obsessed with it and it led me somewhere, you know. But even if it doesn't lead you somewhere, actually,

to have that place, even a hobby, you know, even something that you're just very passionate about that's outside of um that you know the grid of of the expectation that's on you yeah it's the best thing in the world nobody can take that away from you nobody and when you had your baby and you weren't performing for a while and weren't feeling creative did you really miss it or did it feel kind of appropriate to leave it alone for a bit or was that more when you had your second um well actually you know what i i figured out a good way of getting out there i started djing was that after you had after i had cloda and i was as i

was telling you earlier i was was going to Russia a lot and I was going to crazy places. It was a whole other world to touring. Did you find it quite lonely on your own? A kind of mad world. Is it all right? I've never DJed on my own. I always have Richard by my side.

Well, I always go with Simon Phillips, my trusty steed. Cool. Who's been my kind of roadie for years. And he still does all the wardrobe stuff for me when I'm touring. Brilliant. But he doesn't look like your average wardrobe assistant. He's a real roadie. Black shorts, black T-shirt, long hair.

Holding up the bits of roadie. He turns up with all these feathers and like hat three hats on his head and that running around trying to pick up all my bits and bobs off the stage but he's the best anyway but he used to come with me and do the sort of technical stuff setting it up and everything

so we'd always have a laugh but I went to funny places you know I went to well beautiful I went I brought my mother on a few of these trips to New York and to Moscow. And I brought her to Mykonos. I was playing at somebody's wedding.

Russian people. And we were in the most magnificent villa for a week there. Wow. The three of us, me and my man the child and simon actually was there too and she was swimming in the pool one day and she said to me you know roshan if you'd have said to me in the 60s that i would be swimming in a swimming pool in in a fabulous uh place in this place in greece you know and and you told me it was all paid for by a russian i would have told you you're completely mad it couldn't happen you know it's impossible

but you know here we were yeah i think we've had some similar experiences i've never managed to get a whole week a week in a villa maybe a couple of nights here but um when when i had my first baby i found, the performing, I found it really weird putting the clothes back on. I felt like it took me a little while to feel like me again. Yeah. Did you feel like that, or did you find that it was kind of okay? I did feel a little awkward the first couple of times.

I think the first thing I did at all was, like, a fashion, you know, like when you, what was it called that for charity fashion walk everybody would oh like a catwalk show yeah catwalk show for Naomi Naomi Campbell and I came over and I was like a size 14 and the last time I'd done it I was like you know going around like a slish as my mother would say and this time it turned up was like you know and you feel even when you're dancing and stuff like and that's where I got this thing where I just tried to kind of hack into that feeling where I was nervous about that so I sort of started saying come and have a dance with your mum don't be shy in it like you just run headlong into it just

like already imagining when Clodagh was, you know, a newborn that how embarrassing she's going to find me in the future. There's a joy in that, honestly. Absolutely embracing. Go and dance with your mum. So, yeah, I started to hack into it with a bit of humour. Yeah. And what about your songwriting?

Do you kind of feel like you, are you sort of quite selfish about it like your music is what on one side of things and the kids have got the rest of you or is it quite a fluid thing um well i'm there in the house doing it you know but yeah i have to shove them out the door sometimes and they're like i'm on the claw not you you know yeah in the middle of doing something go on out now, go about your business. No, we want huggles now and stuff like that. So it's just a balance. Sometimes you've got to put it down

and go and give them the huggles and then sometimes you've got to say, well, no, Mama's working. Do you write about them consciously? I've been quite conscious to not involve them literally in the creative, but I never wanted... Like Richard used to put put sunny's voice on a lot of early feeling albums and i was like that's lovely but he's not i'm not having my kids turn up

doing bvs on my album i did actually record tyge recently where he kind of did this rap thing called cool bear it sounds so wicked it sounds great but getting some producer to do something with it might be another question but it does sound good no i mean he's very musical ty let's see i don't know we could become some kind of musical family family unit some folk family in the future does cloda sing too is she musical cloda loves she's a bit like my mother she loves music she really understands it but i don't think she's got bit like my mother, she loves music. She really understands it but I don't think she's got a musical bone

in her body. Yeah, well also there's a difference between kids that love listening to music and then the one that actually says like, now look at me

while I'm performing. She's more the look at me while I'm performing and Ty's the one that's kind of hiding the talent, you know. She's so vivacious,

Clodagh, she's a massive personality. And when when when you were doing the lockdown things did you because during our year i've gone from big i've always been incredibly private about the family and i still wouldn't take pictures of them put them i mean it's completely like whatever each to their own i don't make any i love seeing pictures of other people's kids but i just don't do it with mine on my social media stuff. But we ended up doing these gigs here with the kids here because I felt like the line between...

