The Ins & Outs - Finding yourself, looking for signs and all things flow.

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

This week we are talking all things flow, from how to design rooms to feel cohesive, to the best layout for your garden. We also dive into mum life, losing and finding yourself in motherhood, signs, tan lines, leaf blowers and more. This episode is brought to you by Zoeva, a fantastic make-up brand where beauty meets self-love. Founded in 2008 by Zoe Boikou from a simple mission to create high-quality brushes accessible to everyone, Zoeva offers top tier brushes, eyeshadows, lip-cheek pencils and more — all cruelty-free and thoughtfully crafted. Check them out at www.zoevacosmetics.co.ukAnd you can use code INSOUTS15 for 15% off. Mininum spend £20, valid to 31st December. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Green, the color of true elation, pine on the summer's daisy, I've been waiting for you, waiting for you. Welcome to this week's episodes of the ins and outs with myself, Polly Wilkinson, and myself, Jojo Bar. This week, we are talking mum life. We're talking about losing that snake skin of snot-covered leggings. we're talking signs and we are getting into the topic of flow so let's dive right in this week we are sponsored by zoeva now if you haven't heard of sova they are a fantastic beauty brand it was started by Zoe and she actually started just by doing makeup brushes

which are absolutely banging but we've been trying some of their product and I've got to say I am slightly obsessed with the velvet love eyeliner pencil which I am going to say, it's very similar to a certain Victoria Beckham eyeliner pencil. It's a 10 out of 10. It's so good, isn't it? It glides. Oh, my God. But the colours are amazing.

They do like olive greens and dark browns and these amazing, like, burgundy colors. But all quite very tasteful. They honestly, it is, it's dreamy. My favourite, my favourite from the, it's hard to say, actually, but I'm going to go, because you've said the island, I'm going to go with the mascara. Now, I am one fussy guy. when it comes to mascara. She's a picky mascara girl, yeah.

No, only because I just, I want mascara that I can take off. So two things about mascara. First of all, no, three. It's got to make your eyelashes look good. OBS. I don't want that falling down my face throughout the day where you sort of have the shadow line and bits coming off, right? So it's got to stay on.

But then also I want to be able to get it off at the end of the day without damaging my lashes. Well, let me tell you, girls, I promise you this, this is going to give Charlotte Tilbury a run for its money. This mascara is called voila. Walla lash. Walla lash. And it is seriously, seriously good.

I am so into it. So you have a new makeup follower in me, Zoeva. Thank you. And they've given us a code as well, which is Inns Out 15, which we'll put in the show notes. And that is on a minimum spend of 20 pounds valid until the 31st of December. So go check them out at Zouava Cosmetic. com.com.uk. Thank you very much.

Hello, old girl. Oh, my darling. How are you? I'm really well. How are you? Catch me up. You've had quite an interesting week. What have you been doing?

Can I just let everyone know that we're recording this on a Monday morning at 9 a.m. I don't think we've ever recorded a podcast at 9 a.m. on a Monday. So it's like, usually I bounce our bed straight into the office. I'm in the office today, guys.

I'm not working from home. Anyway, I am, do you know what? I'm really good. It's been so busy lately. And yesterday, I went from, yesterday being Sunday, I went from marshalling wearing an orange high-vis vest at my local, it's called the Freeth Hilly. It's like a little race that they do to raise money for the school. I was marshalling in my bright orange high-vis vest. And then ran back home when that race was done and straight into something a little smarter because I was at Decorex, which is obviously like the leading interior design show in Olympia, comes into Olympia.

where I was on the panel talking with Emily at Furnishing Futures about all the amazing work that they do and how I support them. So it was a busy old day yesterday and then straight to the pub on the way back for a large glass of red wine. Superb. Did we go on a little trip last week? We went on a little anniversary trip. We did. A little sexy trip.

Where did you go? What did you do? Oh, do you know what? It was so nice and it was just like so needed. You know, I just, we're just. passing ships, Brad and I are literally passing ships and he runs his own business. I run my own business and life is busy, got young kids. We are the sandwich generation. I don't know if I've said that before, but it like is a real thing. A couple of weeks ago. You've been here before but

literally sandwiched and I, if anyone, you know, in a happyish marriage will know that you just hardly speak to each other. You literally don't look at each other. So actually to get away and have two nights away where we just, we stayed in this beautiful. place in Dea, in Mioka, it was about an hour outside Palmer, and actually just like engage with each other and talk to each other. It was lovely. It's just so nice. Good weather? It was a bit cloudy. Not the most except. It wasn't tanning weather, but then who really wants to get their bits out in sort of, you know, mid-October when your tan's gone and, you know, I'm now, I'm in full hibernation mode now. I'm not really interested in tanning

my bits. And actually, there's a thing. Probably should have left us to what's out, but tanning is out. I think you get to a point in life. in certainly your 40s, where you think, oh my God, that doesn't look good on my skin anymore. It doesn't look the same. Do you do that? Are you there yet? I am, but largely just because I'm now spending money trying to get my face laser to get the consequences of tanning off my face. Well, this is here.

