Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 39: Laura Brand

Episode Date: August 2, 2021

Laura Brand is a mother of two little girls and author of the book The Joy Journal. We spoke about where you find joy after motherhood and how expectation and reality can sometimes (always?) be very different beasts but you have to be able to roll with it - especially when you have a young family. She now runs online tutorials to show people ideas for craft and fun with the children in their life and this month has been doing them inspired by Peter Rabbit. She struggled with Hyperemesis Gravidarum with both her pregnancies which caused her to end up in hospital and has made her very sympathetic to anyone going through the same thing. We also spoke about what happens when you get back together with someone you used to date, as happened with her now husband Russell Brand, and how it can work out for the best.  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. Hello, Podcats. It's me. How are you? I'm sat here with Jessie. Do you want to say hi, Jessie? Hi.

Do you know what I'm doing? No. I'm recording the introduction to my podcast. Do you know what I do a podcast about? No. No, you're not really the demographic. really the demographic it's basically um other other working mums and this week i spoke to laura brand who released a book after she had our first of her two little girls called the joy journal which is all kind of lovely ideas of simple things you can do with your small people to keep them entertained keep you feeling

the right side of things I guess it's a little bit of mindfulness a bit of crafting a bit of play a bit of imagination a bit of uh you know ideas for creativity but also it got me thinking a lot about joy and the importance of that because I think about that word a lot and especially over the last 16 months it's a word I've used tons and tons because joy is something that sort of elevates you in quite a light-hearted resonant way it's not quite the same as happiness I don't think joy it's a slightly more got a little bit more lightness of touch really and for me joy has been the thing I have always thought out even if it's in a very small form just to give my brain a place to go so for me joy might be I don't know the reaction I get when I stare at the sequins as they catch

the light or playing on the trampoline for a minute or making something or dancing your way to a song I love or doing my Lego or deciding that actually tonight's going to be cocktail night because why not or speaking to a friend or hearing some good news. What do you think brings you joy, Jessie? What makes you feel like that, feel joyful? Fun. Fun, yeah, yeah exactly fun's joyful i agree with that did you just break mickey's bed don't worry it's propped up with books anyway

that's the sort of thing actually jesse and i did something today that brought us a bit of joy we spent ages making something didn't we jess we made there's a game online called friday night funkin and it's basically a bit like a dance mat type game i know it's a microphone game but if people haven't seen it jesse it's got arrows that go across the screen and you have to hit your keyboard at the same time as the button the arrows go and it makes the singer your singer and who's having a rap battle sing a note and jesse wanted to create a sort of 3d version of this so we made a tiny little stage with tiny little characters and that brought us

some joy didn't it just we enjoyed that um anywho um i should probably say i didn't have laura for very long which was a bit frustrating because i love longer chats but she was very lovely but turns out she's got hold on sweet pea oh that looks nice little scarf um jesse just made a scarf out of my dressing gown called actually you know what you've put that around your neck a few too many times i don't really like that thank you don't be careful your neck uh i'll tell you after i've finished this um but yeah it turns out she's got loads of animals and one of them won it very well uh anyway probably didn't mean to say that did you okay cool i'll see you on the other side. Bye-bye. It's quite funny, actually, because when I was...

Before I always speak to, you know, people for the podcast, I always look up stuff and, you know, try and get more of an overview than what I knew before. Yeah. And I'm sure you know this already, but there's your name with all the lovely Joy Journal. And then the other Laura brand speaks to serial killers. Oh my God. Do you know this? No, I didn't know that.

Yeah. So it literally goes from sort of making your own soap to talking to people on death row. Oh my God. It's quite a satisfying contrast. Wow. I think I'm going to be Goog contrast wow I think I'm going to be googling I think I'm going to be googling my own name later which I said not to do but I must say like that's probably why I didn't know has she got a podcast on serial killers because if that or is it no no podcast no but she does that's what she does she goes and interviews people and talks to

people on death row and yeah serial killers is so it's not quite that is crazy do you know what it's like that that could be I mean I wouldn't I wouldn't say no to exploring that avenue if it had to if I had to fill her boots for a minute but it's definitely different from from squishy soap and um ladybirds i know it's brilliant um i'll be clicking through on articles oh no definitely that's not that's not her no no not that one oh god that's funny i know it was really making me google but actually um yeah your your book the joy journal is something i've i've been using anywhere i think it's it's so lovely and one there's a few things I really like about it. One thing is the realistic timeframes you give how long kids are generally

engaged with what they're up to. Because I think sometimes with those things, they can say, oh, your kids will enjoy playing with, I don't know, making bubble pictures for hours. And actually, 15 minutes is probably more like it. Yes, yes. Or two. really more like it yes yes um yes um but also I think the really crucial thing is that it's all about managing your expectation of what it is that you're going to be doing in the outcome that will happen so if you think oh we'll have this idyllic I don't know morning playing in the garden doing one thing and it turns into something else just sort of going with the flow really totally I mean like one of the things um I think that probably we all in motherhood have to deal well maybe we don't I think I'm sometimes only just learning now about the um expectation versus reality and so I did explore