I didn't even feel like I was doing it as a performer. It felt more like this is just what I do to kind of cheer myself up and this is how, as a family, we deal with things. But you just came over, like, the joy. Like I said to you when I first saw it, it was like you looked happier than you ever looked as a performer. I mean, just the joy was beaming out of you and I wondered whether it was because you were able to

meld the two sides a bit more, because I know how much you love your family. I mean, you wouldn't have had five kids if you don't love children. And tattoo family onto one of my arms as well. It's definitely a running theme with me, yeah. Yeah, maybe you're right. There was just this, like, relaxed, like, this is me. And for me, too, in the performances that I did in lockdown,

where it's just one camera, you know, it's just the computer open on the table. And that, there was an intimacy there was something some sort of layers of artifice stripped away in a way even though i'm all dressed up and what have you it's just me and you in a sense and me in my environment albeit dressed up they're my clothes it's me i've done my own hair and makeup and everything and also you're getting kind of with that way of performing just into the computer like that you get these close-ups of the face that people aren't getting when they come to a live gig they're not seeing the the twinkle in my eye necessarily or the small micro performance of the face so true and i think also the thing i

really loved about all your performances and when you've been talking and telling stories is that you can your humor comes across your generosity in terms of wanting to give the other person something to respond to in your performance and also it's they're really playful i've really enjoyed it i think i think you really got it so right with just giving something where you think, oh, I want to watch this. It's going to be exciting and interesting and sometimes, you know, make me smile. And it's like you've put a lot of humour in them as well, I think. There's really funny bits.

And then when you're telling your stories or putting on your voices and things, you're right. So I love it. It's really good. And you're right, it's an intimacy that's maybe, because probably you've been performing with that attitude for years, but you don't always get to see it when it's on a stage. Yes, exactly.

And band around and the dynamics of all of that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's... It is just me. I mean, there is a dissonance for people when you've got an artist who tries on lots of hats and masks and styles and has over, have over 27 years tried so many different bits and bobs out, you know, and actually starting out as a non-singer,

I've gone, for me, it's just a straight line. But for other people, a straight line from not knowing what the hell I'm doing and yet still being on a record, to trying all these millions of things along the way and from one image to the next with my career and one sound to the next and one song to the next and one era to the next sometimes right next to each other it's hard for people to make the jump but I think the more years that go by that also starts to smooth out a little bit because you're getting more and more intimate and you get to see that

oh yeah she's all dressed up and everything else but she's not pretentious you know or it's um it's not fake even though there's artifice, you know. And it's just giving yourself some breadth and time to express something complex. Yeah. And so you were talking, before we started recording, we were talking about your new album, which how long, so with this DJ Parra, how long in the making is that? You said you started writing it a long time ago.

Yeah, after Overpowered we began. Okay, so before you'd even had cloder uh i think i'd had her no maybe just before we started quite strange to sort of revisit things from that time or no because they're fresh as a daisy you know thanks to parrot they're just still totally fresh so you don't feel like you're kind of almost revisiting different version of yourself? It doesn't really work like that? I've been working on a lot of projects simultaneously,

probably like yourself, you know? Things are different than they used to be. It used to be like album, tour, album, tour, album, tour, and the whole cycle could take two and a half years just for one cycle. It's a very easy pace, that, wasn't it? I mean, it just was. You could put your feet up.

But now it's like the possibilities with the technology as well that I can be working with a fella in Germany at the same time as on the next record, at the same time as finishing a record with a fella in Sheffield, at the same time as trying out another project, even on top of that,

and not really having to leave the house that much even to do it, means that all these things can kind of be on the boil at the same time. But just with this record, I had the second Babby. I was in love with the Italian. He was playing me all the Italian music and actually I just went into making this italian record instead and that led me on another path where i ended up working with eddie stevens where i made two albums with him then and and then i made her more music with maurice fulton last year which is just as