Have you heard? This is it. A couple of my friends have got older teenage girls. They are obsessed with the UV. Have you heard this? Oh. So that it's not just interested. sunny day. I don't know because I'm not a teenage girl, but like the thing now is to check

the UV and be like the UV is amazing and it's really like the UV has to be right for tanning. But also, did you know it's really cool as a teen or maybe a tween to have strap marks? So they will specifically wear like a really chunky bikini top to tan so that when they take it off and then we're like a boob tube. You can see the white mark. That is like peak cool, which blows my mind. But this was us when we were kids. This is just like everything is just recurring from the 90s.

Are you not seeing kids? We think that was cool. We did that. I would literally not move my straps so that I could get a really, or like your watch. You would have your watch on. Yeah. So you just wouldn't take your swatch watch off

because it was just like sweaty, sticky little plastic watch. I love it. I just, these are the things I learn from my friends who have girls. Meanwhile, I'm there being like, what? So did you ever go on sunbents when you were younger poll? Never, no, never appealed. Oh, my God, really. I was a real, I loved a sunbed.

This comes as no surprise. Yeah, my mum and I used to call it, we'd call it the beach. I'd be like, I'm just going down the beach. But my mum would never put her face in. She'd always take a little hand towel and put it over her face. And then it suddenly got to the point where we're like, oh, my God, this is horrifically bad for you. It's like anything, isn't it? Suddenly, they're like, oh, by the way.

I mean, I think we probably always knew. But they were. But it was so. only to just have a tan, a perma tan. Sunbeds? Oh, yeah, sunbeds work. Yeah. But don't you end up looking like a piece of chamois leather by the time you're 35? You know, like from something about Mary, was it Magda, the one? There was always that sort of, just people constantly having a conversation, a dialogue of, yeah, well, we live in the UK though, don't we? So we don't get any sun at all really? And therefore,

just how many sunbeds is going to be the equivalent of if you lived in. Spain and you had sun all year round. So we would kind of justify it to ourselves of like it being November and I'm just popping off down to the beach for my 10 minutes and your sun. I never did them. Just never. Yeah. No. Just for 10 minutes that you just could be in the Caribbean. You could be anywhere you wanted to be. Delish. Not that we are, we do not. We look after your skin. SPF 50. It was. I mean, listen, brown skin. I personally look far better. I mean, I look better with brown skin. most of us do, but now there's such a good fake tan around. And I do find as well, you go on holiday, you bake your skin for like a week or two, and then you get back and

you look tremendous for about two days, and then you look like a bag of shit, and then it all starts flaking off. And then you just think, what was the point in that, especially your face. I mean, I haven't put my face in the sun forever. My mom said, that's one thing. You never do. Never put my face in the sun. But fake tan, just whack face, fake tan on it. It's almost better. I love this. But we'll probably be told at some point that that's bad for us. well. That's probably got something in it that we shouldn't. Oh, everything's bad for you. Everything's bad for us. We're all going to die. Anyway, enough about that. How are you, my love? What's been going on? I'm so good. Oh, I had a really interesting weekend, and I was really looking

forward to talking to you about this. I had a friend's 40th, and my friend has got younger kids. They're sort of in the sort of 2, 3, 4 camp, maybe a bit older. And all of her friends are like her mummates all had kids age around 2, 3, 4. And I have had kids. Age around 2, 3, 4. And I had some really interesting conversations because all of these women and it made me feel really funny and I was wondering if you felt the same or whether you had a different experience. They all said the same thing which was like I feel kind of erased and like I'm this sort of amorphous blob of mummy where who I was pre-kids is gone and I don't know what I want to be yet because it's such a watershed isn't it having kids of being like am I going to continue doing this job? Am I going to

work at all or am I going to stay home with the kids or am I going to choose a different path? It's sort of a, I think it's a real path in the road, isn't it, across in the road and you sort of choose. Totally. It's crossroads. Yeah. And all of them were, they just brought me back to a time where I realized I really hated actually, which was this sort of feeling of how do I define myself now.

And they're like they're in the leggings era. They were just like I'm a sort of receptacle for snot and I wear leggings and I feel lumpy. And my partner is doing really well at work and is sort of, you know, reaping the benefits of working hard. Meanwhile, I have to choose whether I'm going to take a part-time job just to try and fit in some childcare around it or whether I, just this, it made me feel really weird and quite angry about being a woman because it's like we will have to make these really difficult choices and obviously it's a privilege.

