The Netmums Podcast - S14 Ep5: Dawn O'Porter - Writing, Family Life, and Ditching Instagram

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

In this episode of The Netmums Podcast, Wendy Golledge and Alison Perry welcome Dawn O'Porter. Author, mum, and vintage fashion enthusiast, Dawn joins us to discuss her journey of motherhood, her writing career, and her recent move from California back to the UK. Dawn opens up about quitting Instagram, sharing the positive impacts of stepping away from social media and how it has enriched her creativity and family life. She also talks about the challenges and joys of raising her two boys. Dawn talks about her latest novel, "Honey Bee," and its roots in her own experiences, the themes of friendship and coming of age. The conversation touches on her childhood in Guernsey and how it influenced her storytelling. Stay connected with Netmums for more parenting tips, community support, engaging content: Website: netmums.com / Netmums socials: @netmums / Facebook / TikTok / X  Series 14 of the Netmums Podcast is produced by Decibelle Creative

You're listening to The Netmoms Podcast with me, Wendy Gollich, and me, Alison Perry. Coming up on this week's show... You're talking to someone with the biggest Instagram addiction of all time. But in 2020, Twitter just started to feel icky to me, so I just walked away, even though I was addicted to that. And I thought, oh God, I'm going to go back on in a week, and I never did. So I knew that I could do this. And what happened with Instagram was it was just, you know, you'd get that thing flash up on the phone where it says how much screen time you've been on. And I'm like eight hours of my day scrolling on Instagram. And yet I'm always saying I'm too busy and I'm running out.

I've got no time to do anything. But before all of that, this episode of the Netmums podcast is brought to you by Johnson's Baby. Now, Alison, do you have a calming bedtime routine? Well, I usually fall asleep in front of whatever teleprogram we're watching and then I drag myself to bed where I scroll for half an hour. It doesn't sound very calming, does it?

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The scent of it just takes me back to when my twins were babies and I was wrapping them up in fluffy white towels. Oh my goodness, stop me Wendy, I'm feeling broody. No, no, no, I get it. Now you can pick up Johnson's Baby Range in supermarkets and pharmacies nationwide right now. Hello everyone, welcome to a new episode. Now today's guest is someone who I need to apologise to. Do you ever get those anxiety gremlins because you've done something daft, Alison, because I do. All the time, all the time. And in the case of today's guest, the gremlins are for her because we've met before and i really really hope that she doesn't remember it was december 2023 listeners i might have been drinking champagne cocktails in liberties for a while i might have chosen to go to the choose love shop and i might

have seen dawn and had a slightly slurry conversation and begged her to come on the pod. And I might even, and I cringe to say this, made her do a selfie with me when I think I am 22. I'm assuring myself and hoping that she's forgotten and that she might not have remembered me. Well, I can tell you that today's guest is suffering from long-term memory loss and she doesn't remember things that happened prior to January 2024, so we're all good. No, today we're chatting to Dawn O'Porter, mum, author, pet lover and the owner of some pretty epic vintage frocks and an epic fringe. Dawn's latest book, Honey Bee, is a follow-up to her YA novel, Paper Aeroplanes, and it's a love letter to female friendship.

Dawn, a huge welcome to the Netmoms podcast, and please put Wendy out of her misery. Well, I will say, I do remember, and you were lovely. I don't know why your anxiety gremlins are getting to you. It was just a lovely Christmas on Carnaby Street. It was very lovely. Everyone was a bit tiddly. I don't think I'm sober from about November 25th.

That makes me feel better. Any interaction with me after that, I just think is great. We bowled in and we'd been having a lovely afternoon and we all came into the shop and I was like, she's here, we have to ask her it's lovely and here I am so there you go emboldened by Prosecco there we go and it works it works because Dawn's here she's here exactly let's talk first of all about your extended family Dawn you're a mum of two but you're also a mum to an extended family of furry animals.

Tell us who that includes, please. So we have the dogs Meatloaf and Puffin, and they're both rescue dogs. And Meatloaf is the bigger one and an absolute angel upon this earth. And Puffin is the small one and a bit of a dick, if I'm honest. But she's very cute. But she's also very cute. And then I've got two cats, Myrtle and Boo, and I have my beloved tortoise, Sandwich, who I think is fast becoming my favourite. I just love him. He's like my therapy tortoise. When I'm stressed, I just watch him eat and I just go into like a daze. I love him.