clubby and just as disco as this but um it was packaged in a set of four 12 inches so it's not seen as a sort of album project but it was meant that much to me as much as any album project so all those things kind of went in the middle of it all and um we did a few tracks in between and we already had a handful of backing tracks, like five, six, and they're all at the beginning of this thing. And they're all pretty much on the record in some form. So the DNA of it was there, really right from the beginning. And it's not got tired, thank God, no. That is interesting, though,

because I don't think I do work like that at all. I don't really go back and I haven't got lots of things like that I'm kind of a lot more like I can deal with one thing one music project at a time I think but you are doing all sorts of other projects at the same time so maybe that's why yeah but then if I do listen back to things I did a while ago I'm a bit like I mean in a way it could be dangerous what you told me because I might go back and start listening to all the old demos and going maybe there is something in this but I suppose I've always been a bit like

if I haven't used it then there's probably a reason I think it's really amazing you've done an album that's actually spread out like that I think that's quite unusual Well the next one has been five years in the making That's amazing because you've had that big gap but now it feels like, do you feel like there's just like

Yeah there's been compound interest built you know and so as I, but now it feels like, do you feel like there's just like... Yeah, there's been compound interest built, you know. And so as I said to you, it's like really now it's about, there's so much music kind of in a glop waiting to come out that it's the partiest part is putting space between the releases, the right kind of space between the releases. How do you make that decision? Okay, in the old days know you'd leave it a year or two before yeah you know but then there's there are examples today where people are just

putting out loads of music and it's working yeah it's true you can be a lot more instinctive like that can't you so i don't know but it's a bit like a balance yeah we i think you probably know instinctive it works for you as well with that balance anyway because that's the sort of there's always a rhythm in it all isn't there and i i was reading earlier a quote that you'd said about the complexities of being a woman and i was thinking about how we're both in our 40s and looking at your artwork and your performances i might be totally wrong with this but from the outside looking and it looks like you're in such a good place with your confidence, yourself,

like feeling really good about what you're doing. Is that how you feel on the inside? Yeah. That's nice. I mean, you know, I look in the mirror every day and I say, Jesus Christ, that's a miracle. Like, I don't look after myself. You saw what I did today.

I ate two bags of bloody sweets for breakfast, you know what I mean? That was your breakfast? I don't... And then I look in the mirror and just, Jesus Christ, you still look good. You know, a bit. Enough, anyway, for me. And so that's a miracle of itself. So I praise the Lord, even though I don't believe in him every morning for me. And so that's a miracle of itself. So I praise the Lord,

even though I don't believe in him every morning for that. And then I don't know how long that's going to last, though it could all be very much on a tenuous thread of something or other, I don't know, could all collapse. But my confidence is good. Yes, it is good at the moment. I have a good support people around me. My manager is, she knows your brother, Rihanna.

She used to sing with me. She knows Jackson? Yeah, she was my backing singer. And she was an artist of her own, right? She had an album out, years gone gone sony under her own name and then somebody else came along called rihanna yeah that must have been annoying that was annoying she's a singer called rihanna but um anyway she i've taken her on as my manager she wanted to get out of the you know she tours with all sorts of people it's quite recent yeah two years oh two

years best thing i've ever done amazing Best thing I've ever done. Amazing. Best thing I've ever done. To have a friend that you respect, that you really would like to spend time with anyway. Yeah. Be around you and your work is just, it's kind of a fucking revelation for me. Yeah, well, I think that's one of the beauties as well

about having a long career is that you get to that bit where you've sort of, you can kind of cherry pick all the people you want to work with because you've met some really amazing people along the way and loads of talents and people that make you feel like your best version of you and people where you think they're so good at what they do, all I have to do is focus on what I'm doing.

I know they've got my back with what they're up to.'s just lovely and then the older I've got and the more experience I've had the more I've kind of pared it down really to that yes I think working with someone like that as a manager that's that again is really that's really good fortune I mean the few times I've been looking for management most people just have a list of who to avoid really yes yeah well it's such a sort of um they make it seem so mysterious what they're doing you know when you start out in the business you sort of think oh it has to be if somebody's telling me they're a manager oh yeah then they're a manager you know exactly but even though inside you might be thinking you might be sat next to them well they're not actually most

of my managers have been great but there's been the one or two where you're sitting there and you're thinking i don't really want them to say that about my work. And they're not really representing it or they don't understand it or they're not into music. I mean, I've had somebody work closely with me. I didn't even think like music at a certain point. So to have,