But at the same time, I was like, yeah, they don't have to deal with this, whereas we have like this entire identity crisis that changes. They don't. And they will never understand. Yeah. Even if you have an amazing, amazingly supportive husband like I do. And I still don't think they fully grasp it. And actually, I've got a very good friend of mine whose husband is the sort of bit more of the high flyer.

And she, in her own right, is so bright and has so much going for her. But they've got two children, one of which is six months old. And she's the one that's at home having to deal with the baby whilst he's out working. And she doesn't want to be. necessarily. But that is just, that is the card that she's, she's got. And she obviously loves her, loves the kids, goes without saying. But she's really, it just, it kind of destroys your self-esteem for a bit. Yes, this is it. I was very lucky because my business. You didn't stop, did you? I didn't stop. And I'm very fortunate that it was my own business. It wasn't like

I was, you know, beholden to someone else to tell me where I needed to be and what I needed to be doing. And it was obviously, it was almost like raising a child of my own was my business. So, for that I was very lucky and I've had so many women reach out to me who have been a now young mothers who have sort of come off maternity leave and they're now suddenly questioning their employment choices and actually there's something else I want to do and I don't know if this is like you know and it's completely normal and you have to be so kind to yourself I think at that time because your body's gone through something absolutely extraordinary which still to this day blows my mind I still don't understand how we can grow humans inside us you know it's it's incredible what the human

body can do. The thing I was wondering with you and I thought, oh, I don't know if JoJo will relate to this. To me, I felt when the kids started school, I kind of shed like a snake skin, the kind of leggings and the mum uniform. And I could suddenly start feeling pieces of myself coming back and like my mojo coming back. And it's certainly with every year that the boys get older, I feel like, you know, more interested in different clothes again or you're like actually my look has changed and I used to wear this and now I wear this. And definitely feel like more of a person in your own right, less of a mum, obviously still a mum, but that you can kind of, you shed that mum's snake skin, I think, and that you're in when you've got really

young kids. I can't imagine you were ever the kind of snotting, snot on legging stage. You always quite come around. I did, I lived in, I lived in work at gay. Actually, Brad worked to Jack Wills for a period and I had literally Jack Wills, these Jack Wills kind of like t-shirt bras. And that's what I used for my maternity bras and I would just pull them down and just breastfeed anywhere. I wasn't a shy mum. But I didn't, then I went through a crisis of like, oh my God, I don't like any of my clothes in my wardrobe because I felt like my body had changed. Yeah. And then I was like, oh God, what do I wear now? And you do suddenly go, there's something definitely shifts in you where you go from being, and I, do you see it? Actually, I even, even commented on this the other day,

to a friend, we were walking along and you know when you see a young couple and she's pregnant, very pregnant and she still looks cool and her hair's done and she looks all lovely and she's not pushing the pram yet but they're holding hand in hand going on some lovely long walks together having a fucking blouse haven't a clue what's coming and then you just think those that just give it another six months it's so different oh no 100% it was more just the fact that sitting there with kids that little bit older 9-11 looking at them and they were just like I just feel lost, and I feel, and I was, it was nice sitting in a place of being like, I promise you, you will find yourself again.

You're going through it. You are about to shed the snake skin, I promise. Like, you're going to like reemerge as a beautiful butterfly. Footy fans. Premier League and Champions League are underway and FanDuel has fresh ways to bet your favorite clubs, like the new two-up money line. Cash out your bet as a winner if your team goes up two goals at any time during the match. Download FanDil today and hit the pitch.

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help make it happen. Anything else to report? Nothing meaningful. I've sewn some sweet piece. Oh, lovely. I have got dormer windows in our little garage and they look sensational. The dormer windows have gone in. It's the first thing the contractors have done.

They've been there in their week. I know. They've knocked out these little dormer windows and it has transformed this building. I can't tell you. It's so exciting. We're suddenly becoming really exciting. And actually it's, Brad has even suddenly gone into this like overdrive of, right, got to get the pathway gun, got to get the front drive done. Got to get this done. So it's, yeah, the ball is rolling. I knew this would happen. Don't get the front drive done. Front drive is the last thing you do.

Not the drive. Sorry, didn't mean the drive. The front wall, the front wall. The front wall. The boundary wall is a mess. The boundary wall. We're currently in the process. Do that. Leave the drive alone. It's going to get trashed. Yeah. Actually, I'm going to throw this little out of his question at you. down our boundary wall currently we have a I'm going to say it's about two metre wide really ugly hedge Polly what sort of hedges it is a mix a mashup of hedges you've got a mix native on one side I don't remember what you've got on the other there's a lot and it's all kind of going into each other so it's a mess and it looks like it's had a dodgy hair cut and it's horrific it takes up so much of our garden

that we're going to get rid of it and then what we're thinking is because putting like beech trees in they're going to be young and you're going to be able to see through them and we want some privacy, we might actually get a really fancy fancy fencing and then put some nice spelliers above it to try and create some screening. But I was looking, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but I fell down a, I fell down a fencing hole looking on Google, found the RHS heritage fencing super smart.