that a little bit with doing the crafts so when I wrote the book I had a two-year-old and a newborn baby so Mabel's my oldest she's now four and a half and Peggy's um just three and um it was all I just I was just like winging it all and doing it took so long to do because it really depended on their mood like oh I said I would set up a craft or an activity to do and I had the it's not pressure because I have a wonderful very unpressurizing publisher but it was very much like oh I have to get this one done because this is I want this to go in the book and then Mabel would have a completely different idea and and in the book I write in one particular example was that we did a family clay activity air dry clay and my husband and I sat down really excited to sort of get into doing little pinch pots and pressing flowers into the

making patterns and our daughter just picked up the clay and just chucked it against the wall and we were in a rental house at the time and I was like picking clay off the rental house wall and I was like oh no this is a disaster we tried again the next day and we ended up doing a slightly different craft and that was the craft that ended up in the book but I put the whole story in because I think it's really things just we have to accept that that the kids are in a flow state so and they're very present so if something changes in an instant it can be just like they hear something or the weather changes and they're off doing another thing yeah and I do think that the acceptance of that's quite hard because we've all been living our lives slightly different way we're probably quite creatures of well we've been

probably we're maybe through our own experiences in school and things like that we've kind of uh we're willing to see tasks out probably in some cases beyond the point that we should so like maybe if we learned I sort of try to take their example but I follow by their example sometimes by just going with whatever it is is the next thing that's coming up and yeah you know so yeah it's an interesting one kind of um but I wanted to include time frames because I felt like it's basically what all parents want to know about anyway well how long is it going to take me what's the mess going to be like am I going to enjoy it because if I'm not going to enjoy it

if it's going to be stressful and messy and long I'm not going to do it basically yeah it's very true and I mean it's that's very very little bubbers to have when you're writing a book um do you how do you look back on that time in your life when you had I mean obviously they're still very little but particularly having that newborn and a toddler I mean I don't know really Sophie it was sort of such a blur because we were also traveling so we were in for half that time we're actually in um America and so it was yeah so I think I wrote half that book actually in yeah in Los Angeles and like we it was all very um new for me kind of writing it and sending bits to my um you know to my publisher and sort of also the feelings of it was the first thing I had ever done that was almost like a baby but like a book baby if you will and I was very worried about how it would be received very worried about every time I sent a chapter off

I was like you know so I learned a lot about myself through writing it. And also, um, it was sort of, yes, there was a lot of juggling and it stopped and started a lot and it took me quite a long time. So, I mean, it was just, it was, I was glad when it, I mean, when it came out, I must say, I obviously wrote it. I never intended for it to be brought out in a time when everyone suddenly was in their homes it was like I the release date was April the 16th and as it as it and I handed it in obviously six months or maybe before maybe six months um before that I had seen the first copy or and then I sent it back so when it was like suddenly COVID happened and lockdown I was like I'm whoa I can't I don't even know should I even be it seems somehow opportunistic or it seems like but it was always my intention

for this to be for people to do at home when they were bored and with their kids and how to find new bonding experiences yeah that's so funny I suppose I didn't really think about it because I think I became aware of it as the first lockdown was sort of progressing. So I don't think I realised that it would have, yeah, conception would have been so much earlier, really, because suddenly the focus from lots of different areas was about, okay, we're all here and we're doing this now. Right, how do we make this feel like

we're actually getting through it and not going crazy? Exactly. Well, not going too crazy. crazy no and and how I suppose it's I wonder I mean you said yourself I know not pressure from your publisher but just a sort of internal pressure but if you're doing something that's very focused on joy there's lots of aspects about certainly new motherhood where I don't know about you but I don't necessarily always didn't always feel like I was completely riding that wave um yeah does it come with its own pressure sometimes oh gosh what you're writing about yes yes it really does and like to be honest with you um partly I felt

like it had become a slight mantra to keep me on track because I would fall off off the joy path often you know like um my my intention my intention when writing it was to write a book that was like sort of a bit traditional a bit like the stuff we would we used to do a little bit stuff that maybe we'd do with our mums or our grandparents but also trying to find something within ourselves that would spark so in the moment of like easy play-doh there's a bit of playfulness between the two of us and it's not just um goal-based so it's not just like oh can you do this thing do this thing do this thing to my child you know it's not trying it's not um on the end result it's on the process more than anything and if I wasn't in the right mood I would

be so caught up in just the urgency of doing it and just wanting to and actually only in letting go which is really hard of any end point only in letting and being present is the moment really is the truth truly truthful moments of joy and and actually it can happen to us I mean I think that it's a funny thing isn't it joy there's a difference between joy and happiness in that happiness is meant to you know be quite kind of an instant thing and quite kind of sparky and joy is meant to is more comforting all-round feeling of sort of hmm like a joy joyful feeling and so um and and actually I do try to keep joy in in my as a sort of an as a sort of daily mantra almost because I think it is so hard when you're feeling tired or stressed or when you've got a lot