I just respect what she says as well, and I think that's important too, that I have somebody who can tell me off sometimes and calm me down that way. Because I get very, very passionate about what I do. I do get perhaps a bit too much. But that's quite nice sometimes as well, isn't it? I would push myself into the ground working on my work

and then expect so much from everyone else once it's delivered because i've killed myself making it so i mean i made um did you know i did a stream a live stream with the band last week yeah and i directed it oh i didn't realize you directed it as well. That's amazing. And it was an insane thing to take on, you know. And I'm like a bag of baldoons, as my mother would say, which means a bag of male cats. I feel like I need to learn to be your mother. When I'm in the middle of this type of thing, you know,

dealing with a bag of baldoons. She's brilliant at it. And everything she says to other people about the work, and every email, you know, when I hear a quote from her, like there's a quote from her in the press thing from that stream. And I couldn't have said it better myself, you know. So that's great. And then I have Sebastiano at home

he's like my such support to me you know tech support mainly because I'm a simpleton like that but he's taught me how to use the Ableton he's taught me how to use editing film editing stuff

he did all the graphic design for the show last week you know at the last minute when nobody else was available to do it he did you know so he was he's just very helpful and supportive and believes in me and um thinks i'm the best you know just thinks i'm the best which i don't know why but he does thank god no but that's wonderful because all of that it kind of gives you all that confidence and that support. I have a similar thing with Richard. We've really got each other's back with what we get up to.

And I need that, actually. I'm quite needy, really. I need to hear someone telling me it's all going to be all right and I've got the right thing and what a great idea. I'm always looking for praise. I tidied up the kids' room the other day. It took me hours. And I just didn't get quite as much praise as i would have liked i spent a long time doing the sort out in fact actually i probably shouldn't tell you this because he doesn't come across very well out of it but my eight-year-old ray he's a lovely boy but he's sort of experimenting

with being a bit sweary which i don't like and i try not to react and i think it's because we're not a sweary family so it's the thing he's sort of trying on for size. I say it doesn't suit him. But when he came in and saw his room, he walked in and it was quite radically different. I'd taken out some furniture, I'd paired back, it was really tidy, you could see the carpet. And he looked at it and he went,

can I swear? And I thought, I don't know why, but I thought he was going to do something like, this looks fucking awesome. And he went, this, I'm going to do it straight away, this room looks shit. Oh dear. And all the work he put into it.

I was like, okay, thanks for that, Ray. That's great. And can you say the show word instead, please? With your small people they are having quite a different childhood and so much about your teenage years and that new independence and that is obviously such a big deal does it feel strange to bring them up in a very different way or do you not really think about it very much? I worry very much about their lack of freedom. And obviously that's encroached upon even further now since the pandemic.

But I was brought up, I'd throw the bag there after school and just go out again, you know, and run around the town. And there was people at every kind of corner of that town it was like that knew me so you know if I was gone lost for a while I mean I only had to ask a few people and then she'd find me you know and it was like a whole town just a classic cliche you know it takes a village to bring up a child type thing. And I lived in that environment where just total freedom, you know, to hang out with your cousins, hang out with kids here,

this area, that area all around. My kids have, like, barely gone to the shop on their own. Just recently, it was a big deal to send them to the corner shop. And I was running around getting stuff from my ma a lot younger. And, yeah, I do worry about that. And screens don't make that easier, do they? No. Because they're so enticed into the screen.

They're not inclined to even beg you to go out you know they're not inclined to even try and run away or it's true so how we're going to get this independence into them that we've had i don't know yeah and i think also with the screen thing you know if you were on your own running around town at least your mom could have a picture of what that might look like where you might be the streets you're on whereas if our kids are online they could be anywhere total wild west yeah could be anywhere and i think that fear doesn't really help and also i don't understand what they like you know what they would genuinely what they would naturally gravitate towards i don't understand it i don't understand why you would want to watch

someone talking over a program like instead of watch the program Yeah, I know I prefer to see someone going like dissecting Steven's universe in this Clodagh prefer this sort of like psychoanalysis

of Steven's universe than Steven's universe, you know? Yeah. And I walk right over here, this thing like, he was traumatised and, you know, all this psychoanalysis theory being thrown around like willy-nilly and then she comes and starts talking to me out of her elbow about this stuff.