Everybody needs a therapy tortoise. This is the way forward. It's going to become a thing. This is it um now we're both wendy and i are girl mums we've got five girls between us and you're a boy mum what do you love about it have you seen all those videos on social media which show boy mums with like balls flying at their face and they're like expertly fending them off because that's just what they do all day is it like that is that what being a boy mum is like? I must say the words, get the balls out the kitchen a thousand times a day.

I would say that the balls are quite new in our house. We've only just discovered football in the last like six months. My nine and a half year old, we came up from America and he didn't really play it over there. So it's kind of new and a bit of an obsession. I'd say I don't have really, really boisterous boys.

I've got quite... I think quite gentle, conversational, chatty boys. Yeah, so I don't live in a house that's wild, wild, wild energy. Certainly not. not now I think parenting is a pretty tough job whether they're blue or pink and whatever you're doing but is it slightly easier in California or maybe it's not because you've just moved the family back to the UK no I didn't find parenting easier there at all I find parenting way easier in London because I think because of the

the tube and the fact that there's just so much to do here and the parks are so amazing and sure you might get rainy days but the weather's not actually hostile like it can be there sometimes when it's so hot and um and so I find parenting here way more fun way there's just so much more to do way more um just yeah way more exciting i feel like the kids the kids have got more more stuff to explore here than in california and also in you know in la there's black widows and rattlesnakes and things and i kind of you know go out and check the climbing frame every morning for black widows and my youngest who is obsessed with finding bugs um that just terrified me all the time so now i don't even think about that i you know big he brings these massive spiders into the

house that i used to be completely terrified of and now i'm like well it can't kill us so it can stay i'm not scared of it i think the universe knew i should be a girl mum because i wouldn't hack that is that why you moved back then dawn Dawn? Was it the spiders and the bugs? Or was there a bigger reason? Honestly, there is no one reason. It's just we've lived in another country. I've been there for 16 years. And just for so many reasons, it was just time to come home.

Like, America didn't feel very good to me anymore. I really missed my sister. I missed my career. Like, my entire career is here. I didn't, I didn't, I would write the books when in L.A., but I didn't do anything else, really. And and it just felt like the right time before the kids got too old and the move would be too hard. So we just did it. So what are the things then that your boys love about UK life versus things that they're not so keen on? I mean, it's definitely the football culture is something that I really resisted at first

and found really sad and made them feel a bit left out in the early part of us moving back. I just felt really, I just felt really sad that for a boy to feel like he fits in here, he has to be into football. It all just felt so male.

You know, we came from California um just very progressive very diverse to boys are boys and girls are girls that I found that really hit me in the face a bit when we first moved to London um way less fluid on all levels than California so that just took a big adjustment I still mourn that a little bit if I'm honest with you. But then when, and the fact is my kids weren't very good at football, so they didn't fit in with that thing. And so then now they're really good and obsessed

and they're in it and it's great. And they now speak this wonderful international language of football. And I see now how powerful and brilliant it is. But they had to learn to do it and I had to grieve their um you know organic cotton because now they just live in polyester football clothes I find that really hard I would find that really hard the feel of it makes me go a bit

and they just love it and I get and I so you know I compromise if we get all those kind of um clothes we go for the bright colours and mix up the colours. Like sometimes they'll be like the blue shorts with an orange T-shirt, which is a bit unusual. So I'm like, go for it, wear it, but still have your identity somewhere in this. All look the same thing that you're doing. It must still hurt your soul a little bit.

A little bit it does. I miss it. Actually, my youngest is still very much still, he'll wear, you know, he walked outside yesterday in bright orange Crocs with trousers with seagulls all over it. And then, you know, birds and bugs on his T-shirt. And I was like, yes, you are still my child. But it's all great.

And for me, it's like I am now, you know, soccer mom. I'm at Friday night fives every Friday. I'm shouting at the sidelines. And as much as I would rather be at home having a gin and tonic because that's been my life until now, I am finally kind of through this period of transition and understanding that this is really important for them. And I see the benefits of it.