going on and actually the title of your podcast and I believe your autobiography is spinning plates is the perfect that I think joy can be lost a lot when you've got so many different things going on that you you just want to cross things off and you want to just go right okay you're fed the dogs are fed you guys are happy okay I'm going to quickly run and do this or I'm going to write a book because I know you've been writing book as well and you've got five children and I just can't I mean you I don't know you should be offering advice to the many because I honestly can't believe like the I myself am also writing another book at the moment and I I saw on your Instagram you posted a picture of yourself writing from your bed.

And then you'd said part of it was written at your kid's chair in his room. I feel like the same. I feel like I've written, I've been writing this book in the last few months. And I've been doing it in the weirdest places and positions with the weirdest sort of conditions around me. And, you know, you can sort of get into a rhythm with it and joy can be found in there. But it's certainly, it's a nice affirmation for yourself to seek joy, like a nice idea, you know, could you on this walk where we're all stressed because it's raining and we're all a bit grumpy and we all want to be home really drinking tea and watching TV. Is there anything in

this moment when we're, you know, is there any joy for us to seek? And, you know, that kind of example happens a lot. We're off on a walk and it rains and the kids start crying and we all want to be at home. And actually you can sort of have, you have to just re-channel your mindset. And I think that is quite hard. And I think you need, I think we people need support in that I think you need other people's encouragement and I think you need some things for yourself in there you know yeah I also think there's maybe I totally agree with your description of what joy is about and that warm hug of it and I think I think we've maybe got a little bit better at

giving joy a proper space actually because it's a word I use a lot because um it's it's almost like the tonic that kind of makes like all the little all those joints keeps them oiled really that's amazing yeah and I think I think finding it out in in little little drips and drabs to me that's like the difference between feeling calibrated and not yes even if it's a text from a friend you know something on the wall that you just like to look at um five minutes doing something that just gives you that little headspace all that stuff it's sort of quite a there's something quite sort of wholesome and simple about it but it's kind of been elevated recently because I think we've all

realized that actually those casual things they they count for quite a lot particularly when I think that was the thing I struggled with the most at the beginning of lockdown actually was that a lot of casual stuff was taken away you know just popping out to go and get a coffee like even the walk to to and from the coffee place that was part of that you know if one of my small people came with me well so much the better but it was a tiny little little moments really and trying to find those bits again has been really crucial what's your new book about so it's another it's in the world of the joy journal but this time it's for grown-ups so this one is this one is um of the same nature in terms of crafting and um making um but I decided to write this one for adults so it is it's been to be honest I don't

know if I'm a worse sort of guinea pig than my children because it's me and my friends doing these things or like on zoom or whatever and um but I really hope like I've not you know I'm not there yet with finishing it and it's it can be I pick you know I really love doing it and actually like I do actually incidentally get a lot of joy from writing it but um but again it's some trial and error and you have to go through a lot of crafts and experiments and work out which ones are going to be included and which ones were a complete disaster and you should never look at again um so there's quite a lot to it but um I really hope, I really want it to be something that, I think what's actually what happened, the inspiration,

I always sort of intended to write one at some point, but I didn't really know when. And then when a lot of the parents were writing me lovely messages, maybe on Instagram or whatever, saying, oh, my kids really enjoyed squishy soap. But weirdly, I think I enjoyed it more than them even, you know, like it made me go into a playful, it made me go into a sort of playful mindset for the first time in ages. And actually, that was the thing I wanted to sort of hone in on on you know I wanted to go like right okay so parents were sort of enjoying some of these things I enjoy some of these things is there a way of making it an accessible is there is it I wanted to do like a craft but that's sort of accessible

and inviting for people even if you aren't really an arty crafty person so it's got a real variety of stuff and and um yeah I'm excited I bet you know I've just got to finish it first and there's all this creativity and this sort of seeking out of these things is there something that's been part of your life all the way um actually uh yeah I mean I I was always very arty at sort of school and I actually found uh I found it hard to concentrate in class and I found lessons quite hard but I did enjoy school on the whole and I had some great friends and I liked my teachers and it was all good but at the end of the day I was most excited about doing sketchbook stuff in the art room with my friends and listening to the radio you know that was the

sort of ultimate thing and oh and actually I lost sight of that in my 20 in my early 20s and I didn't there might have been oh yeah so even when I had sort of jobs I did various jobs like a personal assistant and I worked in hospitality and I was a nanny for a bit and I one thing I did continue to do was I did the window decorations of a shop in London so painted the an amazing kids shop actually in Pimlico and I used to do the I used to paint decorative displays for different seasons so Halloween or Easter and that really that was probably the only kind of creative thing I was doing and it was once in a while but I loved it and I would be like oh I'd mark it out in the diary and be like I'm doing that it felt so good it maybe do like a one day

one day you know outside the shop I'd get to chat to people doing a little bit of arty stuff and I really enjoyed that whatever job I was doing whether it was more admin based or not I've always always found a relaxation in creative, creative activities, you know, and crafting. And, and again, even when I, but then, and then it wasn't until I actually was pregnant with Mabel, that I got into doing creative stuff again, after a few years of not, you know, when you're in hospitality, you are only in hospitality, you know, you're doing stock checks, and you're managing a restaurant or a club, it was a restaurant club, actually. And it was just all consuming. So I didn't, there was no space for anything else.