Do you know the one I mean? I share it's beautiful. I don't. We use, if you look on Jackson's, they do some brilliant fencing and it comes with like a 20 or 25 year guarantee, which is my Ghana guarantee. okay thanks for that Paul yeah yeah who knew I'd be so into fencing but there you go welcome to my world yes it is it can be riveted but Brad was like we should paint it black right and I was like actually no I don't think probably would be black hair no not in your instance no no no so you're not

planting in front of it we don't paint fences back we're not planting in front of it ideally because it's always a shame to have a bare fence true dad so but you don't necessarily you're in the countryside so it's quite urban isn't it black fencing. If it's visible, it is. We live and learn. We live and learn. Okay. I mean, I just want to carry on chatting, but we probably should make ourselves useful. Let's make ourselves useful. Our theme this week is flow. I'm actually listening to, I'm again, done that classic thing where my sister bought me a book. It's called Signs by our friend Tara Swart. It's her new book. I wondered if you read that. I haven't asked you. Oh my gosh. So we feel like

we should share this episode. It's the only guest we've ever had on, Ms. Tarasois, Yonks, for anyone that listened, it's amazing. She's incredible. And we've got a very aggressive review going, we don't want guests. We don't want guests. We just want you to. Well, there's only so much we'll get out. But anyway, so she, it's total digress here. Sorry, but it's important. So reading this book signs, my sister bought it for me because we listened to her podcast. She was being interviewed by Stephen Bartlett about her new book. Unbeknownst to us, when we interviewed her poll, she had just lost her husband, Robin. Yes. And to cancer. And so she started seeing signs and that Robin was sending her from the other side.

And she believes as a scientist, obviously it's unusual for scientists to sort of believe in another. Pretty wild. Yeah. So she goes into this explanation in her new book about how to understand and how to reach people on the other side and to believe that there is more to life. There's more to the life that we see. It's such a good book. Oh, my God. Anyway, I'm listening to it on Audible because I haven't got the attention span all the time right now to

the book. So when I'm in the car, I'm listening to it. It is utterly brilliant. And she talks in this one chapter that I'm on about being in a flow state. And usually when you're in a flow state, be it at work, or it could be even like when you're in the shower and, you know, like a thought comes to you. That's because your thoughts are just flowing and flowing and flowing. Anyway, that is not what we're talking about. That is not the subject to flow today, though, is it, Polly? It's not that's what we're going to. To add to that, to pile on to that, because, you know, we love a self-help book. I listen to a, a, did I like it? I thought it was pretty interesting. I'd rather have just have had a highlight on it.

It's a book called The Brain at Rest, I think it was called. And it was talking about how important it is to rest your brain because that's when actually the best ideas come to you. So I've just given you a very abridged thing, which was basically napping or doing absolutely nothing, as in sitting in a chair, doing nothing, is when your brain is resting. And it's often the time when you will have the most creative thoughts. By I imagine it's exactly what she means by that. that flow state of sort of like not distracting yourself with a screen or a book or anything, but just sort of, I don't know, playing with your kids or going on a walk and not listening to anything while you do it is actually the time when you will have your most beneficial thoughts.

So I can see the parallels. When I was a grief counsellor, one of the books we always recommended was the Year of Magical Thinking, which is, you know, often what happens is sort of you engage more in that, in, the sort of things, when you're going through grief, suddenly, like looking for signs becomes really important. So that's what it made me think of. But I saw a lot of signs with Dad at the beginning, lots of signs. Very, like, I mean, I could talk about it. If anyone wants to know, I can talk about it more.

Maybe we could talk about it on the next podcast. But I saw lots of signs, like, spookily so. There's no other explanation as to what they were. But I think I was in a very heightened state of... Looking for them. Grief and also because I blocked everything else in my life out at the time because I didn't have space in my head for anything else. Whereas now, because there's so much external noise and stuff going on in my life, I'm finding it harder to tap into it.

And that's why I'm trying to learn you have to get into sort of almost like a meditative state where, like you say, your brain is actually relaxed to be able to welcome in signs. Is it a bit like when you're shopping for a new car and then you see the car you're shopping for all the time? All the time, yes. Is it that kind of like bringing it to the front of the brain? Yes. It means that you're actually kind of more aware of it as a thing. Well, we'll get into it.