You see on the football pitch, like that a boy got a ball in the face last week and I saw my child run over to him, get him up off the ground, say, you're going to be okay you can keep going kind of hold him on his shoulders and just have this unbelievably sensitive tender moment which because I'm not a football fan forgot exists on the pitch and I always just think it's just this big male whatever but you know there's a girl on his team it's it's

it's it's it's different from what I thought it was going to be and it's and it's very very sweet to watch that kind of team form and then get that support for each other so you say that you're on the sidelines on a Friday night what is the balance of kind of parenting in the house is Chris as does he do as much as you with their Dawn jobs and Chris jobs do you all just muck in and do whatever needs doing I think in terms of parenting we're both exactly the same um but we're quite like our roles are quite um at home I can't I can't do any kind of DIY I like Chris is literally at home right now putting pictures up, building things, moving furniture around, reorganizing the kitchen, doing all these big things. I do all the cooking, all the food, because that is my greatest passion.

And so we just kind of were quite defined in what we do, but both do a lot. And in terms of parenting, there's just no that it's just exactly it's just whoever's day it is to do it does it now I always say that the ages when you've got children the ages between seven and ten it's like the golden period of parenting for most families I'm generalizing here um but you know you've moved out of that tricky tantrum stage you haven't quite hit the teenage hormones yet what are the best bits that you're experiencing of your golden period with your boys right now I am I am loving parenting so much at the moment and I think it's you you start to see the fruits of your labor around now

all of that really hard work of exactly like you described toddlers are just such hard work and it's all so exhausting and you so rarely get a reward you might get a giggle and laugh and a good day but in terms of your personal um you know you'll have a good day with a toddler and the next day there'll be an absolute nightmare and you're like am i doing okay is this okay what's happening and around now you start to kind of go this is the, this is the, maybe the kind of person that they're going to become. And my favorite part right now. And in that moment is just our chats. Like I had no interest up until a few months ago at family dinners. Like I give, I give, well, I do it on a Sunday and, you know, whatever, or maybe kind of chippy together on a Friday night but I'd feed the kids at five o'clock and then we would eat later

because eating with them was just chaos no they I don't want that's not what I also want to sit down at the end of the day and eat a nice meal and relax so trying to blend those things together until recently I just was not good but was that starting to our our dinner time is coming forward and theirs is getting a bit later. And suddenly I'm finding us all around the table so much more and having like proper chats and banter and laughs. And it's I feel like because my kids have traveled so much, they're so interesting. They've got so much to say. And our conversations are just absolutely brilliant. And that's my favourite thing at the moment is the kitchen table and that time that we're spending together around there

where food isn't being chucked up the wall and someone's not falling off their chair. And we're actually sitting there like four human beings eating the food and chatting. It's just wonderful. It feels a bit like a minor miracle doesn't it when you get to that point absolutely and you know you are you exactly what you said earlier we're in the sweet spot and there's going to be a time in a few years when it might be a challenge to get them to want

to sit at the table with us again in a different kind of way and we all know that's coming and that's natural and it's unavoidable i'm sure but one thing i've i have a rule about sundays no one's allowed to go out on Sundays got to have a big family meal together on Sunday so unless it's like bestie bestie bestie uh birthday party which is actually happening next weekend um we're together on Sundays and we sit at the table or we go to the pub or we go to another friend's house you know for a roast but I think that's my um and that will always be the case I'm never going to drop that I think that's my, and that will always be the case. I'm never going to drop that. I think that's really important.

We did that growing up. We always had to sit at the table on a Sunday lunch. And it's, weirdly, it's one of my biggest memories of growing up. It's the Sunday roast and that everybody being together. And so it's, I'm very traditional about that. I think it's a lot of people's memories, actually. I think. Just a reminder that this episode of the Netmoms podcast is brought to you by Johnson's Baby. You can have a calming bedtime

routine for a restful night's sleep with Johnson's Baby. In fact Johnson's calming bedtime routine which is a bath, a massage and some quiet time is clinically proven to help your baby sleep better. Does it work on us parents too? I quite fancy a massage before a bed. Well you can give it a try. You can pick up Johnson's Baby Range in supermarkets and pharmacies nationwide. So let's talk a little bit about your new book which is set in Guernsey which is where you grew up. Now are Rene and Flo based on you and your mates growing up and next question as well i think you're renee with a touch of flow so yeah well i'm very very i am very so paper

airplanes was the first book in the series that i wrote 12 years ago and that was that's my fictional um autobiography you know of my childhood that's, that's a fictional take on what my childhood was like. It's, it's different, but I was raised in Guernsey and there in Guernsey, Rene's mum has died. She lives with her grandparents and then gets taken in by an aunt. And, you know, all these things are very, very similar, but all the characters are a fictional version of, you know, mine because they, you know, it's a book and no one in real life is actually that interesting. So there's a lot of me in Renée. Flo really is there to be the opposite because the whole point of these two characters