And then when I was pregnant, I really took that as downtime. And in the downtime, that's when I started going, Oh, I want to do something creative again. And I started customizing dungarees, going like oh I want to do something creative again and I started customizing dungarees painters overalls and it ended up becoming quite a big quite a big business that I actually couldn't keep up with and I um they were sort of painters overalls with pockets and I would customize them so dye them to specification customized with names or whatever and um the first person I ever gave a pair to was my best friend Fern Cotton so she received a pair for her birthday with paintbrushes in the pouch bright I think hers were pink with Fern written on them stitched in embroidered and then paintbrushes and she you know she she wore them and someone saw them and then that was it and then everyone

else wanted a pair but I couldn't keep up with that I was doing that until I was pregnant with my second daughter so that was also alongside writing that first book but I just um so yeah that was another little creative uh creative outlet yeah so did you think you were going to go back to hospitality when you were having your first baby or did you I didn't I didn't know what I was gonna it was absolutely adamant. Part of me, yeah, I suppose part of me was like always interested in sort of, I think that social aspect of being in a work environment that was sociable always appealed to me. And it still does now.

So when I've done workshops with kids, like Kids Play-Doh or is it Happy Place Festival or Port Elliot Festival, I've really enjoyed the fusion of social socializing and be um hosting like so doing the craft and then meeting the parents and sort of that that sort of appealed to me sometimes actually more than actual socializing basically like I don't know if you I don't know if you maybe you're in a different mindset but like when you're sort of doing an action if you're teaching or if you're in your case maybe performing I don't know if there's an element of that social aspect that you enjoy or whether it's very much compartmentalized your performance and your social it's totally dependent

on the yeah the whole thing's very social it's really interactive yeah and I think I've actually always thought of gigs as a bit like a date so. So you've got like the first five to ten minutes where you're kind of getting the measure, really. Yeah. Like, are they very easy to please? Are they a bit more serious? Are they noisy? Are they quiet?

Are they tentative? Are they boisterous? And then from there, like my job is just to turn it into the kind of date where they would want to come and see me again, basically. Oh, yeah. That is a really... I get the second date. That's what I'm aiming for that is amazing I love that I've never heard of it described like that but I can imagine that's really really amazing yeah well it's all chemistry you need the chemistry of the interaction and um and actually I think ultimately what you're saying

about you know working with people and doing the workshops it resonates with me because I think the heart of it is being quite a people person really and I enjoy feeding off the energy of whatever you get back from people when you're doing things with them like performing or or anything actually I just yeah it's quite like being in amongst groups and figuring stuff out that way it's fun yeah it is and actually one thing that um it one thing that interests me is coming together in as adults coming together to do something that's uh in fact I'm sort of writing about this specifically gathering in community to do a craft or an act or something that so you can have quite a laugh with that because in a group you're not all going to be good at the same thing you're not going to want

to do the same thing but if you try it that I think that there can be a lot of like fun and joy and that is found in trying something new and if you do it in a group where you're all going into it as complete beginners it is quite funny and and it's quite um quite actually quite like lifting for everybody because um so I really yeah so uh yeah community and that social aspect and for me in that case craft for you for performance yeah I think you you we can get some a lot from that do you think when you were because if craft is it sounds like it's something that you've always really loved doing and sort of always seeked out but maybe it wasn't necessarily given such center stage in your life up to now. Do you think that's because sometimes our view of those things

has not always been given as much space in it? It's just like socially we've sort of shifted our view of the value of those things, I think. Totally. I think it's a form. I think what I've discovered actually is that it's part of my self-care, you know, like it's actually I get and I've been exploring that relaxation. Well, what it does, the mindfulness and relaxation that it brings for people. So there's a lot of like there's a lot of research in working with your hands and what it how it affects the brain positively. So I think they use a lot of things like knitting circles, embroidery groups, in mental health awareness groups.

