Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Episode 82: Cerys Matthews

Episode Date: January 16, 2023

Cerys Matthews is a Welsh singer, presenter and writer. I first became aware of her when I was starting out with my first band Theaudience. She was then with her band Catatonia, which was big - and part of the Cool Cymru trend. After Cerys left that band she went on a voyage of musical discovery while living in a cabin in the woods near Tennessee - an experience she draws on to this day when curating her radio shows. Her excellent 6Music show is a big part of our Sundays. We love it.I spoke to Cerys at the beginning of December when she had just launched her new children's book. It's a bite-size take on Dylan Thomas's 'Under Milkwood', which she wants to bring to a new audience, namely little children.Cerys's three children are teenagers now, and we talked about mothering in the teen years, compared to the full-on baby and toddler years, which led her to share her story of her worst ever parenting experience... on a long-haul flight.Cerys talked about coming back to the UK form America, to bring her children up. She said it took her 6 years in America to appreciate Britain, including the BBC.As it was early December, we mused on how we all try and create the perfect Christmas Day, based on family traditions started in Christmases past. We agreed we can't be all things to all people at all times - and Cerys said that next time she's coming back as a man...with a wife! Cerys also shared that she's not drawn to beach holidays but loves an adventure, and she told me about her life-changing trip to Everest base camp which she, her husband and her two youngest boys did 3 years ago, to celebrate her 50th birthday. Her enthusiasm for it was so infectious I'm going to look into it myself, especially as a) she said the children loved it - and b) it sounded like it involved lots of stops for chips!Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, I'm Sophia Lispector and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work. I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, so I spin a few plates myself. Being a mother can be the most amazing thing, but can also be hard to find time for yourself and your own ambitions. I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything. Welcome to Spinning Plates. Hello, how are you doing? I nearly said hello darling. I can call you darling. Hello darling. I can call you darling. Hello darling. How are you doing? How is your day going so far? Are you listening in the morning as I am recording this? It's morning time. It's 10 to 11.

Or maybe it's afternoon. Are you on now? Or even evening or even night? I listen to quite a lot of podcasts at night actually. I sometimes find it a little bit hard to drop off so I've been listening to a lot of podcasts that I uh yeah just to drop off I'm trying to think what I've been listening to at the moment oh I'm listening to I don't know if you will have um listened to this episode but I spoke uh must have been last year to a BBC journalist called um Helena Merriman and she we had a lovely chat um but she does a brilliant podcast called room five which i've been listening to i i think it's was published i don't think i'm listening to as they're published i think it just finished its series but there was a couple i missed so i've been listening to some of them i've also been listening to uh hannah fry's science podcast

which i really like and yeah just being kept company so where are you right now what you up to uh have you had a productive day today what no matter how much of it you've been up for for me at nearly 11 it's been okay I took the kids to school this morning it's starting to get a bit cold out there I hear it's in for another cold snap this week. Not quite the kind of minus three we had before Christmas, but we might be heading for like not that far above zero, which quite frankly, I'm not happy about. Coats, yes. Gloves and hats, no, I'd rather not, thanks. Especially in the mornings, I have to get the kids out the door my eldest two leave the house by half past seven 7 40 latest and then the next two I walk them to school and we leave at about half eight and and Mickey as well if he's got nursery that day which is most days now and you know it's

still a bit dark it's still a bit cold it's been a bit rainy yeah it's just much easier when the sky is blue actually after all my complaining about the weather today's been a nice sunny day and uh what else has been going on well I'm having quite a quiet start to the new year but it's very much kind of calm before the storm because I know I'm about to do things like the artwork for my album and a video for the albums the album's coming out in the early summer and I'm doing a shoot next week for the cover art and I can't wait. I've got a really cool idea and I'm hoping it all comes to fruition as I see it in my mind's eye. Because if it does, then I think you're

going to love it. And I don't know what I've shared with you already. So basically the album, it was started to be, I started writing it just before I took a trip in 2020 with my mum and my eldest boy Sunny and we went to Tokyo so the album kind of had a sort of idea of what that trip would be about both in terms of seeing Japan for the first time but also uh traveling with my family but that that you know those three generations um so that was kind of the groundwork of it so I wanted the I want the artwork to reflect that so you'll have to wait and see I guess but yeah hopefully we've got a really cool thing and I've also I've recorded some of my radio show this week my kitchen disco that I do for BBC sounds which is always a lovely thing to do

because it's just putting together lots of lovely party music. And the other thing I've been doing is firing off emails left, right and centre to people that I think would be good for the pod. Oh, I've got some corkers. I'm so excited. I've just I've been thinking about, you know, what professions I think would be really interesting to hear, you know, combined with parenthood. And I think I've got some really good ones for you I even asked the kids actually and they had a good idea so I followed that lead as well so wait wait and see but let's see if it all comes together but feeling good not to mention I've already recorded well actually the majority of this series is already done I've got the other dates in the diary so I'm feeling good and the nice thing is that so often with the conversation

to the podcast in fact I did one this week and I come away from a lot of the chats feeling really energized quite focused because a lot of the women I speak to end up being quite dynamic and quite go-getter and then sometimes I just get very nice and sort of soothed and comforted like with the guest I've spoken to for this week which is Keris Matthews and I'm sure you're very familiar with Keris's voice, but she's got such a beautiful Welsh accent and the melody that accompanies that accent. There's a lovely melodic quality to Welsh.

It's just very, very soothing. So that was a joy. We spoke on Zoom. I'm not 100% certain I've ever actually met Keris in the flesh, although we will have definitely been in the same rooms at the same time because Keris, her singing career, her music career, was at its peak with Catatonia when the audience, my first band, was starting out. So I was always sort of aware of Keris.

And the music was actually pretty inescapable in the sort of late noughties and not about late noughties late 90s I meant to say I got my decades muddled up um you know very much the sound of that time and I always really liked Keris and thought she was interesting so I kind of kept an eye on her when she went solo after the band um split up and went to Nashville and did albums like Cocker Hoop and went more to the folky side of things. And then with her radio career, because she currently broadcasts on radios two, four and six. And we listened to her on her six music show. And it's lovely. And if you haven't listened to it, I really recommend it. So Keris has got three kids, two boys, one girl. They're now all teenage.

