Walking The Dog with Emily Dean - Coco Mellors (Part One)

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

This week we’re joined by one of our most glamorous guests ever - it’s the fabulous author Coco Mellors… and she met us in Clissold Park straight off the plane from New York!Coco is the New York Times bestselling author of Cleopatra and Frankenstein and Blue Sisters. She grew up in London and moved to New York as a teenager, where she received her MFA in fiction from New York University. Coco tells us about her childhood pugs and hamsters - and what it was like to grow up with a therapist mother and creative director father. We find out where her passion for writing came from - and how she chose to become sober at the age of 26. Follow @cocomellors on InstagramBlue Sisters is the moving, funny, story of three sisters dealing with grief and addiction in the wake of the deal of their beloved fourth sister Nicky. It’s out in paperback now - and you can get your copy here!The Sunday Times Bestseller Cleopatra and Frankenstein is an addictive, humorous, and poignant debut novel about the shock waves caused by a couple’s impulsive marriage. You can get your copy here!Follow Emily: Instagram - @emilyrebeccadeanX - @divine_miss_emWalking The Dog is produced by Faye LawrenceMusic: Rich Jarman Artwork: Alice LudlamPhotography: Karla Gowlett  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I always loved animals, but ever since having a baby, I love them even more. Yeah. Because I see, I don't know, I feel my son in them in a strange way. I see that. I like, whatever I'm with a dog, I'm like, come in my little sweet. I feel like I would literally like feed him from my mouth if I could. This week on Walking the Dog, Ray and I went for a North London stroll with one of the brightest new stars in the literary world, bestselling author Cocoa Mellers. Coco's first novel, Cleopatra and Frankenstein, came out a few years ago.

and caused a total sensation. It was one of those books that the entire world seemed to be reading. Even Carrie Bradshaw had it on her bedside table in an episode of And Just Like That. I absolutely loved it, and I recently devoured her second novel, Blue Sisters. So when I heard she was popping back from her home in New York to her native UK, Ray and I decided we just had to grab some time with her for a catch-up. And fortunately, she also happens to love dogs. We had the loveliest walk chatting about Coco's childhood

growing up in a very lively, creative family environment, how her passion for writing started, and the incredible experience she had studying under Martin Amos, who is her tutor at New York University. She also spoke very honestly about the issue she's had with addiction, a subject that she touches on a lot in her novels. I'm a huge fan of Coco's writing,

and I loved her follow-up book, Blue Sisters, which deals with three sisters navigating the loss of a sibling, and it's a beautifully written story about grief, family dynamics, and rebuilding your life. It's now out in paperback, so do get your hands on a copy. I could not recommend it more. I can also wholeheartedly recommend Coco as a human being. She's so smart and warm and endlessly fascinating, and best of all, she absolutely adored Ray.

So much so, I think she was angling to sneak him back to. New York on that plane. And frankly, I wouldn't have blamed him for going. Ray and I loved our walk with Coco and I really hope you do too. I'll stop talking now and hand over to the fabulous woman herself. Here's Coco and Ray Ray. What's that doggy Coco? Is that chowl? Is that where they are? Whoa, they're like little lions. I love a fluffy dog. Well, you're going to get on famously with Raymond then. Yes, exactly. I love a dog that has a hairdo. Right, let's head this way, Coco. Would you mind if we headed in the direction of the coffee hut?

Of course. So Coco, I'm so thrilled to have you on this podcast, and I have to say this is the most glamorous way in which a guest has arrived, because you've literally just got off a flight from New York. I did. I arrived like two hours ago. I dropped myself at my sister's flat, and then put on my samba sneakers and headed over.

Oh my God, sneakers, I've already become so American. Trainers, my trainers. It's extraordinary. And I feel so thrilled and honoured that Ray is the first person, because let's face it, we all know why you're here. For Ray. It's me and you, Ray. Me and you and you and I'm matching long hair and middle partings.

What do you think of Ray so far? I mean, he's got very, very sweet energy, doesn't he? I mean, I love that he's such a good listener. I hear he doesn't bark. He just silently participates. People may be thinking, well, hang on, why does she live in New York? She doesn't sound like a New Yorker. But of course, you are a Brit originally.

Yes. And you relocated to America when you were relatively young for your dad's job. Is that right? Yes. I mean, I'm Brit, like, through and through. My whole family's English. And now I'm married to a British person. So my son is 100% English.