It's kind of saying, you're dramatising me, Mama. She's getting the traumatising mixed up with dramatising me. We haven't corrected her. It's so sweet. You're right, that psychoanalytical thing they do of watching those,

and then Kit will do that as well, as if it's actual gospel. Apparently this was actually foreshadowing for this one. Yes. The character of this was actually going to be based on that and then somebody talking out of two elbows you know and then they go about marvel things and all that sort of stuff what and then oh it's a rabbit hole just the young ones start with the opening the eggs things don't they opening the presents

that's weird toys and there's a woman that does those sometimes and she's got a voice like this, where I think she probably does other videos sometimes. And she'll play with different coloured goo, slime, that falls on different toys and then get the toy out of the goo. And it's all a bit... It's unbelievable, isn't it? It's a bit sort of fetishistic, sort of... Well, sensory, a lot of what they like is sensory isn't it they're

given a lot of sensory easy sensory things aren't they like slime and squishies the squishies like in the last five years yeah there must be like a floating island of discarded squishies somewhere in the atlantic oh there's loads yeah there'll be loads of crap. I mean, are you familiar with a guy called Ryan? Have you watched Ryan? Who does Ryan's World? No. So Ryan is someone that I only know through, actually through five-year-old Jesse.

He's quite into Ryan. Ryan does these videos. They're mainly like mass consumerism, like this kid getting very excited about opening toys or walking through a toy shop and things like this. But this little boy, he's now now i think he's about nine and last year he grossed something like 22 million dollars one of these videos is him and his mom and dad and they do like come on ryan and then they go into like a soft play or get him to make something or open a present and then these videos just been churned out and he now has a load of merch um I mean I always joke

it's it's Ryan's world we just live in it like it's Ryan's world kid is it we talk about who might play Ryan you know adult Ryan in the film of his biopic you know because it sounds all right he's fine he's pretty. He's pretty inspiring. He's really inspiring. Oh, my God, this is so inspiring. Yeah, it's just a funny old world. It's like a whole... There's her with the bows as well, isn't there?

Jojo. Oh, yeah, yeah. I know Jojo, yeah. A gazillion expensive bows sold there. Yeah. It's crazy. And what else did they watch? Computer games being played and talked about

I mean Jesus yeah and as I was saying to you we don't have a TV but we're really considering getting one because we're not sitting around watching things together unless we force them to do it with us

on a computer screen so I think it might be time for us to get a TV. Yeah, and then you can watch movies as well. Share it more together. I mean, we do on the computer, but it's not the same as having like a room with a TV that you all go in and... Yeah, I mean, I love it.

And I love like introducing them to films I've loved and watching old TV shows. But I think as well for me, TV is probably something I use as a bit of a an easy way to have a regular bit of a time with one kid or another so like during the beginning of the year every evening Kit who's the 11 year old and I would watch an episode of Modern Family it was just the thing we would do just before his bedtime that it was just a nice thing like just giggling at that together. So that was quite nice.

And obviously the fact that telly can also be quite useful. My mum's the unpaid babysitter, whatever they call her. But what else was I going to say about it? They're just, you know, you fear for them. You fear about them going in and never coming back out again type thing. Do you feel like they're a bit more innocent than than you were maybe if they're not kind of going out and about and yeah 100 because you mentioned seeing cloda playing with her dolls and feeling like oh that's nice that she's still doing that do you think you were

still playing but i was playing with dolls yeah because i loved them and i loved my dolls houses that i made myself a cardboard box of streets of them you know know. So I was very imaginative play. She's very into imaginative play and me too. I was like that. I could go in for hours on end. And I loved me Barbies, honestly. I really did. I loved Bobby and Cindy, actually.

Cindy was big. The first one I was dreaming about getting a Cindy before I got it. I mean, for months. Yeah, well, she was lovely. She looked so good as well. I liked her, like, dark brown hair and a massive blue eye. She was really cute looking.

I mean, a little bit odd looking, not as sort of typical as Barbie, but I liked her big head and all that. Actually, I know one thing I did want to ask you about, because this is something I get a lot. When you're working, do you find you get asked a lot of questions about childcare and things like this? Not so much, no. I mean mean do you think that's because I'm a bit scarier than you though aren't I don't they don't um well that's funny you said because I actually when I asked you to to talk to me I did I actually thought you probably wouldn't

want to I wasn't sure you would want to talk about well i suppose because i i didn't know how how much you spoke about the fact you're a mum alongside what you do um i don't very often i don't i don't deliberately not you know but um yeah children they just don't like they don't music journalists don't ask me they don't i don't get that classic you know how do you manage motherhood and this very often but i do think it's kind of a fair enough question yes i think it is a fair enough question in that especially because if someone is raising a family it is something that makes you think i wonder what goes on to make that possible yeah i find the child care thing

specifically a bit boring because if you've only got 15 minutes to interview someone, like, everybody does the same thing with childcare, don't they? They find someone they trust, and whatever means you have available, whether it be a family member, a friend, or, you know, whatever you do, you've got options, and then you choose the one that works best for you. Yeah, I think there's a real skill to finding the right nanny.