She lives geographically not that far from me so she's I'm in West London she's in West London but we spoke on Zoom and it was really lovely we do talk a little bit about Christmas because it was just in the build-up to Christmas it was in December that we chatted so I hope you can handle your Christmas chat in January but um yeah she's just got such a beautiful way of talking and thinking about things oh and we also spoke about a new book she's done which is a children's um well it's with children in mind an adaptation of Dylan Thomas's Under Milkwood with beautiful illustrations so check that out it's gorgeous and I did read it to my my littlest one actually it's quite a good bedtime book because Dylan Thomas's words again they just they just flow it's completely lovely so yeah settle down maybe it might be a good good cup of

tea chat this one and um or like a warm coffee or a you know hot chocolate or something it's definitely the audio equivalent and I will see you on the other side thank you for your time no um we can we can have a lovely chat and thank you so much i've been really looking forward to speaking to you today same thing so why don't we start with the here and now what are you up to at the moment tell me everything well it is the first of december when we're talking and this time of year it's that sort of time starts pelting quite quite a lot um it's i make i make radio shows primarily at the moment that's what i do and you have to do double shows in order to be able to put enough in the bank for you to stop i I mean, in terms of recorded material, not money. It's enough for you to stop over Christmas.

So I'm in full-on Christmas mode as it is. And you curate all of your own shows, don't you? You do all of it yourself. Yeah. So that's a big labour of love, a big passion. It is. It's brilliant. And especially with one particular streaming platform, which is Spotify, it's so fast. You can reference so many songs and keep ahead of new releases so much faster than before. You're still juggling different formats, vinyl and CDs, and then wav files that come through via email and stuff.

wav files that come through via you know email and stuff so it's it's quite it's quite interesting actually but how much faster it's got recently yeah and I love that but it does quite often end up with being cross-eyed a bit because you're staring and overwhelming scrolling so many songs so sometimes I go okay I've got to I've got to stop and do something else yeah I just need to do something else yeah and tell me about Under Milk Wood, because the book arrived this week, and it's absolutely beautiful. Were you familiar with it? Yes, I did it at school,

probably like a lot of people, actually. But I forgot how beautiful Dylan Thomas's language is. It's just mesmeric, actually. You sort of get into this little trance of it. It's just beautiful. Did you go to school into this little trance of it it's just beautiful um because did you go to school in england i did yeah do you know what i i grew up in swansea so if you know swansea it's got a very wide crescent shaped bay um and it runs to the mumbles and there's a pub run as well in mumbles but anyway i i never studied dylan thomas at school

so really when people i thought it was a no no so like when people like yourself say yeah we did it in school i was like oh you lucky things i i didn't so it's quite funny um so it took me until i had my well i was pregnant with my first child Glennis who's now 19 and I found a little miniature of a child's Christmas by Dylan Thomas on the Christmas tree when I was living out in South Carolina like so it's pretty late on finding Dylan Thomas especially growing up where he grew up exactly with the same view and I just was like like you say that the way he writes and the images that that just bubble up in your mind when you read his work and the things that stay in your mind um he he's a kind of writer in the same way I think as say James Joyce and Ulysses or um the works of Robert Burns

or um Langston Hughes that they they have phrases that kind of stick quite easily in your mind yeah and you run along your life with these lines and it makes you know humdrum a little more rich when you think about them or when you're reminded of them and so yeah I fell in love with Dylan Thomas's work at that point and And then since then, I've sort of been catching up. And I love putting this together. It's funny you say that about the language sort of running alongside, because even now, if it's a nice morning, then it pops into my head about rosy-fingered dawn.

And I think there's lots of things like that, where they have this sort of like, I think that came from Homer, and that was the same thing. It was like a long piece that's designed to be memorized. So you have these little drop points, little drop anchors that are designed to kind of help you. If you were reciting it, they would be like, these are the bits of repetition.

Yeah. No, absolutely. And they just stay with you, don't they? When you see a nice story, that comes straight into your mind and it makes you feel good somehow. Yeah. And I think the whole thing of Dylan Thomas is under milk wood. I didn't realise as well, because when I got the book,

I kind of looked again at the history of that. And I didn't realise he was writing it from when he was young all the way up to just before he died. And he didn't finish the last bit of the poem until it was just about to be performed for the first time. Yeah, until the curtains were about to be raised. Yeah. How incredible is yeah and that he started writing it when he was at school you know as a child himself but then he did write some of his big hitting poems as a teenager you know the really heavy intense ones and if you visit his house which you can do it's been renovated back to 1940s

um in uh come donkinkin Park in Swansea. If you visit there, you'll see his room's not much bigger than a single bed. It's literally the box room. And you think about this little tousled-haired boy with way too much energy and never liked going to school, but had an English teacher as a father, so he was devouring the classic the classic stickings and Shakespeare and everything and you can hear once you start reading and Proust as well you can hear in his work all these writers once you start reading them you're like oh okay they're all reading each other's work they're

just like musicians you know they're like magpies exactly yeah and I mean talking about that so that that takes you back to your own child and And funnily enough, my producer for the podcast, Claire Jones, she's from Mumbles. Is she? She is. So she talks about it really fondly. And it's interesting hearing you say that you actually discovered Dylan Thomas when you were pregnant with your first baby, because I always talk to people about what was happening in their life at that time. So you were in America.

And how did that make you feel about home when you're somewhere else for a while like when you're reflecting back to your childhood and the place where you came from well it does take you to you know it takes distance and time in order to really appreciate what elements make up what home is to you or what what things you value like it took me living out in America for almost six years to really love this strange place called Britain and and and things like the BBC which simply you you thirst for and hunger for when you're in a country like America um yeah and it sort of really makes you suddenly reassess everything when when you live quite far away for quite a long time and especially when you start having children as well and you think wherever they're going to be brought up they are going to become part of that cultural norm and social norms

that that are held in that country um and so that that all of that and many more things made me come back to the uk to bring the children up but yeah so that's that's why with the dylan thomas stuff i think being so far away and reading this guy and realizing that, you know, time disappears when you read a great piece of work and then it can be relevant to you in 2022, to him in 1940, to somebody living in, I don't know, a village in Taiwan or Cameroon, just as much as you identify with it, because ultimately they're talking about humanity and all of our troubles and strife, but also the good things about life.