He just was born in New York. And I grew up in London. And then when I was 15, my dad, who was a creative director of an advertising agency, got a job. And we all moved over. And my parents stayed, I think, for eight years. my sister stayed for two and I stayed forever. I just never left. And you've got one of those lovely accents,

which is you can sort of shape-shift of it. Because I think to British people, you would sound slightly American, whereas I bet over in America you sound very British. Well, I think I learned really early that it was a sort of currency to have an English accent in America. I mean, of course, at first I just, I had one.

I couldn't do anything about it. I remember when I first moved, obviously there were cultural, there were huge cultural differences and then there weren't because I was from one big city and I went to another big city and obviously everyone spoke English. But I remember saying things like water, like could I have water please? And they would be like, what, what? And then I'd be like water. And then they would understand.

Well, I'm going to carry Ray till we get to the coffee hut. You can see how, what a prince he is. I know, you want a little prince. It's so funny because all dogs remind me of my baby because he can't speak. in my son. And so he has this slightly, he has a very animal quality in that he communicates through sort of gesture and facial expressions.

And there's something about, I always loved animals, but ever since having a baby, I love them even more. Because I see, I don't know, I feel my son in them in the strange way. I see that. I like, whatever I'm with a dog, I'm like, come in my little sweet. And I feel like I would literally like feed him from my

mouth if I could. Talking of animals, I just want to go back to your childhood. So as you say, you grew up in the UK originally, sort of Northwest London, wasn't it? And did you have dogs when you were growing up? Pugs. We had our first pug, Agatha, which my mum and dad got for me and my sister when I was, I think, three and she was five. And actually something really horrible happened, which is that we were walking in Regent's Park.

And Agatha was run over by a rubbish truck. Oh, my God. And my mum, who is like nerves of steel, had to pick Agatha up and put her in the back of our car. And it was just me, my sister and my mom. And I remember her saying we were driving back home and she was saying, don't look back. Don't look in the back of the car. Because Agatha was there.

So that was quite a disturbing end to our first dog. That must have been really traumatic. I think it was really horrible. But also my parents are quite stoic. And I do remember my mom, you know, she grew up in. Africa where you had lots of different animals and many of them would often die. And she used to sort of say like, this is how you learn about death and this is how you learn about the temporary nature of life.

And you have to just love them while they're here. You love them as much as you possibly can while you have them. Yeah. Knowing that you won't have them forever. I feel like there's a line about that in one of your books, which I, that's just struck me. I'm sure that's either on Cleopatra and Frankenstein or it's in blue. This is there's something about that sounds familiar. I wonder if that's got without you even realising it.

Maybe. I'm going to check and send it to you afterwards. We're always pulling from our child hands. Yeah. Right, I'm going to get a coffee. We're at the lovely coffee hut now. Hello, how are you? How are you?

I like your music. Oh, thank you. I'm going to, my friend's got a coffee, haven't you? You're all right? I've got a hot chocolate. My friend's got hot chocolate. I'm going to have, can I just have a, do you like a latte or something? Yeah, you want a latte, sure.

I might have some sort of chocolate. caramel in it. What do you think? Coco? Mmm, yum. What's that? Normal milk. Yeah, normal milk's fine. It's quite a weird thing to say in Stoke New England. They've never had a normal milk order here. A woman, this anecdote will be told for years.

This woman came and ordered cows milk. I'm looking, she's drinking, that must have been a kind of pretty powerful, but quite sort of challenging for, for, for, for some of, informative experience with dogs. I mean, actually I think, God, I'm like all my stories about pets involved loss. But we had two other pugs after that, Charlie and Dora, who I'd had since I was probably five. And they were just lovely, like the sweetest dogs, really lazy, didn't like to walk.

You know, they would just lie down on their bellies, you would scoop one up under each arm. And they were just the sweetest. And then we had two cats and a chinchilla. So we had lots of pets in the house. And then I had hamsters, rainbow and ballerina. And when I moved to America, I remember the idea was that we would just go for a year. This is with your folks. Yeah.

So you were how old? 15. Just turned 15, like 15 in a week. And it was always, we're just going to go for maybe a year. And I was so excited. But I had never left anywhere. You know, I'd always lived in this one place in London. I had had quite like a sheltered existence.