Anyway, come on. I'll just get into that. So anyway, the subject of today, we're going to talk flow. Now, when we talk flow, obviously in design, it is one of the most important factors when designing a house. And I'm sure Polly will agree a garden is how it flows from the moment you walk in your front door to how you're carried through the house. Now, in interior design, when I talk about flow, there are various ways in which we use flow to design a house. And that can be through architectural features, it can be through door openings, it can be using light, it can be the paint colors that we use or indeed the fabrics that we layer with. So it can be certain colors you might have, you know, that green that you carry through the house.

It can be different tones, but there is a sort of, there is a common thread that runs through the house. And that is what we're trying to create from the moment you walk in the door is the sort of common flow with design, which I think is, is that sort of the same in garden design, Paul? Completely the same. It actually makes me think of a question

I got literally yesterday, which was, should I have the same matchy-machi furniture all through a garden? And actually I was thinking, what would your answer be for the inside? Because my reaction for the garden would be like, it doesn't need to be the exact same chair used, you know,

in every single seating space you might have in a garden, but you certainly want the spirit of it to be the same. So if you're doing a sort of really oldy-worldy garden where it's sort of lovely, zinky sort of metalwork furniture, then I certainly wouldn't encourage you to then have something super contemporary in your next seating area. You'd be like, no, the theme you've chosen is sort of more traditional vibe.

So it doesn't all have to be, I don't know, white painted metal, but it could be. It certainly would, you'd keep that sort of level of intricacy and you'd keep it traditional to sort of timber and metal. Yeah, absolutely. But I was wondering what you would say, in the house because obviously with the rooms it's so different and you can have fun with different rooms but what would your answer be for that in terms of style of furniture in a house

does it all need to be similar it does there is there's a there's a bit of a rule of thumb I'm not going to know the exact percentages of this but um there's sort of the 60 30 10 rule do you know about that in design tell me more so 60 is your dominant could be color it could be materiality but it's yeah that if you were to start with a mood board and you're you're would put down your, say, a wood floor, and then you know that you're going to have some stone off the wood floor in the utility room, the boot room. The tones of that wood floor, you want to feel like they connect with the other stones that you're putting down. So you're laying down those first, your hard materials. You then start to layer, say, the paint colours, the paint colours

you're bringing in. You want to make sure that the undertones of those paint colours are going to work with your floors. What you're creating is quite a neutral palette. So that's going to be your 60% dominant. So that's going to be, say we're going with a sort of warm neutral in that. Your base layer. The base layer of 60%. What you're then doing is bringing in your 30%, which is say it could be, it could be your woods, say, okay, so say you're bringing in your dining table and your chairs and the elements of like hard case furniture. Now you can bring in your, the strongest is probably going to say you want to bring in a dark oak. Okay, so you bring your dark oak onto the table. It's okay to then start bringing a little bits of cherry wood or,

but they're going to be very small. Those elements are going to be much smaller. They They might be a little antique table, but you can't... But that's still got a similar vibe, doesn't it? You wouldn't have like a super minimalist scandy white room in one room and the next, a massive antique mahogany, like, it would look weird? No, it can. You can mix eras. You can mix materials.

Okay. But it's an art. It's an absolute art to get right. You can bring in, that's why antiques can work so beautifully where you have a really paired back minimalist, say, scandy looking living room. And then suddenly you've got... a Gustavian sort of Swedish desk or something, just sitting there. And it might on its own look really beautiful. Oh, okay. As a statement piece. As a statement piece. But it's, you wouldn't then,

you wouldn't then bring in a mid-century table lamp and whack it on the floor over the other side and then put something. Then it's going to start to look very random. So it's that, that's the sort of almost like the 10% that we're talking about. It's the feature. It's that sort of, yeah, yeah. You're bringing in that last little tiny layer at the end. In this instance, you'd be talking colour. So you've got your sort of baseline colours, which is your neutrals. You can then introduce, say, of green, because it's the colour of true relation. You can have your green front door.

So your front door's green. You come in the green front door and you walk through and suddenly you look to the right and there's your cloakroom floor has got sort of little green tiles. Or you might look left in the living room. You've brought in some green on the cabinet tree. For instance, your bookcase could be green. You could then bring the green out of the bookcase and it could be done. dotted on the cushions on the sofa, it's sort of a subtle, it's very subtle, but it's just

a way to make the rooms feel connected. Each room can have its own character and its own personality, but we want to create individuality. Imagine your house is like a big family and cousins and relatives and each of those rooms wants to feel different, but it still has to feel like, you know, the DNA is the same. And that is the flow. Well, quite. So you couldn't have one, which is like in one room was like minimalist and everything was white and from X century. But then the next one you walk in and you feel like you've walked into like the House of Oliver Twist. That would be insane, right? Like that, okay, good. Well, it is insane. You see it all the time. You see it all the time. And it could, it's even can be quite jarring