So people with mental health issues and things like that, they'll bring a craft where you work with your hands in order to become almost an exercise for finding calm and relaxation. And I find that myself and so yeah I've brought it into my own life as a form of uh well of my looking after myself in a way um yeah and is it something you do as a family is this sort of yes it is so we do like although we have completely different idea of what like we're all we're all I don't mind getting messy and doing messy stuff my husband does not like that sort of aspect of it so there was one in the book there was um an activity called moon sand which was that sand that you can mold there's another name for when you I know that stuff yeah

so moldable sand basically I like it too and I like playing with it and squishing it yeah it's really therapeutic exactly so but we we made it and my kids had spread it all over the kitchen. And my husband was just like freaking out. Like not because of the mess, but because of that. He was just like, oh, the sandy aspects. He was like clenching his teeth. And I was just like, no. Nobody likes sand.

No. No one likes sand, really. Exactly. Lucky that because none of us are going on holidays. I know. It's fine. We'll be seeking our own at-home holidays. Yeah.

So, yeah, it's the sort of, he didn't like that. So when we come together as a club, often it is pushing each other into an area we're not so comfortable with. But one thing we do together and both enjoy it mutually is clay stuff so we like to do air dry clay date nights for example um you know and we make presents for friends and we do stuff together like that and then with the kids it's um the most stuff we do together is mostly outdoors in nature so we'll do um we do a lot of map um we we draw a lot of maps out so our kids really love a map and a treasure hunt and i'm not talking about treasure hunt where we actually buy treasure more like a scavenger hunt where we're looking for a particular

thing on a walk and we um we do a little map of maybe the walk we're going to go on and um you know or even if it's around the house on a rainy day, we've done things like that, even if it's just in the kitchen or, you know, we'll scavenger hunt. And that sort of activity, which is a little bit of movement, a little bit of play. They're the sort of activities we tend to do as a family. And it always brings us out of our funks. of our funks if we're in a bit if one of us is feeling a bit stuck and a bit moody and a bit sulky or wants to just hang out and do nothing usually something like that brings a little bit of a little bit of energy so yeah movementy things and always getting outside always helps us yeah yeah I suppose it's good to know those tricks especially when you've got a young family because

getting it out and about is well kids love it anyway actually even when they say they don't want to they always get totally lost in it when they're out and about which they really do and actually we all do actually I kind of surprised myself really because I never thought of myself as particularly outdoorsy but when we all go out I can we can stay out for hours and hours and the kids all invent this whole imagine you know imaginary world in their heads but I did actually want that's amazing is it right that you and your husband you dated years ago and then got back together yes so yes that's right I think that's really romantic yeah so we dated like um 15 uh 15 years ago um and then uh maybe maybe more my gosh I can't

remember exactly 15 years ago we were saying the other day but um and then we went our own ways lived our own lives for a bit and then incidentally we um so I I have told this story before but I was coming out of a relationship with somebody we lived together and we've been together for quite a while and the day that that my ex-boyfriend um we left the hat he left where we were living I was feeling not so good and a little bit heartbroken and um my friend who lives in East London said to me uh you need to come out for a walk like you can't stay in and I was crying and you know oh god you know this is not not what I well I did expect it but you know you know what I mean heartbreak basically and my friend said let's let's go out and she said meet me on the top of

the uh canal in East London just off the top in Shoreditch meet me on the top out off the bus or whatever so I got off the bus and met her we came down the stairs and I hadn't seen Russell for years and he was on the he was at the bottom of the stairs, like just under the bridge, like about, you know, a few meters away. And I didn't do anything. I said, oh my God, this is weird. Like to my friend and my friend and I started crying and my friend was like, I'm not sure today's the day to go and see him and I was like I think I have to and I remember going like this I sort of went Russell and she was and he didn't hear because he was like too far ahead and my friend right went no okay grab a hold of yourself right

this is not this is not it's not for today and I was like okay fine but I did sort of send a message and say like I just saw I think I just saw And like, so weird because I'm going through this thing and for all the people to bump into or at least see on a part of the canal that I've never been on in my life. It would be you. It's crazy. Yeah. And that was the sort of, you know, and it wasn't like suddenly then we met up or anything. We sort of just chatted for a bit. You know, as years and years have gone past, you've got so much to talk about.

Yeah, yeah. You're a different person you know I was in my I was like 19 when we met and you know you really form into a completely different person through your 20s and definitely but it was a very sort of happy meeting well you know it's it's amazing well it's wonderful yeah well I mean changes everything doesn't it and I think there's so much serendipity in that. And funny enough, you're not the first person I've spoken to where they've gone out and then had a bit where they've both lived their lives and then got back together. But I think it's, I always find it quite interesting that I did, because, you know, you're saying you go through, you know, you change so much in your 20s.