And we had to give the pets away to various family members. and I never said goodbye to them. I never acknowledged that it had sort of ended. Why do you think that was then? I think sometimes that's the only way to leave a place is to sort of, it's to not really, it's to kind of pretend like you're not, like you're just heading out for a walk,

and then, I don't know, and then you don't come back. And I've done that many times since, like, when I left New York to go to L.A., I was just going to go for six months, and I stayed for three and a half years. But then I did come back, I have to say, and it was really nice, that sense of, like, you can return. because I think when I left London

I never came back I never moved back and it felt like that chapter just closed forever and so I was always scared to leave New York because I felt like I wouldn't be able to return

but I could and I did I appreciate you very much that's very kind I didn't get too cold out here it's freezing isn't it are you need a little heater I've got my heater keeping myself busy

oh I've got my heater my doggy so yeah it was your mom your dad and your dad, as you say, was a creative director for a sort of advertising agency. Yeah. And your mum, what did your mum do? Was she a homemaker?

She was a therapist. Well, that tells me a lot. Do I have child of therapist vibes? I think, I generally like children of therapists, just because I feel surely something good must come. of that. I mean, I like children of therapists. I like therapists themselves. My best friend is a therapist. My sister is training to be a therapist. I've been in therapy for a long time. I wish it was more affordable. I wish that it was more available to more people. One of the things I like in America is that it's, I felt at least in New York that it was less stigmatized. In London,

I felt if you had a therapist. Oh, no. Nearly spilled my coffee on Ray and I was more worried about the coffee. Oh, but I think he got a little lick of it. Did you? Ray. Did you have the coffee. He looks thrilled. So did that mean in your household? I'm interested as to what the dynamic was in your household when you were growing up. It was yourself, your mum and your dad, and you have a sister called Daisy who you mentioned, but you had two half siblings as well.

Is that right? Yeah. I have a half sister, Holly, who's 15 years older than me, and a half brother, George, who's 13 years older. And is that from your dad's? From my dad, yeah. and then Daisy is less than two years older than me. So it was a sort of like, I was in a four-person family and a six-person family simultaneously

because Daisy and I were raised in the same house and obviously we had the same mum and dad and we were sort of a pair. It felt very like we were a twosome. But then I also had these much older siblings and now they don't feel that much older than me. Like I'm really close to them and obviously I'm in my 30s and they're in their late 40s, early 50s.

and so your life kind of contracts and we're going through, you know, we will have our careers, we have our children, we have more things in common. But obviously when I was two and my sister was 17, we didn't have a ton to talk about. And so that, uh-oh, look what's happening, Coco, can you see? Is it a poo-poo? It's a poo-poo. Right, Raymond, look how tiny they are. Oh my God, they're so small.

I'm quite proud of them. They're so small and sweet. They're like rabbit poos. That's a very little poo even for you. That is a very little poo. So, yeah, the sort of atmosphere in your house I'm interested in, the sort of energy that you had in your house, I'm imagining with, you know, dad in advertising, mum as a therapist,

it's quite a sort of chatty, creative house and lots of conversations and opinions flying about. Yes, very much so. I imagine I would have quite liked it there. I mean, if you're a chatter, I think you'd like my family. I think my mom was a huge reader. And she, one of the things I always, I'm like, why did you never teach me how to cook?

Because she used to just sit me down. She would make dinner. And she would just say, can you just sit on the kitchen counter? Just sit next to me and tell me about your day. Just tell me what you're thinking about. You know, what are you learning? She wasn't even that pointed. She just, my mom, obviously, from being a therapist,

is an amazing listener. And she's extremely curious about people. I think that's one of my favorite things about her, but genuinely curious. And I felt with me and my sister, like, I guess I always felt that sense that what I had to say, not that it was important, you know,

but that it was valuable to her, that whatever had happened to me was interesting to her, at least. And I think that's a really precious thing to give a child so early on. And then my dad was, my dad is more, I wouldn't say he's like the listener

that my mom is, he's more of her, He's a charismatic, big presence. He's a big personality. But he had a real love of language. Right. And he has an amazing, for someone who didn't get a very good education and didn't go to university,

he is an amazing vocabulary. Like, I'm just truly, like, I remember him teaching me the word loquacious, you know, when I was probably six or seven. And it's just, that's such a delicious word. That's a word that would appeal to a child. But, and it wasn't considered to, like, advanced, you know, it was sort of like just to learn the pleasure in sounds of language and in storytelling