I mean, we had a couple of nannies, one after another, and they were grand, they were lovely people, but they weren't committed to it. And I think, first and foremost, you want somebody who wants to stay with you for a good long time. Yeah, well, the nanny thing is really hard because you're basically inviting that person into your family. And if I...

The nannies we've had here, I like to be able to involve them in conversation and decision-making as well. I don't want someone where they just turn up and look after my kids and take over again. I want to say to them, oh, I'm having a bit of a problem with this, or so-and-so is really struggling with this aspect,

or they've fallen out with that friend again, and we can sort of put our heads together, really. Exactly, yeah. I like that. We've had our lovely Carolina with us for six years now and she came to us that she the reason why we took her on was because realized that she must be committed in that the she'd just done five years with a autistic severely autistic boy and the only thing that

made her leave there was the fact that he threw her downstairs because he got really, you know when sometimes they get really really strong and aggressive so we knew Jesus if she stuck that through and loved the boy and felt terrible about leaving, had to, had to

the woman had to take on a man to take care of the boy had gotten really really big man to take care of the boy. He'd gotten really, really big. He was only 11 or 12, but he was like six foot something. And she came to us and she's brilliant. You know, she's like, I said to the kids last night, you know, she's the most important person

that makes the whole thing go around. Yeah. Well, also, I suppose, you know, you you've got the right person particularly if you have a slightly elaborate day job like us where that's really never really what the conversation is about so that you're not so the focus is all on the kids and the home life and they're not going to be thinking oh tell me again where you're off to and what's happening for work? Oh, God, no, you wouldn't want any of that. She's quite sort of old-fashioned and sort of restrained personality. But, gosh, she does an awful lot of them kids.

And I don't think there's going to be any harm in having more people around me, kids, who love them. Yeah, no, I agree with that. Definitely, that's a perfect way to raise kids, I think. I always say that to them now, you know, if they're safe and loved that's like those are the pillars yeah everything else is kind of like comes in yeah and then the confidence as you said is such an important thing to give kids it is yeah and i definitely got that

off my parents i mean not that i could do no wrong at all i mean the opposite actually if i got in trouble with somebody it was immediately my mother would say probably all Roisin's fault you know so it was never she was never the type to go you mentioned this getting into trouble a little bit it's all their fault some mothers are a bit like that isn't it oh well she got in with the wrong crowd and you know it's not her fault it was the one that she was hanging around with but my mom was always no no it's probably roshan's fault so you mentioned getting into drama at school are either of your kids displaying the same sort of traits yeah i mean clothes gonna do you think she'd be off out the door at 16 as well i kind of hope so oh roshan thanks so much for talking to me.

Oh, no, don't leave it like that. No, but honestly, I've already planned what to do with Sonny's bedroom. I'm going to ship him off to my mum's in a couple of years. I need the room back. I mean, what if I... Did anybody ever think of these boarding schools as well, you know? Boarding school. It's the old school, isn't it? People don't send kids to boarding school anymore.

I don't know, I think it's come back into vogue. Has it? Yeah, I feel like I've heard of a few people doing boarding school it's the old school isn't it people don't send kids to boarding school anymore I don't know I think it's come back into vogue has it? yeah I feel like I've heard of a few people doing boarding school again Jesus my lot if I said it to mine they would just never forgive me if I sent them away to boarding school they couldn't

well you know each to their own I know kids that have really thrived but I think it's just been ingrained in me that it's just not something that's even on the table as an option it's definitely not on the table for my two I've already mentioned it to Clod ingrained in me that it's just not something that's even on the table as an option. It's definitely not on the table for my two.