So if you went back to the 15 years ago, do you think the idea that then now that's who you, you know, your family, and it's so defining for both of you? Gosh, do you think the idea that then now that's who you you know your family and it's so defining for both of you gosh do you know what part of me I think like part of the sort of like I you know not to sound really soppy but I really really loved him so like I really I think would have just said like let's have a family at the time, I would have been ill prepared. So if you let me tell you, because family, I don't think I would have been ready for a family in my early 20s. But I, I really, like really loved him. So it was sort of like, I think I always had an idea, like in my mind. And then of course, when you are not together

anymore, and you have your own lives that are very different then you know you just get over it so then to sort of come back to a situation where it's like my good we we really literally had that chat where we were like wow okay well I never thought I'd be sitting opposite you again talking the way I'm talking you know like this is what I've been doing I've been doing this and this and you've been doing that and that. And we just talked and talked for like over the course of weeks and then months and just chatting and hanging out and just getting to know each other again. Because then you, and then it just became so apparent that, you know, we really feel like soulmates. just you know it's just like oh wow you know that that feeling of just knowing each other so much that you know um it feels like a homely home yeah and that felt like that felt like it you know for us yeah yeah well I can I can hear that and actually funny enough I saw a clip of Russell

being interviewed on I think on Loose Women of all places he had Kate Price to one side it's not quite in congress but he was talking really lovingly about family life and how much it's completely turned his life around. And I thought, whilst a lot of people wouldn't know what it feels like to date someone who's in the public eye, I think there are lots of people who end up with somebody

where maybe people think that they know from the outside what that person's like, but actually when it's you two together and your family life, it's something that's very private and very different. And I was thinking there must be a lot of people that have been on a similar trajectory, actually, and maybe met up when they were young and then thought, right, this is not going to work now, and then kind of met up later on.

It's just a lovely, yeah, serendipity to the whole thing. It really is, and that serendipity in the whole thing it really is and that serendipity so like in itself is a very beautiful word isn't it I like that word I've always liked it and sort of like the idea of it is like um it is sort of romantic and beautiful and it's seeing beauty in the uh unexpected but also um the the um how the paths can cross in such a beautiful it's a magic it's a magical moment yeah it's a magical moment and and so like crossing paths is something like that yeah definitely um so yeah it's I imagine there are lots of people like you say that have that and and I'm really glad that we've lived our own

lives as well by the way it's so nice that we've had these different sort of lives and that we were able to come together and have a family and feel like we've experienced what we were meant to or potentially you know what we're meant to experience for ourselves yeah definitely in a way and it's also a good lesson for for your daughters as well because I think it also taps into kind of the ideas of the the joy you were talking about before and being able to just check in with yourself that as they grow up they'll have this great example in their own parents of you know how the threads can cross and then cross back again yeah it's like a lovely story for them so yeah you know that when because there'll be one day where they might really fall for someone and then it ends up not working out and then you'll be like

well you know if it's meant to be it'll be yeah exactly then we can tell our story exactly yeah oh gosh gosh yeah um yeah yeah and when when you think ahead I mean I suppose when you're so because a lot of the things we've been talking about about the stuff that you've been doing home and crafting and stuff is that something you can sort of sometimes see into the future because your little girls they're very close together in age aren't they yeah 18 months that's a tiny tiny gap can you remember that that bit I mean so during that time that's when you were doing all the embroidery and yeah I mean sewing I will tell you this um I when I was pregnant with I had suffered terribly with um hyperemesis with both children so I was sick basically very severe yeah so I ended up in

hospital with both pregnancies oh no I didn't realize yes horrendous like yeah and it can be quite it's unless you like it's funny because it's just not even morning sickness it's just so much more than that. And I really, really, when someone tells me that they're suffering with morning sickness, I'm really already really sympathetic. And then when I understand that it might be more serious like hyperemesis and it's just a constant, constant sickness where they can't function, I can't tell you how much I want to tell them it's all going to be okay, but I really understand how you feel.

And it feels just dreadful, um, at the time. So yeah, I, I did have these, um, you know, with, it was a shock to the system with Mabel because I didn't know, my mom suffered with hyper, like, uh, extreme sickness. And so when it happened to me I just thought oh gosh oh no okay I've heard about this this isn't good but it was like you know debilitating and I didn't do much but I did carry on doing the dungarees for a bit um and then um I was we took Mabel on our honeymoon she was 10 months old and we got home and I know maybe it was a couple of weeks after we got home from our honeymoon I sort of smelt perfume and I vomited and I was like oh my god hold on a minute it was oh no maybe it was 11 and a half months like just coming up to her

first birthday and I literally was like oh no oh no I know what this means I was like okay that's like in the movies it really is it really is and it's always weirdly for me it was always uh anything like actually any smells at all but it was funny the first thing it was like maybe someone's aftershave or something I was like oh no that's it I knew immediately and um I had committed I had already taken on a big job making um uh doing dungarees for the cast of Mamma Mia oh wow two Mamma Mia two so um that's a lot of dungaree orders yeah imagine I was stitching the name Meryl believe it or not and Cher um if you can believe it that's fantastic but I was also being sick at the same time

no I was literally like I was I remember really not not kind of not being able to completely embrace what that is like I'm a massive ABBA fan I'm a massive Meryl Streep fan so when I was I'm asked by a friend to make these for the cast I I should have I just was so unwell I couldn't fully appreciate it but I did it I made them all and I dropped them off at the cast I I should have I just was so unwell I couldn't fully appreciate it but I did it I made them all and I dropped them off at the studios and I believe they you know I did manage to give Lily James hers in person she put them on and I was very happy with that before I went and ran into the toilet but um so that was the sort of I decided that should be the last job I did so I went out with a bang with the dungarees.