Because when I was working on Under Milkwood and trying to make it, because I didn't want to lose the, basically it's using Dylan Thomas's text because you wouldn't want to change that but I wanted it to be a bite-sized piece so that you didn't have to wait till you were older to read it and so that I could share it with really young children as a bedtime story because it's kind of perfect it's it's 24 hours in the life of of these wonderful people um and so yeah and when I distilled it down

it sort of became obvious that it was a it was a story about love and hope I mean he describes as um this place of love and and that's that's really what I want when you know when you read something like good night moon oh yeah did you read that one I love really what I want when you know when you read something like good night moon oh yeah did you read that one I love that story I love you still read that oh there's something so innocent but wise but evergreen and and powerful about that good night moon that and that and what you have together again it's it's about the phrases and the power of words and imagination and belonging and everything that and then you have that in common with your children you know yeah good night bowl of mush old lady

i like the good night spoon good night cow jumping over the moon I mean you just carry them with you and they carry with them and they hopefully will pass it on to their children so in those magical moments when hopefully you can down tools as a carer and you're with this mind that hasn't yet had to deal with the complexities of the troubles and the injustice of the world then that is such a untouched and potent moment to fill with these wonderful texts and wonderful writing and ideas and images that will never leave them you know and that they can pass on and and under milkwood i think is it just gave the opportunity to to make a book like that for times like that and i i it took me ages it took me ages to persuade the owners of the rights to under milkwood to to see but i did an audio version

of it and they were like okay okay, now we get it. Let's go. Perfect. Oh, that's so lovely. And I love that what you're saying there as well about that thing when you, as you say, when your children are small and they're innocent to so much of, as you say, the sort of complexities and the sort of the stuff,

you know, they're going to have to greet at some point in their life. But you've got that bit where they're just small and you can just layer in all these lovely beautiful exciting things they'll come from the words of you know people who've lived a life and experienced things but they can still get through those really beautiful layers of you know the good stuff in life and art and poetry and imagination and possibility and excitement you just put as much of that in as possible and mischief you know yes that's true fairy tales as well like they're wicked I mean literally wicked and they're scary and they're they've got evil in them and things but yeah when you're safe and you're in your duvet

or when your cuddle with your teddy bear and your mom or your dad or your carer or your uncle, your auntie, your brother, your sister, whatever is there with you. It's good to, you can feel all of the emotion, spectrum of emotions, you know, because you're safe. I think that's the difference. And that's why, so in, in, in under milkwood, I mean, there's, there's so much detail in it because we have to cull down. I mean, it was horrible to do it. much detail in it because we had to cull down I mean it was horrible to do it some of the best like text but we had to make it work so that a little one wouldn't lose interest that would be the worst you know he had to keep it just it was cherry picking you know but keeping the story no you've done a beautiful job it really works and the illustrations did your children like them

have you read it to your children yeah yeah my 10 year old was looking through it this morning actually and he's an avid reader and he will definitely devour it but I think as well my seven year old will really like it um actually I might even try a bit with Mickey because I do a bedtime story with him every night he's three yeah I'll please do yeah because there's bits in it like you mentioned the illustrations are by Kate Evans so she's based in um Bristol but her grandfather that was weird I didn't know this. I picked her out because her work is quite old fashioned. And I wanted it to be quite timeless, as is the story in a sense. And also deal with all the detail that we had to lose through the text.

So you can go through the book and you'll find a woman with trotters as feet. And you'll find, you with trotters as feet and you'll find um you know clouds of black flower and you can find dandruff and nail pairings and bottle tops and buttons and ancient welsh instruments flying around but all the detail that's in the text that we couldn't fit into a bedtime story they're all in the illustrations and the kids they love pointing them like mice with gloves on and things yeah yeah and all of that stuff those those are the best things aren't they where you keep finding new things it kind of reminded me a little bit of a sort of my my childhood memory

of something like the Eleanor Rigby video where there's lots of things happening and it's kind of got quirky little moments where you're kind of looking at the detail and trying to work it out because I like the fact that as you say I think what you said about feeling scared when you know you're safe is such a really what's the word it's quite a gleeful moment of childhood actually I used to always like that feeling like I remember the first time I took one of my kids to a pantomime that was a bit scary and he got a bit scared and one of my mum's friend lent down to him and said but isn't it nice being scared when you know you're safe, really?

I thought, that's it. That's what that is. It's actually quite a nice feeling, isn't it, when you look at something and it's got a kind of quality to it that makes you feel a bit like a little shiver in a good way. I love that.

Yeah, no, for sure. You've just reminded me of being in Billy Elliot. We went to see the theatre production of Billy Elliot. And I think my Johnny was going to be more than about six. And i had to take him out of the auditorium because there was that sad bit when the mother visits the ghost of the mother visits billy okay you know i haven't

actually seen that i know i'm probably like in the like two percent of people who haven't seen billy elliott but no it was this really poignant moment and quite sad and put my poor john is he's such a sensitive lad he just was crying so much he was choking he couldn't stop crying he was so sad i'd ball him up in my arms and take him out and you know make sure he knew it was a theater story but then actually people are in heaven and it's fine we'll all go to heaven hopefully and you know all these kind of things to try and make him feel all right because that is as a six-year-old he's like how come his mom is dead yeah yeah i remember watching you know a film called the champ do you remember the champ it's a boxing film yeah and in that the dad dies and i found that absolutely devastating

i think when you're small the idea of a parent dying is just like yeah it's horrifying like oh i didn't realize that can happen thanks yeah yeah exactly so now exactly um so your kids I was trying to work are they 19 and 18 and 13 is that right pretty much 19 17 and a half okay and just turned 13 yes okay so you've got it's funny because you're probably at a stage when they were small used to sort of think about like oh one day there'll be a bit where they're all in their teens because i know i sort of sometimes think ahead to how old they're going to be at certain points and having them all in their teens is quite a significant bit isn't it yeah oh definitely you're no longer on all fours trying to get food from the underside of tables and chairs and skirts and boots you're more likely

to be like getting phone calls saying uh can you come and pick up so and so um or um or do you know i love having teenagers but it is a total roller coaster like one minute you're like oh I love this I love this so much we can share clothes or we're watching the same programs and the same level and they're very funny you know and they're watching they're you know giving me music to listen to and you know stuff to look out for and helping me with various you know new emerging trends and stuff then the next minute is complete breakdown because there's still it's still quite raw the world and and everything that's going on and and they're late then so it's really an interesting roller coaster at the minute yeah well my eldest two are 18 and 13 so I have a bit of that in fact that means we must have had our first babies around the same time so 2004 was my my eldest so you must have been 2003 yeah so what was happening in your life

at that time did you always want to have babies yes oh yeah I'm one of four and I've always loved babies. I like the riot and the rebellious nature of toddlers. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. There's no holding them back, is there? They're just absolutely wild. And you're kind of rooting for them, even though you're also trying to get them to, you know, be where they need to be or do what you need to do or whatever. You're kind of rooting for them, even though you're also trying to get them to, you know, be where they need to be or do what you need to do or whatever. You're kind of rooting for that rebelliousness.