is that they bond over parental grief. So Renée's mum had died and then Flo's dad dies and that's why these two completely different people become friends in the first place. And so a lot of flow isn't necessarily based on anybody it's just being the opposite to Renee and um and I know Renee because I've lived her life and I felt her feelings and we're the same kind of person and so then I sometimes when I'm writing them I'm like who would have been the hardest kind

of person to be friends with at that age and it's. And then my skill as a writer has to come in to go, well, why are these two girls friends? And that's what the books are about, is trying to keep them together because it's hard. Obviously, as you've mentioned, you know, the characters' life mirrors yours in terms of she lost her mum at a young age and so did you. How do you think that that experience has affected your own parenting journey?

I get asked that a lot and really I don't know. I mean, it's not something I really think about. I think by the time I lost my mum when I was six, by the time I had kids, I was 36. So, you know, I wasn't a grieving person who was missing her mum anymore it's very you know and I was raised by my auntie who I love and my sister had had kids before me so I just um I just wanted to have kids and absolutely loved it and that's it I don't um I don't think it makes me any more uh emotional possessive, worried, anxious than anyone else I know. So it's interesting. I don't

know, maybe if I'd had kids 10 years earlier, it would be different. But by the time I got around to it, I really don't think it affected my parenting much at all, which is a terrible answer, but it's just the truth. Now, what I love about the book is that the girls are kind of doing that early 20 something real life which is a bit of a slap in the face after you've done education and you actually have to they're living and they're earning money and they're realizing that a lot of that money has got to go on stuff that they really don't want to spend it on like rent and the electric bill. And is that something,

do you wish you could go back to Dawn at that age and tell her some of the things? Because obviously they get some of it wrong and I really like that about the book. But is it kind of a little bit of a letter back to yourself saying, oh, well, this bit was tough and I wish I'd done this? It's absolutely a book about where I was that that that exact year in 2001 at that exact age which I think was a really interesting time in

all of our lives when I was bringing the characters back for the third book I could pick any age and at first I thought I'll do them in their 30s then I was like no because there's this nugget of time that was so significant to all of us at 22 when childhood and university and all of that thing really is done like you're done you're on your own now you sit at a desk on reception temping and everything that you have that top that you want to buy is two hours on the desk that meal that you want to eat is three hours on the desk and then you've got to get your rent out of that you've got to get on the thing and that takes years to get used to what it was for me I was just if there was money in my bank account I spent it with no thought about what on and then suddenly my bank account's

empty and I can't pay my rent and that was just that was what it was like and you know it was it took so long to learn how to adult in that way. And I think we all look back to that period of time, to that kind of messiness about relationships change. Like, you know, you met someone and suddenly it's like, I'm an adult now. Is this the person I'm going to marry? Got everything. All the stakes just got so high.

Everything. I've got no support system. Well, I didn't at that age. I was, you know, sent off. I was on my own at that. I didn't have financial I was you know sent off I was on my own at that I didn't have financial support after that nothing I was on my own and so you go it was just a big big year of realization and I've always wanted to revisit it um now you're fairly recently came off Instagram what was behind that decision and what impact has it had on you since since you did it

well just in case anyone's confused by that I've been on for the last month for book promo but I'm going off again next week so last December I came off now you're talking to someone with the biggest Instagram addiction of all time but in 2020 Twitter just started to feel icky to me so I just walked away even though I was addicted to that and I thought oh god I'm gonna go back on in a week and I never did so I knew that I could do this what happened with um Instagram was it was just you know you get that thing flash up on the phone where it says how much screen time you've been on I've like eight hours of my day scrolling on Instagram and yet I'm always saying I'm too busy and I'm running out. I've got no time

to do anything. And I was like, well, those two things seem related somehow. And also I started to just, you know, the news was very heavy at the time still is, but it was just a step to carry the weight of the world on me. Not only are you seeing like awful things happening all over the world, but I've got, um, you know, someone I went to school with is talking about that really sad eating disorder, or someone has just had a really terrible experience of motherhood, or someone's suffering depression, or someone's getting divorced or so. And all of this, like, oh, my, and suddenly, I'd go to bed, just like in this, I'm thinking about all of it, all of these people, I'm carrying the burden of so many people's pain all the time. And it started to really

just overwhelm me. Obviously there's the fun stuff as well, and that's all brilliant, but I just felt like the negativity was just, was staying with me. And so I just cut it out and went for eight months, more than that, nine months of texting the people in my life reading the news signing up to really good newsletters um staying really well informed but in a less you know bombardment kind of way making sure i was much better friend because i had more time to put attention attention into those whatsapp groups i went back to phone calls, which if you know me, if you know me for the last 10 years, you'll know that if you call my phone, I will not answer.