But I must say, yes, I just sort of stopped doing that at the time because then I was just pregnant and I had Mabel, one-and-a-half-year-old, and I was pregnant. And it was just not what I was expecting. But obviously I'm thrilled about it because they're really beautiful children and they're really different. I'm thrilled about it because they're really beautiful children and they're really different. But 18 months apart doesn't seem really a big deal now. At the time, I think the bit I was most worried about was having a newborn baby with Mabel being only sort of approaching two.

I sort of couldn't believe that that was going to happen. And I was so worried about whether she would be accepting of it and whether I had mum guilt over that over it all to be honest I was just you know what's this going to be like and actually I we couldn't have been luckier with how it went because they're beautiful little girls who love each other they fight but they love each other I feel like in like in um sort of bygone era is that much more fashionable actually like having close together gaps yeah really much more the norm what's your closest gap sophie three years oh really okay so you've had three years recuperation yeah that's how i've always done it like the last the last four are all three years apart from each other that goes like three

years boom three years boom which so now my little one he's two and a half and i'm like ah this is a weird time because normally there'd be another one sort of two and a half and I'm like ah this is a weird time because normally there'd be another one sort of in the peripheral vision and I'm like you know I think five feels like a lot now well I'm sure I mean to be honest I just wanted to ask you actually if you have an easy did you have easy pregnancies it got easier the first one was terrible I had my first two uh quite early they're both born a couple of months early. Right. So that comes with its own complications and stresses on you. Yeah, I had something called preeclampsia and I puffed up. But then I got better at it, I feel like, maybe.

And then towards the end when I had the chubby ones, I took straight home. I just loved it. Oh gosh, how how lovely that is wonderful yeah I mean it is it is sort of we talk about it a lot because it is sort of um it's it's lovely to be in a family and you know we're lucky to be in a family and have these children and um and you know yeah so it's but yes the age gap with with me was a shock at first when I hear you say so three years I was like oh yeah maybe that's the way to do it leave three years because then you're I know I think however the cards fall you just feel like well that's how it was always going to be and I think I probably did it because my mum had my brother and sister three years apart so my head was like three years that

sounds good yeah yeah yeah the first two are five years apart they're quite there's quite a big gap between the top two um we inherit so much don't we in that in that mindset so even with the sickness I sort of knew I was I sort of was like oh yeah my mum's talked about morning sickness morning sickness oh no I've got morning sickness of course I have well of course it is actually you can actually um inherit a morning I think it is a hereditary thing but um yeah you're right saying that you you were a you had that was in your family that dynamic so it seemed quite yeah so you sounded some go to the things that find it feel a bit comforting but yeah you've spoken a lot about expectation and I did wonder are you the sort of mother that you thought you would be gosh um it do you know what I actually

cannot remember what I thought I would be as a mother. I don't know if you, like I had no, I suppose there are moments where I think, oh yeah, so what you're saying, the expectation, it is like there are moments where I think, oh yeah, I've really got this down. I'm managing to do this and I'm not losing my cool. That's good. Not many moments, but there are moments and um but I suppose I never quite you nothing prepares you for the feeling of being responsible for those precious little people like I think like I just I don't think I imagined the I don't think I imagined that I had that much love in me, honestly. But I definitely, I hope, I have to try and be more relaxed because I can get very, I can get kind of fraught around like a loss of control of tidiness, for example, or a feeling of the day. Well, my husband and I had this exact conversation the other day we we went we luckily very gratefully I went to a hotel for my birthday with the children and our dog with so my husband took us all to a hotel and I had been calling it a holiday it was one you know one night and I was

like it's a holiday and the kids were going on a holiday you know 24 hours holiday whatever and um of course uh about two hours in my husband and I were saying holidays shouldn't be called holidays they should be called challenges do you want to take a challenge yes we want to take a challenge we're ready for a challenge that literally like it you know my expectation was probably my expectations are still not you know reality is it's always different that you know it's always different every day something happens that I didn't expect or the idea of in this example the the overnight stay somewhere being called a holiday it was just a really intense intense time

in a different place than our home and we felt really good wife summer yeah family holiday yeah I mean and to be honest we felt so kind of grateful that we're able to do it together and we found somewhere that would accept our big mad dog and that we were able to eat food and I didn't have to wash the dishes after but we were entertaining those children more than we were ever ever entertain them at home it was like full full-on, like, military operation. We walked from the beach to the hotel. It was like maybe a half an hour walk, and both kids were having a tantrum.