I'm always kind of like slightly on their side too. Like, yeah, sure. Question everything. Why not? Except for when you're on a long haul plane. Oh, there's loads of times where it's except for. Oh, my gosh. Like the worst.

Okay. My worst parenting experience was on a long haul flight because. Because I was, at the time, I had two children in America. So living in South Carolina and then Tennessee. And most of my work was still in this country. So I was traveling back and forth with two children, both still in nappies. And there was one particular, my children were motion sick a lot. And then you would be traveling as a single parent with two little ones and everyone would be like oh they're so cute you want a cookie

you want a cookie and they'd be eating the worst diet diet and i was really i i didn't realize the value of a regimented diary let's say uh i didn't have any kind of routine whatsoever. So anyway, we'd be on a long-haul plane, and they'd be eating all this sweet stuff, and then they were motion sick, so I'd always have to take extra pairs of clothing with me. Anyway, this one time I was so exhausted, and I'd fallen asleep,

and then there was a tap on my shoulder, and it was like, Ma'am, is that baby in the aisle your baby? I'm like, oh, yes. Where's the other child? They're looking everywhere. She was the toddler of two, you know. She's all right.

She's on the, anyway. Well, that's impressive having's on the anyway well that's impressive having the I mean that's like not a very big gap between them and I guess you know nothing takes you into the moment the here and now like having very young children like you haven't got much time to you're just kind of in it aren't you at that time it's just your whole world of those days yes really full on. On each step with Peloton, from their pop runs to walk and talks, you define what it means to be a runner. Whatever your level, embrace it. Journey starts when you say so. If you've got five minutes or 50, Peloton Tread has workouts you can work in or bring your classes with you

for outdoor runs, walks and hikes led by expert instructors on the Peloton app. Call yourself a I don't know about you, but also, so I first became aware of you when I was in my first band. So I was in a band called The Audience and you were so successful like Catatonia were just everywhere so I always used to look up to you and see what you're up to and then I think my solo career was when Catatonia were having actually I think because you did you break up in 2001 yeah and then yeah okay so same sort of time so for me when I had Sonny my eldest it was like everything I'd done before he was born suddenly became like part of this like old life like old chapter and it kind of almost made me start again a little bit in terms of thinking about what I wanted to do and where I wanted to head and what bits of my previous

music and career were really important to me like these are the bits I really have to can't sacrifice and then the other bits were like I haven't got time for that anymore did you find it it helped clarify things in that way or was it a different thing for you? It's an interesting question I'd left the band before I went to America And before I went to America, and that kind of cleared the slate for me completely, because I decided at the time I saw it was probably a good decision to just start again, ground zero, and leave all of the hubbub of the band and sort of a nightlife behind and and I lived I literally lived in a cabin in in the woods with no um running water or anything before wow for the first year I was in America that was in Tennessee and just outside of Nashville in a place called White's Creek um what was that like that time was that was it kind of did it feel really good to kind of go just to do something completely different like that?

Oh my gosh, it felt amazing. Like, it was really, I don't think back on it now, but because it was really a massive change in my life and massive turning point. But it meant that I could just get rid of all of the sort of pressures of being a business as part of a band and touring constantly and losing my voice constantly and not really dealing very well with the attention, to say the least. To leaving all that behind and just getting back to the music. That's an amazing thing to do. So I was living in a cabin. music that's amazing so i was living in the cabin well i mean that's probably quite selfish actually thinking back and i do feel a bit guilty about that but i had to do it from for sanity's sake yeah but it's also very brave because you're basically just going like i know there's something in me that knows i need this and actually being selfish when it means that you can be in a better

place afterwards is better for everybody so i would I would argue there's there's like a real merit in that for everyone that knows you and loves you actually it's good it's a good thing isn't that long term yeah I think you're more useful if you're able to be a positive um addition to the world you know definitely definitely rather than like a scattergun cannonball um so yeah so I went just to to the US and found a tiny little rural place studio I happened to um find sort of solace in a place with um Bob Dylan's pedal steel player Bucky Baxter who then kind of encouraged me got my confidence back with songwriting surrounded me with some of the you know emerging musicians in Tennessee at the time as well as some of the big guns um Byron House and um Richard Bennett play with the likes of

Neil Diamond and um Dolly Parton and people like that and just literally just sit around fires and pick like yeah pick mandolins and and it was it was just the best thing ever and then during that time as well I was able to do oh it was so good you'd love it I mean any musician would love it it was literally just saying okay let's go back to the basics. Yeah. Let's just chase the music you love. Exactly. And go exploring. And then I went on loads of road trips and I love, you know, jazz and blues. And so it gave me the chance to go into the swamps of Louisiana and hang out with Zydeco and Cajun musicians as well.

was Zydeco and Cajun musicians as well. So it's lovely now, coming back to the UK, that I'm able to share all of that as records that I bought with me on the radio shows, you know. So it makes sense now. I didn't know what I was doing then. Isn't that amazing how life can do that, where something you do ends up actually making a lot of sense? Because so much of what you've said, I can see,

has really led you to this point. I mean, we love your radio show. Your six-music show is part of our Sunday. Oh, thank because so much of what you've said I can see has really led you to this point I mean we we love your radio show your six music show is part of our Sunday oh thank you I know it's it's so good and um I think I can really see oh well from the outside looking in it seems like you're in a really good spot and very content and just the way you could just pull in all these different elements and I don't know just really sort of seep it all in or the richness that's out there in the world and like what you said before about you know the best the art can be art can be so incredible for joining up the dots of as you

say what is to be human and stories and perspective and I've always always loved that about music but also I can really identify with what you're saying about when things are all in a swirl and suddenly your music career becomes part of a corporate angle commodity yes and suddenly the music and the stories you want to tell and the fun of it starts to really diminish and you feel this sort of, I mean, I went through quite a lot of, I had quite a lot of panic attacks. Did you? Yeah, around 2000, 2001,

when things were going a little bit fast and I was a bit like, I'm not, you don't really have a chance to process if it's even what you want because everybody's so busy telling you that this is all the good stuff and your diary's so busy, isn't that wonderful? And you're a bit like, I don't know, is it? I haven't seen my family and friends for a while.