I think she's obviously having a breakdown. Why would she do that? Why would she make an actual physical call? That person, I can't answer it unless it's my dad. But I actually started answering my phone and having chats with people. I'd like write epic emails to people I was catching up with rather than think I knew about their life because I know that they had avocado on toast last Thursday. And the world just got bigger in terms of creativity in my job.

Everything got easier. Everything got I got this kind of feeling of levity. I started to just see ideas everywhere. When you're walking around, looking up, listening and watching, I'd find I'd come back to my desk, just buzzing with ideas. I just had so much more to give, so much more space to receive. In the first month of being off Instagram, I read about 10 books. I just ripped through books, which has been amazing. Now I've been back on for book promo. I just ripped through books, which has been amazing. Now I've been back on for book promo. I've been struggling to finish the book that I've been reading for the last five weeks. I am telling my kids to be quiet all the time

because I'm on my phone constantly scrolling. That was another big thing that I wasn't doing. I wasn't on my phone all the time. Yeah. And just, it's all back and it's all, none of it's good. And so next week I'm going to go back off again and this feels like a really healthy relationship to have it where for when I need to be on it for work stuff I'll come back on personally and the rest of the time my team does the posts for me so I can still post but I text it to them and they post it for me

which means I don't post and then scroll for five hours but I really miss the recipes I really that's the hardest part for me is all of like you know just how to make tofu delicious is there a way well there is I love it I'm obsessed with tofu but it's um so I really I really miss the recipes but um yeah I just need to source that out. So I'm going, oh, that's the other thing. I've got like Jamie Oliver's new cookbook by my bed. And I read that when I go to bed at night. I didn't do that for years. It's really nice. So how are you going to take this on with your kids?

Because the boys are getting to the age where the conversations about phones are going to start happening. And Alison and I have both got teenage girls. So we are having these conversations on a very regular basis a couple of episodes ago we spoke to Rangan Chatterjee a lot about phones so I'm interested how you're going to guide your boys through it given all the really interesting stuff you've just said about Instagram um well I my eldest is nine and a half and I only downloaded the first game onto his like Amazon fire tablet this summer we are I have not allowed technology in our house at all and um so I'm hoping that that helps when it comes to the time they understand um that I'm not cool

with it I I think I like the idea when they get older and they're kind of going around on their own that they're contactable so a burner phone I think is a great idea for safety they're absolutely not having smartphones until they're at least 16 and I let's see how I feel when they're 16 but I am so against I hate iPads I hate kids being on iPads. I hate my kid now being on a tablet. He's begging for his first like Switch or something he wants to play Fortnite or whatever those games are because he's playing them when he goes to his friend's house now and've set the precedent that it's not something that you just do all the time and then I think we'll have strict rules like not Monday to Thursday and so at the weekends but it's we're just entering into all of that now but I do think we've established quite a high level of control already yeah firm ground rules are in place so I'm hoping that that helps when we get to that phone stage but

um i think it will i think listening to you i think that my advice to you as someone who is going through it is stand firm with those ground rules and those boundaries and your children will probably beg and plead and say but my friends have done it and they've got it and they can do it and i think the best thing we can do as parents is just to be like no I know what we have got is I set him up because we moved from California and one thing that so I I felt really guilty about my kind of no technology thing because he's not been able to stay in contact with his friends in California and I thought that's actually I need to do better for him there like that's not fair when all of it he goes back and all his friends are like texting each other on, you know, on their iPads.

And I'm like, oh, he's just not, he's got no idea that even exists. So I have like, there's an email address and he emails his friends and we've got a family computer and we're just trying to keep everything on this family computer. And so it's kind of not in the bedrooms and just making, just presenting it all with, we're heading into a time when you're going to get more technology and we think you're going to get one of these devices like a switch or whatever it is. And you're going to start texting friends, but it all has to happen in front of us.