My husband carried both of them, and it was literally sand, rocks, mud, rain, sunshine, and I was going like, yes, sir, yes, sir. Like, we were, like, walking, like, kind of like we were on. I said, I bet every parent has this walk where the walk there is good, the walk back is not so good. Oh, my, so many times. So, yeah, I think the expectation, my expectations are always, I'm moving the goalposts every day.

So it's never, never what I expect. Yes, I think that sums up a lot of the family holiday thing. It's like you think, if I was really going to do this this properly I'd have like loads of people taking care of everything community yeah exactly yeah exactly holiday and it's like oh golly I've got why have I packed so much stuff got to wash everything you know sort everything uh get used to a new home get the kids to try and sleep in a different bed with different lighting and I haven't brought their audio cds or whatever they're expecting for oh my god I will be we came home we started on our journey it was only a two hour drive from where we live we'd gone down the road and we were already turning back around to

go and get a spider-man costume that had been forgotten well to be fair that is kind of crucial it is crucial yeah that was just for you yes that was oh it's so nice to talk to you I'm I know you have to go and I hope your dog is okay oh yes yes we've got a lot of animals so how many animals do you have we've got two dogs we've got eight cats we've got five chickens well one of our cats gave birth and because we decided we wanted to keep all six of the kittens we've now got six kittens but they're not tiny anymore wow they're all over the place that is a lot of cats yes it is a lot of cats I've got three and it feels like a lot oh god yeah I mean I thought three would three would three would have been fine for us but I was I was even thinking you know maybe we could

stretch to four but of course we're mad and we fell in love with all of them so that was it it's hard to turn away a kitten yeah and also how do you split them up that two of them were absolutely sure are twins they're identical and we think they might have been born in the same sacrament um and we're not we're not sure if that was the case but they were together and the others were all separate they were born overnight so we didn't see the birth but we came down and they'd just been born. But we just loved them all and we couldn't separate them from each other or us. I bet the kids love having all the animals around.

They do. It does a lot for our family energy, the feeling of love and nurture. Mabel, our four-and-a-half and a half year old now wants to be a vet and she's you know so but yeah so we but we also have to deal with all the other things that come with this and having that many animals so yeah yeah we're at the other end of the scale here my oldest cat he keeps getting handed into the vet because people see him on the streets and think he's think he's a stray that's dying oh god he just looks pretty terrible at the moment but he's still going he is i have to get him the vet suggested i get a collar that says um i'm unwell but i felt like that was a bit bit disrespectful yes so i'm just getting

him one that says i've been microchipped so that people just know he has a home or i have a home yeah exactly I'm loved I live around here yeah leave me alone I'm local exactly I'm local we live around the corner from the vet so it's like literally like our house

and the vet there's just one road in the middle like just let him come home I have to keep going picking him up from the vet just leave him be

for goodness sake I know that was my chat with Laura and we spoke about that shift in emphasis that can happen after you're a parent and where you find your joy or maybe it's just getting older yeah I think it's actually probably more that I think the things that brought me joy have always been the same I think I'm just not probably better admitting admitting it now. I think today I found joy with Jesse. We've been making these little dioramas out of old boxes and actually I've always quite liked doing crafty things with the kids. I like how bossy they are and how they just

assume there is always a way to get things done, even if you're saying I'm not sure how to do that. It kind of brings out the problem solver in me oh that's sweet as i'm talking to you i see ray who's nine pretending to hit five-year-old jesse on the head that's great what why is it the siblings don't get on with each other better i don't get it uh and i had recorded another outro for you where i spoke about how excited i was to be going away for festivals but we've had some dramatic developments around our house recently where a couple of the kids have tested positive for covid and as I speak they are not too ill there's a couple of fevers and some sore tummies but honestly I think if we weren't living in these

times I don't know if I really would have thought much of it but I've been um you know trying to be prudent so that I do the right thing and as soon as you see the little positive thing on the on the test strip you're like oh no so yes Richard and I and all our equipment and all the things we planned and all our crew and band everybody had to step down I had three festivals this weekend. Two of them were headline shows, some stuff to do next week. All gone. But hey, I'm sure there'll be some little crafting activities that Jessie and I can get up to. And if that's as bad as it gets, it's not too bad, I suppose. And actually, thinking it over, over the last 16 months, we've actually been able to do a lot of things without having to cancel them last minute. So mainly there's reasons to be grateful.

And on that note, I will bid you adieu. I've got two people lined up for next week, and I can only choose one because it's the end of the series. So what do I go for? You will find out next week, but they're both brilliant. And then I've got a whole host of lovely people already signed up and ready to get on with the chats for the next series um I can't believe we got through another series already what a lovely thing thanks as ever to my

guests thanks as ever to you and um yeah I uh I hope you're having a peaceful time of it wherever you are in this summer holiday. It's quite a weird one, isn't it? It is, but hey, we're doing all right. All right, lots and lots of love to you.