And I don't really feel like I've got a lot of control over what's going on. And I don't know if that's how you felt about it. That's how I perceived it at the time. Not the happiest, really. And being interviewed as well. Oh, yes. And being held up to scrutiny. And I don't know about you, but but I mean the whole reason I love music and

art is because I can lose myself in it and forget troubles and and find solace and hope and all the rest of it so to to be stood and questioned on it and and and then have to share i'm quite shy you know so um it's it's really odd being uh questioned and and made to think you know i find it quite i feel like squirming a bit and then you think about the old interviews you did because you know you do um you do a lot of interviews when you're lucky enough to have you know chart success and stuff don't you and there was one there was one day when i was in this really modern german hotel which had it was so modern that it had no soft furnishings at all so it was a really rich really rigid bed like a plastic blind and i kid you not it was like a sheet of metal as a desk

and an industrial chair as a chair wow and it was it was a brick um wall that had been sort of um raw in the raw edge of the brick been renovated and then it was back-to-back interviews you know why did you write this song? What is this line about? Why do you think this? And then the whole day was like that. And I honestly, I was like, oh my goodness, this is so weird. This is just so weird.

And in the room, everything was echoing as well. And it just felt so odd. But it is an odd way of making a living. Definitely. I think it's good to have that perspective actually definitely and I know as well that when I had kids I really liked the fact that a lot of that stuff I could really I sort of could clear out in my head making that stuff important and I can now just sort of like when something's a bit absurd it's like well that's

fine because I go home to something that's very, very real. Very real. Yeah. And that's exactly what I was going to, you asked me and I give you a really long answer that didn't answer your question, but you asked about the effect of having children. And then in my, from my perspective,

they became an anchor. As soon as Glennis was born, there was an anchor. And all of a sudden, the responsibility shifted that I had to make decisions because now I had her to look after. And it made sense of everything. Yeah, isn't that amazing? It's very powerful, that.

And actually, there's lots of ways people can find anchors in their life. But yes, I think for me, the same thing. And I think, like you, I'm from quite a big family. And I think just having that around me makes me feel quite safe, actually. And I like the fact that it just turns any silliness in the outside world about my work side of things. It can just reduce that to like, just gives good perspective basically on lots of stuff I think and and you know what you do as well and what you've done with it with sharing that most noblest thing which is love and trust and pure enjoyment of music together in a home with

your kitchen discos is just exactly what you know that I think most of us realize that all of the headlines and the click click baits and the celebrity-ness and and all of this kind of thing is not really real but that the real thing is who you surround yourself with on a daily basis um and and we're not we're not reminded of that because it doesn't make anyone any money you know and it's not it's not the freestone of excitement that is that untouchable thing that somehow humans can attend to, gravitate to, or want to worship at. But, you know, essentially for us all, I think it's those moments that really matter. Yes, definitely. You know, like Christmas, I think that's what makes Christmas, even if you're not Christian, so special, like year on year on year.

It's like you're hoping that those, that you get the chance at one, at least one moment where it's, it's all about coming, you know, community or relationships or, you know, that, that moment of belonging. Yes. And having all the family around and yeah, I love all that too. I have an eggnog. Do you have everybody around yours is it do you host it I did oh my god I did last year and I was in a right state so I did I did it do you know what let me tell you something I have had a what is it eureka moment this year my problem is like you think about christmas and as a host you want to do you want you want to perpetuate all the things that you think make the best christmas right so you have to do we don't eat meat so we have to do yorkshire puddings you have to do the stuffing balls you do all of the things that the pickled cabbage the cheap bread bread what do you call it

bread sauce from the packets that we always used to have. Everything has to be what it used to be in the eight, like a Swansea eight 1980s Christmas. Because you end up with a tiny little city oven trying to be cooking about 20 different, not courses, but 20 different sides for one Christmas lunch. And it has to be the right. And then you end up knackered

because you've already been working double shifts to get the radio shows in the bank ready to take the break and then and then you're sort of 53 years of age which is what I am now and you've got all of that emotional hormonal gear change going on as well and then last year I was just like I can't deal with I can't I can't deal and I had to go for a long walk you know so my eureka moment this year is I'm a working person I'm gonna save up money and I'm gonna buy a chef like the services of a chef to come in not on Christmas day but on the 28th of December oh my gosh why haven't I thought of that before I can't be I can't be chef and be a mom and be like a host and be you know everything

the shopper and be a working person and everything and make a really relaxed Christmas why is it taking me 25 Christmases to realize that actually at this point, why not get a professional in to help? I was just going to say it's amazing. It takes like, I mean, that's a good revelation, but you probably could have done with some of that like a decade ago. Like just don't feel you have to be all things to all people all the time. Can you say that again? You don't have to feel like you have to be all things to all people

all the time but i think yeah it's the thing that it takes a while and even when you say it out loud and believe it you still end up trying a bit and it's interesting i mean apart from the um the packets of bread sauce and stuff are there other ways that you've sort of tried to introduce elements of your own childhood with your i mean it must have been strange when you had your first kids and you were somewhere that wasn't the place where you grew up or is that did that really not really matter that much I suppose it's just an adventure isn't it it is an adventure but it gets quite serious when they're about school age and they're about to join the school system what what it really helped with though to be honest was um you really realize family you know and having help um how important that is oh yes because when you're away you don't have your relatives nearby so no no no and also

you know if you have time in nurseries and good nurseries and the help the professional help in terms of you know nurseries and stuff that are usually like going around with thank you thank you so much but um but with christmas yeah it's kind of a mixed bag really because basically everyone's got different christmases and we're a blended family now as well so there's a whole lot of oh well so and so does a better christmas oh we do this in america oh we do this in that house so we do this so it's like arguments over like when and how many presents you're meant to open up what time of day and that kind of thing well I grew up with two Christmases and it encouraged me to think of it as a season not a day

which I think has been quite helpful I love that idea yeah because otherwise it's too stressful it's just too stressful it's so stressful and it's meant it's meant to be enjoyable yeah and so yeah I like the idea that it just doesn't all have to happen on that 25th yes actually I prefer that lull or the or the lead up to and then the lull after um yeah and what do you do for new years do you have a big to do no not really I'm not I'm the biggest fan of new year so my favorite is actually to be working or just at home with like fish and chips and tally on. Because I don't really go to like a New Year's Eve party or something. No. It's too much pressure on the evening to be something.