I've already mentioned it to Clodagh. She's not having it. No. I think sometimes kids actually seek it out, but with my lot... They do, yes. I feel like, particularly with the teenage bit, I mean, you're just about to sort of enter into that bit, but with Sonny, I felt like you have to make a real concerted effort to make sure you see him because teenagers,

just because they don't need you to help, you know, do their laces or, you know, keep an eye on all the sort of, you know, everyday stuff, it's really easy for them just to kind of go up to their room and you just never see them. Yeah, you never see them. Absolutely. And actually, they don't know that they need you, but they need you more than ever, actually.

The guy that I just edited the video with the live performance with has four boys, they're all sort of teenage in teenage years and he's like in he's bereft what, that they're growing up?

yeah, and also you know you can't have a big bloke in the bed besides you can you, cuddling and you know or sitting on your knee or no you know that's sort of like the bit so i really i'm trying so hard to hold on to every moment like that every moment where it can be just snuggle time and where it can be where she can be playing with dolls and and he can be making paper aeroplanes for hours on end. I'm really trying to keep my eyes peeled and to feel it and to see it and to observe it

because I know it's going to be quite fleeting. I know, it is, but then you feel like you're always kind of rooting for them a bit as well with the next bits that come along. Like, for me, every age they get to, I'm like, oh, this is a good bit. Well, that's good that you can say that. Yeah, I mean, I love hanging out with Sonny. Not everyone can.

Some people go through terrible trouble with teenagers. Oh, I wouldn't say it's easy. I think it's really complicated. I think it's really complicated. And sometimes I'm like, oh, my God, I've got to do this five times like that is going to be challenging but when i'm just hanging out with him it's the best i love i love his company and i do feel like if i can raise five kids that are all as lovely as he is in terms of where he's his actual who he is i'll be thrilled but yeah it's going to be a nightmare i mean there's some

i can already tell actually I was talking about this last night with Kit predicting a little bit of what troubles and we're both of us pretty sure that poor Jesse was like the time like fast asleep five years old snuggle looking for a picture of innocent we're sure he's going to shimmy out down the drain pipe

and run off to parties even though you're like right next to your kids all the time you can really only grasp them in the moment. And you can imagine what they're, try and imagine what they're going to be, but I can't, I can't visualize it. I can't see in the future. And I sort of don't want to. I don't want, definitely don't want to do that thing, you know, where you project.

Oh, yeah. No, that's really dangerous but you know i just i can't i can't tell but then again when they turn into the next phase or when they show it to you it all makes perfect sense like you knew it all along you know exactly so it's kind of the two feelings at the same time of absolutely not knowing anything and knowing deep in your heart what they are yeah I think that's very true and I also think it's it's okay to kind of have for me I don't mind being like oh they'll probably do this because I feel like it's very like it's very playful and

the reality of it is that I think parenting for me is so much more reactive than I ever ever imagined and I I really am just here just to help give them... I always picture myself like a pinball. I'm like the sort of soft bumpers, really, just trying to keep the ball kind of moving so that they don't go through that middle bit, really. Five balls as well. Jesus, that's some pinball playing.

Pinball wizard. Mine's more like that sort of like, you know, that tennis, that old tennis video game. Boop, boop. Boop, boop. That is so much smarter, though. I mean, honestly, what have I done? When I was having my fifth, Sonny was already 14,

and I went into that with my eyes wide open of like, okay, I've got the baby bit, and then I could see all the stages a lot more yeah and when i had sunny just one i felt like he was a baby for ages i felt like it went on and on and then it speeds up yeah it's amazing now i'm just like it's like blinking you miss it i mean it is important to kind of take in those moments i mean that's what i try and do when when it's all kicking off or one of them's like, you know, I can't find my shoes or helping them with something.

And I think there's going to be a time when they're not needing me to do that job. They're not going to need me to help them find things or do their buttons. And then you'll be sorry. I will, I will. But hopefully not someone

who's going to be too kind of clinging on to it either. Yeah, that's kind of what the work's for. That's what that space is for i think to kind of give me my own thing too hopefully that that them seeing us get on with stuff is a positive thing it can only be surely surely i mean is it maybe inspiration to them in some way you know that they might think okay doing things is fun you know mama and they might think, okay, doing things is fun, you know, a mama. And obviously that question has always been,

how do you manage this and that? But how would you manage without another part of yourself? Absolutely. Is also a question. Also, when you're... How would you manage just being a mother? I don't know if I could only be that. I know I would not be very good at that.