It's not something that you get to go off and do. That's really wise. Yeah, it's really wise. Dr. Chatterjee would be proud. That's exactly what he was saying we should all be doing yeah absolutely well i hope so but then you know you know you do get times when they feel left out because they're not on doing all the stuff and that that's the hard bit to navigate um and so we're just in that transition period at the moment so i mean come to me again in

a year's time and say yeah it's like the face of fortnite He's like, he's got a Samsung and an Apple phone now. He's doing great. No, I came across an interview that you'd done nine years ago and you were asked the question, where do you see yourself in 10 years time? What did I say? Well, I'm going to ask you, what do you think you said? Well, I wouldn't, I might've been pregnant.

I think you had one child yes you had one child wow I hope I I hope I said something like still writing books with a really nice office to write them in or something do you want to know what you said oh god no what you said no it's not bad it's not bad um you said I actually don't know hopefully a very successful business maybe another kid lots more books written i suppose all of that would be nice but i really don't think that far ahead our life is pretty hectic i'm not even sure what will be next month so i live very much in the moment oh that's nice all right well at least i mentioned the books that's good how very wise you were how very wise well that was at a time you're a bit more kind of,

I don't travel around anymore. So Chris was an actor. So we used to, you know, we'd all go. And now the boys and I stay here and he goes off. But that, I would have said that at a time when we were all traveling a lot. So it really would be a case of, I don't know where we're going to be living

in six months time. So I just, yeah, to guess what the future looked like. I didn't know where we'd be living, what we'd be doing. It's really interesting to think that just 10 years ago, it was like where we had no idea where we would end up. I feel like you've done it. You've done everything you've said you wanted, you now have. So that's, that must be pretty nice, right? That is really nice. Yeah. And it's like, it would be such a different answer now. I know, but hang on. Have you got the really nice office?

I have. I'm in it now and it on. Have you got the really nice office? I have. I'm in it now and it's lovely. Is this your really nice office? Yeah, it's half office and half all my vintage clothes. Oh, my God. Is it really half and half? Or is it 90% vintage clothes? One half is very, very busy and the other half is quite sparse.

So guess which one guess which one is busier but um yeah it's it was it took a long time to feel like I deserved my own writing space and you know nine books later and I was like I need a place to go that's just for me because um there is being at home is lovely but I just can't sit at the kitchen table anymore sit on the bed and write novels it just it just won't work so I really um and I really lucked out with my space because it had been empty for a while so I got it for a really good deal it's beautiful so I love it so much and there's a strong cat theme behind you there's cats everywhere my my dead stuffed cat is over there as well I can see her um yeah so i do think i think as i would say as mums

as mums we we can often prioritize ourself last and for working mums especially sometimes i think you if you're freelance and you you know work from home you just kind of sit there you you work whilst folding laundry and you work whilst doing things and if you could see an inch to the left well I know for all of us you know my house is just piles and piles of laundry at the moment I'm sitting here at work today just knowing I've got to go back and do it today and um and I just think it's sometimes prioritizing your your right to leave the house can be um it just you know it's difficult to think you deserve a place to go, to go and do your work.

And I actually just went, literally saw this, I've got to get out and do it. It's great. So finally, Dawn, you've written more books in the last 10 years. You've got your two sons. You've got all the pets. What is next for you?

I'm literally sitting here now starting to plot my next novel you just move on to the next one just I'm signed up for another three so that's probably my next that's the next six years of work I've that I that I'm looking at is another three books and it's that brilliant or terrifying it's it's it's I mean it's brilliant and I love it and I feel so lucky that I've you know that I get that it's my actual job but yeah when I've got an idea this time so it's brilliant and I love it and I feel so lucky that I get that it's my actual job but yeah I've got an idea this time so it's not too terrifying but when you

don't have an idea it's like it is scary but you know it always gets done and so far so good so hopefully it will always be alright. And will the Carnaby Street shop be back this year? Yeah so Choose hopefully it will always be all right and will the carnaby street shop be back

this year yes so choose love um shop will be back every christmas for i can't remember what time what date we open but it's usually around the end of november start of december and you can go in and buy um all sorts of things for displaced people all over the world i'm wearing my choose love topster i can see it's awesome um so wendy and i are going to go for cocktails and liberty and we'll see you at the shop in a drunken fashion one of these days. Thank you so much. Can't wait. Thank you for joining us, Dawn.

That's so lovely. Thank you so much. Don't forget, you can get in touch with us on all social channels, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. Just type in Netmoms and you'll find us. And if you liked what you've heard today, we'd love for you to give us a five-star rating. Press the follow button and share the podcast on all your socials.