with things like paint colours where I'll suddenly walk from the living room and it's from the hallway, which is sort of quite calm and very white because people get a bit scared of colour in hallways. So it always tends to be quite white. And then you suddenly turn, right into a sort of into the living room and they've painted the room like dark blue but they haven't fully gone for it so you'll still have that white skirting board but you'll have a dark blue room with white coving and a white ceiling and it will look so uncomfort to me it's like oh god that feels so uncomfortable you've immediately broken my flow because i just feel like this is just it feels completely off-kilter and there won't be any of that dark blue or blue carried in throughout the

rest of the house got so the way to overcome that is even start to let it sort of bleakly out a little into the hallway. So pick elements of blue in artwork or, you know, you might have a little bench seat in the hallway. Bring that blue out. It's coming. It's a little, yeah, you know, it's coming. It's just a kind of, so it's not just like jarring every time you walk into a room. You know, it wants to feel connected. And that's true in the garden too. It's choosing materials, which flow through the whole thing. It's always a bit strange when you've got, for example, people that are lucky enough to have maybe Yorkstone by their house. If you've got an older house and you might be lucky that you've got some really nice lovely sort of reclaimed Yorkstone.

And then clients will go, well, we're thinking quite a modern porcelain for this section of the garden. You're like, that is going to feel strange because it's, you know, like you've set, you've set the terms around the house, which are like, this is a traditional garden. And then you walk in and if it's super, super modern elsewhere, you're like, this doesn't feel the same. So that's always curious. I'm always so amazed, Paul.

I being a garden designer and an interior designer although we're both designers and we make houses look nice they are so different I cannot design a garden I wouldn't know where to start

like I understand materiality but I just don't I wouldn't know I wouldn't understand it at all like how you create that sort of the flow I stand there and my brain goes like oh my God I don't get it

this is impossible. Like I think I know what I want, but I wouldn't even know where to start. Likewise, with the house, I'm lost. Lost without you, my friend. It just shows you, doesn't it? I mean, I think people that try and think they can do both without sort of help, it's really hard. I mean, I definitely need help with my garden. Okay, I've got a question from Fiona. Can you have two focal points, specifically a fireplace on one wall and a TV on an adjacent wall? That's a really good question. Yes, you can. And this is where balance comes into this, the flow, because when you walk into a room, your eyes are going to be drawn to the biggest objects or the brightest objects in the room, and therefore your

fireplace and TV tend to be the sort of the largest objects, and therefore we've got to create some balance here. The way of doing that, she hasn't said where the TV's mounted, has she? She has not. Adjacent wall. If I'm, to assume it's say in a bookcase or above a sideboard, then you've got some pretty heavy objects going on on this room. Once you've also got your sofas in place, presumably, again, I don't know how you'd have fireplace. Are you blocking the fireplace to look at the TV? Or have you got two sofas that are able to mirror it. I'm not sure. You have to bring some other larger objects into the room and things sort of almost at TV height. So I'd almost say like a really lovely

feature light, like a floor lamp maybe in one corner to again sort of almost attract the eye. So something hefty, basically, with some chunk to it. Yeah, hefty. Twos aren't good. So two large objects aren't good. So you want to create levels, eye levels. So where you've got a TV and your mantle piece, they're both sort of, the TV is going to be slightly higher than the mantle,

but they're quite a sort of similar height. And therefore we want to draw the eye up again away from it. So create beauty above TV levels. So that's, I think, always where a really beautiful floor lamp might come in, in one corner and then maybe with some, you know, side table and distract it with larger objects around the room as well. So it's not all about the black TV and all about the big mantel piece. Would you go for a big artwork or is that too? Over the mantle, definitely. Over the mantle would be lovely. I was going to help track away from the TV. That's a good idea. Yeah. Yeah.

Because I've got the TV to the right of the fireplace as I know you prefer. And now I have a naked fireplace and I'm like, is it a mirror? Is it art? I'm really thinking about mirrors and artwork, actually over fireplaces. And I can't, I would never be able to tell you without looking at a photo because sometimes it would be a mirror and sometimes it would be artwork. I sometimes see people put mirrors up above fireplaces and I think it just doesn't look right at all. What are you trying to mirror? And do you want to be looking at a time? Sometimes I actually think living rooms are not sometimes the place. I think drawing rooms. So if it's a, if it's a formal drawing room, a mirror can be really beautiful because you want to reflect the lovely ceiling light that you've got and things

like that but actually if it's a living room and you're in there every day and you're watching TV I actually don't think that's somewhere that you want to be looking at yourself in the mirror every time you stand up you know when you've been slouching isn't it there you are you're looking probably at whatever what is that mirror reflecting do you want to be looking at that if not and don't put a mirror there and also please for goodness sake don't put a round mirror on a mantel piece a round mirror above mantel piece is it's up there with short curtains for me oh you heard it here first okay why like a porthole it's It doesn't work.