Also, if you go to a party, sometimes you've got either too, like midnight either seems like it comes around a bit early and you're not quite ready for that big woohoo, or it feels like it takes ages to get to that point and then you're like, okay, now can we go? Depending on how good the night is, I guess. So yeah, I've had a really mixed bag with New Year's. So I'm happy as yet either working so I know where I've got to be and just get that and have some fun with that,

or just at home, thank you. Yeah, same. It's not a big thing for me. I always feel like the new year should be like around springtime anyway oh yes because that really feels like a beginning of a new year also I always feel a bit sad after new year's eve and it's all cold in January and you're like everything feels a bit blue doesn't it like it doesn't make me feel me with optimism but if there was little yeah we've got february to come

exactly but if there was like spring and new buds on the on the trees you'd be thinking oh yes new beginnings i can do this it's true spring's my favorite i like spring a lot um yeah i do as well just to ask you there with um i was thinking because you do for a living something that's also a passion and has been there since you were small have you ever sort of struggled to give it space like did it did it come easily to you to go back into work after you'd had your kids or to work alongside raising them or was it something that was quite tricky to to give room to um yeah it's it's um it is so tricky and and it's only just sort of stopped now with the kids being older that you can go oh there's food in the fridge do you mind you know you can you can cook now they're really good cooks the older children yeah really good cooks so that's cool and I love

cooking so that's one thing I've thankfully they thankfully kind of been able to share and pick up on as well. My mum loves cooking as well. But yeah, no, that honestly. So what was it that said it years and years ago? Or maybe it was me. I don't know. But I want a wife. Oh, when you said it to me in an email, you mean? And you said, next time I'm coming back as a man and I'm gonna have myself a wife did I say that in an email I was like that's brilliant it made me laugh out loud yeah I was like I know it's sexist I know it's sexist and it's of this era but it still feels that way it's like it just still feels like the onus to keep the balls in the air I don't know if it does in your household, but it certainly does in mine. And with my friends that are working people,

it's just, it's a lot. Yeah, no, I don't think that's, I think that's very much how a lot of people feel. And of course you get relationships and dynamics in families that are different. But I definitely surprised myself by how traditional a lot of the roles are within my own family.

That I didn't think I was going to fall into the same dynamic. Because, you know, you have all the conversations about, you know, all the options that you have available to you. And yet I've still fallen into the same the same trap and it's a tricky one because uh sometimes I want to be across everything because I don't want to let

on the bits that I'm finding difficult or the fact that I'm struggling to keep up because in my head I feel like a lot of other people are nailing all of it so therefore I have to try and nail it too so yeah and especially that's what you're seeing when people share these perfect moments and families on you know on Instagram and things and you're like oh gosh well you know and I'm not seeing the fallouts and the and the socks and the and the tears it's definitely there I don't think that real thing exists where it's all perfect all the time I don't think it does or someone that's completely across it all I think it's actually quite nice when you know how to delegate delegating is an important thing that's that's really difficult but what's really interesting as well at the older I've got anyway is seeing how how much of the influence of the the patterns that you've been

brought up within you you that they are just so deeply instilled that it's really hard like you know the idea that to delegate or to get a you know a nanny or a you know a permanent member that helps you with housekeeping or something like that I wasn't brought up that way so it's really hard because that's in my mind that's that's what the mum does because that's a pattern that I was brought up with and so it's really hard to undo that without thinking oh oh no but that's something oh that you know it's always hard to give it up yes and to delegate and and to say that's not that's it can can be a norm or you can ask for help because it you know because you're not used to it you've never considered it before no um so it's really and also you know but if whatever you know the things you

do there's lots of stuff you get up to and it all needs time and care and headspace so you know you you're the first person to live exactly your life so you can't really copy and paste what happened before anyway because that's a different person and a different set of you know all the all the variables were different uh was your mama working and yet they have huge does she work she was amazing actually. She started going back to college to do a course, a teaching course, when she had four children and the youngest was three. Wow. And I know, when I think about it, and she was a full-time mother of four, from four to 11, I think our ages were. um of four from four to eleven I think our ages were and she did that course and then started working as a teacher um so I would have been I don't know 16 when she went to work so so yeah

a little bit of both yeah basically she probably did that because as well the hours could work quite well with with you guys and being home in the evenings and in the morning a bit yeah well she she's a she's a pretty bright lady um and she she got married very young and had children very young and she brought up in a council estate and I think she had the opportunity then to to to push her education she ran with it which is I'm just so in awe of that fantastic and I guess if she's you know looking outside of herself like that, she's probably also, well, possibly part of the reason why you're so into your books and reading and exploring.

Do you think you got that a bit from your mum? Yeah. Well, my mum, but also my dad. My dad's a huge influence. My dad was kind of a beatnik. Oh, really? Yeah, for sure. That's cool.

And, like, he loved Spain. He loved potholing. Ohing oh wow I mean okay what's that all about I haven't tried it maybe it's a whale of a time um I'm now obsessed with it's funny my dad died about two years ago and I'm now obsessed with reading books about exploration and mountaineering but you've done that as well haven't you you've done a exploration and mountaineering. But you've done that as well, haven't you? Haven't you done a bit of mountaineering? Yeah. Yeah, we walked to, I took my boys when they were nine and 12

and we walked up to Everest Space Camp. That's incredible. What a trip. Oh my gosh. If you fancy it, do it. How long does it take? And you can do it within, well, we took it quite slowly because obviously we had the youngsters with us.