And also, I think because of because of the path you've had in terms of it sort of, it's not like you were like 16, 17, like, right, I'm going to do this. And it's been much more, it's evolved and you knew where your passions were, but you've been able to meet people and have different things at different times in your life

that had significance. And that's a really amazing example to give them that they're so long as there's a little bit momentum something happening good people around them consistency we need to give them as parents i mean it's just the oldest rule in the book isn't it consistency consistency it's the hardest thing to achieve consistently but you know it's it's something i have to try and bear in mind i'm not that consistent a person anyway myself only really with my work have i been that consistent well that's a big part of you though yeah but i have to try and put that into my home life i have to

try and make sure that when we say things we mean it um and that if we said there's going to be consequences there will be even if it's hard for us to put them into you know even if it's hard for us to say you're not having a screen today yeah um and then stick to it you have to stick to it you do and that is hard because sometimes you'll say something and go actually that's really annoying because now i've i have to the other night like they were really naughty going to bed and i said right that's it i'm not tucking you in tonight and they were you know losing it i was like what do you mean i'm tucking us in i was like it's just a tuck in no and i had to come out of the bed because we're standing in the hallway and i just looked at them and I said it's as hard for

me to not tuck you in as it is for you I love tucking you in just to be clear I even said that phrase to them just to be clear I love tucking you in but I said if you kept doing that I wouldn't do that whole tucking thing which takes half an hour because you've got to tuck you in this way and pat you that way and stick it under your legs and three hugs and five kisses on your nose and all that before you get out of the room you know I love it it's my favorite bit of the day you know I said to them but I said to you that's not happening if you keep going and that's not happening yeah I've done some of those but I'm not very good at sticking to it did you stick to it I did that night yeah well done that takes a lot of strength we're just like what are lovely way to end the end of series

two thank you so so much for indulging me with the podcast and for all the amazing positive feedback honestly i um it really means a lot to me genuinely genuinely. And I'm excited for Series 3. It's funny, I was thinking, you know, we're near the end of the year, so I was thinking about all the bits of the year that haven't been really sucky. And there's been a few highlights. And I think there's maybe three things I could think of. And this is one of the three. So thank you so much.

I mean, I'm talking professionally here, the podcast and um the kitchen discos and i think um releasing a new album i've just been a very lucky person because there's been so many people that haven't been able to get on with doing new things and new enterprises and really i'm under no illusion it isn't because because of me. It's because of you. If you're not there to listen, this is just a mad woman waffling away into her phone on a dark, wintry Saturday night. So thank you so much. And thank you also, of course, to all the amazing contributors. So all the women I've been able to speak to this series,

what an incredible array and what amazing company I've kept. And hold on a second. All right, I'm using my phone. I'll be there in a second. Yeah, sure, why not? All right, plug the, there's a charger there. Please tell me this is going on in your house too yes i'll allow a bit of screen time

so sue me uh what was the other thing i was going to say to you i want to thank claire jones my producer for keeping me on straight and narrow and pointing out my swearing in this episode sorry claire i want to thank chris salmon for helping me do all the promoting and stuff on socials and whose idea it was for me to start having a podcast anyway. He said he thought it would be a good thing for me to do, and so thank you. Hold on, boys. And finally, I want to thank,

a really big extra special thanks to my husband, Richard, because he honestly didn't really envisage spending so much time editing my podcast or editing any of my stuff to be honest this year and he's done it brilliantly and uncomplainingly and incredibly supportively um and actually he listens to them you know the whole thing independently or so I listen to each conversation and he's really been enjoying them but mainly um you know I quite often I'm very very late with doing all these bits and bobs like the intros and the outros and things

because I like it to be up to the, you know, being present day. But he's never once said to me, oh, can you just give me a bit of extra time? Because I kind of don't want to be spending a couple of hours in the studio on a Sunday. So thank you to him. And, well, I've always obviously got to thank you. You know I love you. You know I love you all for listening. Thank you very much for being there.

And look, I will see you in 2021 it's got to get better we've got through a very challenging year and you've dealt with it very well and we're keeping positive around here um and i wish you a very happy christmas and i'll see you in 2021 with yet more inspiring women to talk to and if there's anyone you think i should be talking to please please please leave it in the comments. Ray. And in the meantime, Ray, have you got any kind of last minute messages for all the people who listen to my podcast? Merry Christmas.

That's very, very festive and timely and seasonal. Well, there you go. He said it better than me. Merry Christmas. Jessie, do you want to say Merry Christmas? Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. Okay, and a Happy New Year

See you soon, bye Thank you.