Yeah, it is literally looks like a sort of it's about to take you through to another world. It's sort of like a, it's not... That's a good tip. So there you go. Footy fans. Premier League and Champions League are underway. And Fan duel has fresh ways to bet your favorite clubs. Like the new two-up money line.

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Right, okay, on to the next. Right, I've got one here from Sally. Sally has just bought, they've just bought their first house. And she's designing her garden, and she's using a certain book. Polly, I don't know which book she could be talking about. Do you know? Oh, that must be the Sunday Time bestseller.

Oh, how to design a garden by Pollyanna Wilkinson. Oh, well, apparently she's using that to design. It's available in all good bookstores. Go on. So she says she has a large square garden, but the patio is at the back by the house and she's got some really nice big pots and she doesn't know what to do with it. Where does she start? Oh, I love this.

Okay, well, relating this to flow, the biggest mistake that people make in gardens and it makes me want to scream is just designing that bit by the house and having a very nice dining terrace or patio and then just being like, and the rest is lawn because what you've basically done is then, crammed all of your interest right up against the house and you're just going to be looking out on nothing. So if there's one thing I could say if you're looking at the design is make sure you have something to go to in your garden, not just a nice platform outside your house for you to look at your garden. You need either, it doesn't have to be a pathway, we don't always do

a pathway, but you definitely want a destination at the other end of the garden so you actually use your space. If you've got the privilege of having a garden, for God's sake, use it. So that would be my number one tip. Lovely. Thanks Paul. Polly, I've got one here by no name. How to make a wide, short garden look bigger. We've had loads of these, loads about what do you do if you've got a shallow garden? So the answer is exactly what you do in reverse if you had a long, thin garden.

You need to divide it downwards. So if you think, if you've got your back to your house, you're looking at your garden and it's wide and short, then you need to be cutting it as in from the house to the garden. into ideally thirds, whereas obviously if you had a long narrow garden and you were sort of looking down of it, you'd be cutting it in thirds side to side, whereas in this one you're doing it back to front. The biggest challenge you have here, and this is the one that people trip over, if you have a shallow garden and you want loads of grass, I cannot help you. As in if you're like, no, no, no, it needs to be maximum lawn. Then what you're essentially doing is exacerbating

that because a lawn is a big old void. And if you're saying, no, the whole thing and we're just need plants around the edge. All you're actually doing is making it feel even shallower and even wider. The trick is to cut across and that means actually sacrificing some lawn to bring in some plants that sort of give it a waste line, so to speak, if you're trying to make it into more of an hourglass, so to speak, in that you need to pinch it. So it could be a pathway. It could be some planting. It could be some trees. But it does mean you will have to sacrifice some lawn and That is the really big wrestle that we have with people when they're like, but we need maximum lawn for kids. So that's, do you know what I mean, Jojo?

Because yours is actually much wider than it is deep. We've got exactly that. We have got exactly that. And what have we done? We've given you some really quite deep borders. Deep borders. Near the house and at the sides. So we've actually, rather than having a really skinny border on the left and on the right, which makes it worse, go really hefty.

Give it like a two or a three metre border on each and suddenly, boom, you've brought everything in. So you always lose the border at the end. of the garden the sort of we certainly wouldn't make that the deepest one yeah so that would be the sort of skinny one put it a little bit down there but more on the sides more on the sides so you're basically trying to fight if you if it's wide you're trying to make it feel longer and you'll do that by by sort of bringing things in from the sides whereas if it's long you want to bring you want to cross things across so it is it will feel counterintuitive but actually sacrificing more for planting or for structures or an archway or something will actually

make your garden feel larger so that's the thing we spend quite a lot of time trying to sort of reassure people of is that you can lose that extra two metres of lawn it will you will thank us you know as much as anything when when you're dealing with them wrestling away a lawn children don't play on the on the edges of a lawn on the fringes they play in the heart of it yeah so you know what what's what's a meter between friends you know so nip the waist like a little black dress yes knit the waist and good exactly bring it in from the left and right. All right, Paul. Fantastic. Tell me what is in and what is out this week. In for me. Start within. Stop within. Tell me what's in. It's track suit bottoms.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I've got this pair from from hush. They're not like, you know, I'm not talking like your grey, hot man, track suit bottoms, which also I do enjoy on a gentleman. But I mean more. These are from hush and they're kind of um, obigini brown, elasticated waist, nice wide leg. But they are, you know, when you're at a computer all day, every day? Yeah, it's all about the bootleg now as well. I like really big baggy, baggy trousers. Yeah, nice and loose. But I don't want to wear jeans if I'm sat at a computer all day.

That's not the one, is it? No, it's not. It's definitely not the one. I'm a straight in the house, everything off, like bra off, sweats on, like, everything. I was going to say, nothing else or, yeah, okay, sweats on. I'm just really into the comfort. Yeah. right now.