So we did it over 11 days. we had the youngsters with us so we did it over 11 days but you can do it faster than that but honestly it's um if the slower you go the better better it is because you have to um adapt to altitude anyway in fact everyone else was fine it was muggins here that who was like gung-ho you know i'm always on wanting to go on adventures and do strange things for a break and i don't like beach holidays much you know and it's not really for me that's all and and the others are like no come on let's chill let's chill I'm like no no let's let's do this so it was my 50th it was three years ago so my 50th and my husband said all right then let's go let's go to Everest Base Camp and do that walk and so i'm all like gung ho gung ho and it was me that had to slow down because i had altitude sickness oh my goodness so they were like

laughing so that means that just means that you have to stay in a village a bit longer okay so then you you zig you zigzag up so that your body gets time to feel less oxygen in the air and then you go back down and sleep down in a lower village and then you go up again to the next village and then go a bit higher but you sleep a bit lower you know yeah i didn't realize you did it like that i had no i presumed if you're climbing mountain you just keep going up no no no no no no so yeah and you know it's a trail you don't get lost because it's a trail and there was like at one point there was an 81 year old walking the trail so it's completely doable and the the best thing is that the Nepalese people really welcome you there because they um the economy is you know needs needs the the tourist

dollar and um and you know all the talk about all the rubbish and stuff on Everest well I didn't go up to the top the heights besides which they've they've been spending so much time and and love on the on Everest to get to get recycling centers and keep it clear and it's beautiful so don't if you think if you're listening to this and you fancy doing it do it it's absolutely life-changing so and the kids weren't they were good at just getting on with it and getting through all the walking and they do it in chunks so you you do like on average about two or three hours in the morning and then you stop and have chips for lunch if if chips you want or dal bhat which is like lentils and rice yeah or pizza um and then and then you walk another two or three hours amazing in the afternoon there's there's one day where it was really, really a slog.

Oh, my gosh, it was such a slog. It was nine hours. And that's to get up to the Namsh Bazaar, which is the highest Sherpa village in the Himalaya, on the way to Everest. And that was a slog. It was like, are we there yet? Even the adults were like, are we there yet?

And the Sherpas would be like, yes, yes, yes almost there but you wouldn't be almost there at all that's an amazing it was it was beautiful because you see all the juniper bushes and rhododendron forest that basically the terrain changes every few hours the terrain changes and their weather changes so you've got sometimes it's absolutely beautiful and bright and hot and then sometimes they'd be dark and gray and the cloudy and then sometimes it'd be torrential monsoon rain so and then you know sometimes you'd be in jungle kind of thing and rainforest and sometimes you'd be in complete like moonscapes it's it's so and then you see the kumbu ice fall like the glass not the ice fall but the glacier so if you've never seen a glacier before you're like you know like i've been reading all

these books i'm like oh my god that's the kumbu glacier and it's turquoise and you can hear if you like music or sounds you can hear the the dripping of the melting glacier and the little trickles of the rock creeks coming under the ice down the mountains and you're just you're just immersed in this these beautiful sounds god that sounds absolutely magical and how nice to share it as a family like that and do something really special for a big birthday that's actually very inspiring and I have to look at that. So, sorry to skip a little, but I was thinking that when, as a musician, when people ask me if my kids are musical, I'm always a bit like, it's a bit of an obvious question, but given that you've grown up

surrounded by music and Welsh culture is so much about song and singing without even really thinking about it, it just a thing that that happens um in terms of like you're you're encouraged to do it like we don't have that so much in England if if you're singing it's a bit of a like oh we're going to do a song now but I think in Welsh culture it's it's storytelling it's family it's all of that from from from when you're tiny um is that something you have encouraged with your kids yeah well I try to but it's it's like you know I love the story of Tom Jones um he says he started singing when he was a baby in arms but because it is it's very it's very imagine can you imagine it's not unusual to be a baby

give him a bottle to be loved by anyone. Or just imagining him like, going from like, wah, into like a little like, whoa, yeah. I love that. Just another kiss. Yeah. Put a bottle in it, Tom. Isn't it? Yeah, thank you, Shoshana.

Yeah, it's something that is that you're so unselfconscious about it because it's literally that that's that's one of the most sort of valuable things I I took out of my sort of culture and upbringing but I brought up my children in West London and um yeah apart from like filling the house with with music instruments and stuff and and they all love music but then like yeah a lot of people ask about you know are your children musical I think all children yeah that's actually what I say as well they are music until until they till they get self-conscious or they're taught that so um but I um in fact they they are really because one of the most um valuable things to me is is you know that the fact I went to chapel three times on a Sunday with my mum.

Three times? Yes, three times it used to be on a Sunday. And that was fine because we'd have orange squash and cakes and other kids to play around with. So it was actually quite fun. But within that, there was all the singing and all that. And then if you get bored with a hymn you could just sing your heart out and figure out all the harmonies which is what I used to do um god knows what the bloody noise would have been like I don't know but anyway I loved it I was I

was having fun um and mum was happy because we'd come with her you know so anyway I wanted to sort of be able to make sure that the children grow up and learn all this repertoire without having having to learn it you know what I mean just learn by osmosis and um very like my husband's catholic so their children went to school are going to school through the catholic system and the school happens to have one of the best choirs in in the country so they're learning they're not learning the Welsh hymns alas but they are learning you know Benjamin Britten and Mozart and um ancient liturgy and and they're singing like Purcell in the in the shower and this is a state school as well and I'm so happy about that because you know to learn by osmosis is much better than having to, you know, having to do it forcibly.

Yes, absolutely. And I think for me with my kids, I don't mind what they do for a living at all. But I would love it if music was always a friend of theirs, because for me, it's just been a place that I can always turn to no matter what's going on. And it gives me so much. It's like just such an amazing emotional outlet for me music so I would I would love it if they always have that friend in it too yeah no absolutely there's nothing better is there and and you know when you when you have a shared experience as well with music like exactly what you do but if you've got a playlist i mean like jimmy smith at christmas louis amschel mahala jackson jimmy smith all of these nat king cole uh you know ella fitzgerald you bring them out and oh that oh my gosh talk about packaging up life in such a splendid padded cushion it's amazing what music does it joins the dots of all the other times you've heard them as well it's

like a little loop through time which i think is really really magical I'm really conscious of your time I've only got a couple more things to ask you one of them is um are you the sort of mother that you thought you would be probably not um definitely not the mother I wanted to be you know because because because of because I'm also really I love working as well I think I realized that quite quickly I love my babies I love them so much but also loved having that space and peace to be able to keep driving in inside you know music and writing and art um so yeah I you know i think we're brought up thinking that we should be the the happy all the time mom that is always there that is fat and cuddly and um

cooks great bread and cheesy whatever lasagna and things always ready and always understanding and always patient and never shouts and i'm definitely not that mum you know i'd have baked i was baking sourdough in lockdown like a million people and getting a bit obsessed with that that's now that's dead long dead the mother the mother in the fridge my sourdough my sourdough stuff is long i've got a little bit in the freezer does it work? Cyber, what's it called when you freeze, you know, Austin Power, like cyber freezer thing? I don't know, I just kept getting confused every time he talked about the mother in the fridge. I was just, it just.