So that's my inn. What's your in? I can't wear jeans in my house. I find it so uncomfortable. They're quite constraining, aren't they? They are, yeah. Unless you're going with some nice loosey goosey ones. What's your in?

In for me is, it's Halloween. And I'll tell you what I mean, Halloween. I've got two very excited girls about Halloween this year. My girls are, they're hitting the peak age for it. What are they going to wear? Oh my gosh. They want to go as K-pop demon hunters. So, Mommy's going to be whipping out some sewing kit to try and and get rustle something up for them. Yeah, so Halloween is just in. It's just in. I'm in. I'll tell you

what I'm not into. I should save this one, but I'm not into the fact that the stores, the shelves are packed with Halloween stuff and Christmas stuff. It's just, it's making me mad. It makes me cross. It really dicks me off. It's just wait for Halloween and then we'll get into it, but I don't need a mince pie in October. But we all feel the same. Don't need it shove down our throats. Like, just give it at least give it till the 1st of November and then go for it. Let Halloween come, like, have its moment, you know. Right, what's out? What's out for you? What's out for me is, um, I think it's blue-ray glasses, pal, you're not going to believe it. My sister, so I'm going to, I've got my first, I've got my, um, I've got so used to wearing them as well. They've almost

become a part of me and I'm not wearing them today. Um, on Thursday, I have a, my first eye test. I've not had an eye test before, but I'm starting to scint and find it hard to read the back of shampoo bottles. Like, have they made the writing so small on the back of shampoo? shampoo bottles that I'm like, I can't see that. I'm doing that thing. You know, when you're sort of zooming in and out like that. Oh my gosh, you're there. I might be there. I might be there. So, but my sister had her eyes tested. Correct me if I'm wrong here, guys, and I might just be spreading a horrible room and but my sister went to the opticians and they said the Blu-ray glasses are, it's a load of nonsense. They don't protect your eyes at all. And also it depends when you

wear them. So there you go. Potentially be my eyesight's got what's out apparently at the moment. Oh, goodness me. What about you, my love? Out for me. And I know it's the time of year. It's leaf blowers. I fucking hate it. They're back, aren't they?

They're back. Back with a vengeance. I mean, I understand it's the time of year. They're just so loud. I wish we could just form a sort of petition, which is like for one hour of the week, we all do leaf blowing at the same time. I agree with that.

It's so loud. Not that you could guarantee that everyone could not be around because they might be working or something. I'm such an old lady and I know, but I just fucking leaf blowers. eight in the morning or just... Also, can I just say, I've read so many things at the moment, Paul, about the fact that you shouldn't even clean up

your leaves, you should let them just be, let your leaves be. So I know it's probably different where you are. You're in sort of burby, aren't you? Let's just get into this a bit because actually there are, I'm so done with garden snobbery. I'm just bored of it. Whatever I say about garden leaves, there'll be some man usually that messages me going, actually,

Polly, you're incorrect and this is what you should do. So this is my out, actually. Is snobbery around gardening like if you want to sweep your leaves off your borders go for it you'll find you don't have to because it makes a great mulch but I'm done with people sort of saying what is right and wrong you do I suggest take your leaves off your pathways because it can make them bloody lethal and really skiddy and no one wants to break a bone so get your leaves off your pathways for safety on your lawns I would suggest you get rid of them because they can get very slimy but you can leave them if you want to and same with you

borders, but I'm so done with the kind of, this is the right thing to do, police. Actually, you can move them, you can leave them, just make sure it's safe and just stop shaving everyone from not doing what you're doing. It's boring. You can leave them if you like. Indeed. Leave them alone. I just, I don't like the sort of doctrine and the dogma of like, you're a bad gardener if you do it this way. No, no, thank you. Off you go. That's it. Don't forget to like subscribe on my little time. Footy fans. Premier League and Champions League are underway, and Fan Duel has fresh ways to bet your favorite clubs, like the new two-up money line. Cash out your bet as a winner if your team goes up two goals at any time during the match.

We've also added 120-minute markets, so you can bet into extra time and never miss the late-match magic. From kickoff to the final whistle, you can make a live, same-gate parlay your way. Download Fan Duel and hit the pitch today. Please play responsibly 19 plus and physically located in Ontario. Gambling problem call 1866-5-3-2600. Visit Connxontera.com. Your idea of calm confidence happens here. Brought to you by RBC. Lock in, but don't burn out.

Progress doesn't happen all at once. And taking a moment to pause is the key. It's not intensity that builds momentum. It's consistency. $5 becomes 50. 50 becomes 500. And suddenly, you're further than you thought. Stay steady and no RBC can help make it happen.

I tried for you there. Gardening's meant to be fun. Okay, love you all. Love you all very much. Have a lovely week. Best wishes. Bye. Bye.