Well, my mother's in the freezer right now. I think we've got a couple of mothers in there. Then I think I could. Yeah, we had the sourdough there, the same thing. I don't know if that mother i think that really eternally wholesome patient um i aspire but i don't i don't hit my targets very often with that either you can't win you can't win either because if you're too soft you get you you get you know you said oh

well you're not disciplining them enough they need structure if you're too hard oh you're too hard I'm like oh you can't win you're like well what what the hell am I meant to do I think basically by the time you learn how to become the best parent you can be the children are like yes they're about to leave the home but then you also realize that and they're like hang on a minute come back can we rehash some of those previous conversations we had at the moment I'm feeling in the right mood for it now I know but I think I did read something that said you know good good enough is actually is good that's that that does that does work um and i think i think also just you know as you get older you you know you look at your own parents and you

see them in 360 and you could you know if they were this sort of like very neat version of of a parent when you were small you might get older and then realize oh but what did they have for themselves and actually that's the bit where you can build on for the next bit like that's really special you kind of want them to be having you want your parents to have a life outside of just being your parent otherwise what happens when you when you're not there like that can probably be tricky and and that nobody can be perfect which actually brings us right back to where we started back to Dylan Thomas which is all about warts and all yes nobody is absolutely so there's a bit there's a bit in it um that the Reverend Eli Jenkins says I'm gonna if you bear with me while I find out I'm at the beginning

you find it I've got my book here too I want to find okay so this this is oh it's such um it's a beautiful song for one from under milkwood um and i i it's reverend eli jenkins and he's reciting this as dusk arrives in the little village and they're they're all getting ready for the night ahead and to settle down into the next night's sleep. So at the doorway of Bethesda House, the Reverend Jenkins recites to Lleregapail his sunset poem. We are not wholly bad or good who live our lives under Millock Wood and thou I know will be the first to see our best side, not our worst.

Oh, let us see another day. Bless us all this night, I pray. And to the sun, we all will bow and say goodbye, but just for now. Oh, that's pretty perfect,

isn't it? Yeah, it's a beautiful, beautiful beautiful story it really is so that's and it's what's lovely about it as well it's as i said it's quite naughty as well so there's a few pub scenes because because obviously in under milkwood there's loads of characters that you would you know one would recognize from wherever you live you know you've got womanizers you've got drunkards you've got womanizers, you've got drunkards, you've got the hard workers, you've got the ones that don't want to work at all. You've got the neat freak, you've got the dreamers,

you've got everyone in there. You know, the older generation, the younger generation, and you've got the ones that, you know, find a little too much solace in the bottle of a bottle. And then you've got this scene so cherry owen is one example of the characters that that does drink rather a lot too much in fact um as we can hear from this scene this again is is dusk time um so cherry owen sober as sunday as he is every day of the week goes off happy as saturday to get drunk as a deep gun as he does

every night evening cherry evening sinbad what do you have too much so the narrator goes dusk is drowned forever until tomorrow it is all at once night now and then it goes on anyway so no it's it's it's tremendous i i i'm so excited about hearing stories about people who are reading this story to their children for the first time i mean this is the whole point of this book is to introduce a new fresh blood to the to the story and to see what they make of it and what bits they love there's a like a fish sleeping in the sea that needs to be found by a toddler as well so yeah let me know um what your youngest I will definitely do that I will give you some feedback and in the meantime thank you so much congratulations on the book and I look forward to hearing all the

shows that you are currently putting together they will be in our in our kitchen in the next few weeks and um well i hope you approve sophie and thanks so much for the time as well yeah same here and the lovely chat i will say goodbye but just for now see what i mean how lovely is that yeah it's so nice to talk to Keris and catch up and think about the parallels. But also, what an interesting life and that bit of living on our own in the cabin. I mean, golly, I can imagine that that's quite a formative experience. But then once you've come the other side of it and you're sort of 20 years on and you're in your family home with all your teenagers around you, it must feel like a very strange sort of memory, like a dream you had once.

But I also think it's so brave to do things like that. Sometimes we need to do things like that. I've never really been brave enough, I don't think, for surrounding myself with people. In fact, when I was a kid, I always thought I'd live in another country for a while and I just never did. I think that's probably one of the things I would have liked to have done I mean I know I'm lucky enough to travel but I literally live 10 minutes from the house I grew up in well from when I was 10 and the house where we grew up is only another 10 minutes away from the area I grew up when I was before that so I haven't really been too bold in that regard. Anyway, that's what happened to me and I'm happy with that.

And yeah, I hope the rest of your day goes all right or if you're listening to me at night, I hope I've soothed you to slumber. You're probably fast asleep by now. I'm going to make an attempt to get on with the rest of my to-do list, which I don't normally write it down, but I had to today because there's just things that I can't put off till tomorrow. So, yeah, going to go and tackle all that and hopefully have some replies from my many, many emails I sent out yesterday and the day before for nice, amazing, lovely guests to introduce you to

or for you to hear more from. And in the meantime, actually, I don't want to boast, but I'm sat in the room I often speak to you from, which is my four-year-old son bedroom slash my dressing room. So I'm surrounded by clothes, which has made it inadvertently a very good room for sound, because I've basically deadened any sort of like extra audio by surrounding myself with like tons and tons of clothing um I've also been going through like organizing my drawers and stuff have you been doing any of that it's like it's almost like I've gone into like a spring cleaning mode but in January I've even done things like go through all my tights all my tights like I know

where all the tights are like if I want a pattern tight if I want a black opaque uh I know where everything is now all my pants are in a certain place my socks my bras I mean maybe you live like this anyway but I was a bit more shambolic and I've gone through all my jumpers and my jeans and my t-shirts I know you're probably like big wow that's what I do anyway. For me, this is another step towards adulthood. Anyway, I want a pat on the back and I want you to keep me going because I don't know about you, but when I'm in a mood to organise and sort, I've just got to leap on that because before I know it, I will regress back to my natural lazy state. And as I say that sentence, my eyes rested on a huge pile of

clothes on a chair opposite me I haven't bothered with for at least a week. So maybe that's on my to-do list as well. And thank you as always for lending me your ears. I hope you have a really lovely rest of your week and I will bring you another sparkling guest next week. Lots of love, see you soon bye I'm not a fool