and in making people laugh around the dinner table, that was all considered really important. And I'm imagining, yeah, dinner parties and sort of interesting people coming around. Well, my dad was sober my whole life and so most of his friends were sober. And then he got sober in your lifetime? No, he got sober, I'm 35 and he's 40 years sober. So he was sober before I was born. And he always had lots of friends from a. recovery in the house. I think one of the things that surprises people about recovery is like the

laughter. Like I think everyone thinks it's just going to be sitting around being like sad and telling hot like sort of war stories, which I mean it can be. But there's also this tremendous sense of joy and of having made it sort of to the other side. And does that mean so did you grow up in a dry house essentially? Yes. I mean it wasn't dry in that like I think they maybe would have had alcohol in the house. I just don't know. I mean, neither of my parents drink. I never saw drinking in the house. It was always a very open thing that my father was sober. He was very proud to be sober. It wasn't like a secret in our house, you know. So I'm trying to think if I ever, yeah, just alcohol was not something that I ever really saw growing up. Yeah. And I think that was a good thing to a

degree because I think it showed me that adult life didn't have to center around alcohol the way it often can in England. But it also, I think alcohol was maybe a bit vilified in the house and so I didn't grow up with a sort of normal relation. Like, it was never small. It always felt like a big thing

in my life. I'm imagining your dad it's such a cliche, isn't it? But I can't help but think of him as of Don Draper. It's so, well, I've been really flattering to him. But was he quite Is he and was he quite like that sort of charming and suave and people who do that for a living

have to be necessarily quite charismatic because you're selling? I think my dad, charisma's one of those things like you're born with it. Like you have it or you don't and it's so, it's hard to, it's ineffable and hard to explain, but you can feel it immediately around someone. It's like a fragrance, you know, and it's so heady. I like that. And it's intoxicating. And my dad definitely has.

as that. And then I think as with anything, you know, the charisma is sort of the shiny side of it. And then there's the other side of the coin, which is, I don't know what that word would be, but I think anyone who's truly charismatic also lives with a lot of demons usually. That's interesting. I wonder if that's the exhaustion from being on. Someone wants to explain to me the difference between charm and charisma, which is charm is intimate, charm is I come to you. So Barack Obama is charming. Charismatic charisma is I walk into a room and you come to me. I was just going to say that's the difference.

Trump has charisma whereas Barack Obama's charming. Yes. And it made me realise, oh, I like charm. Better, I think. It's interesting what you pick up as a kid as well, isn't it? Sort of observing your parents and seeing them as sort of all-powerful. And then you get older and you see their vulnerabilities and you sort of think, oh, that's sort of of what is so lovable and special about them?

When you're young, your parents are sort of, at least in my case, I didn't grow up religious. So if I had a God, it was my mum, you know? If there was a sort of loving presence in my life that I could always rely on, it was my mother, but of course my mother is not a god. My mother is just a human woman. She's pretty much as close as it gets to it, a therapist in my book. She's my god. I mean, therapists are some of the most.

they are the most probably just I don't want to say I mean I pray to my mum too I love her but she's still she's just I mean

most people go into therapy because they're traumatised themselves you know and so my mum is the product of her own situation her own trauma so what do you think of this one

we just had an incident with a bit of a big dog but this one looks a little bit more so it doesn't look like he's interested in other dogs but No. Maybe we just go slowly.

Do you know I should pick Ray up? Maybe just to be safe. It's always better safe than sorry. Yeah, you're right. That dog actually looks very sweet. Yeah, it does. I'm interested as to when this passion for writing started and when you realised you had a talent.

I can't remember not wanting to be a writer. Like actually, I was just my sister's flat. And it was really silly, but The only prize I ever won as a child was the creative writing cup, which I shared with someone else. But I was so proud to win it. And this is an example of my father who could be very present and very absent. No, he was both. But I won that cup, but you could only have, you kept it for, I think, a month and then you give it back to the school.

And your name would be added to the plaque. And my dad went and had like a replica of the cup made so I could keep it. And my family are not like prize-oriented. Like I never had any pressure academically. Like that wasn't what they considered to be the most important thing. But I guess my dad could just see that I really, I did prize this cup. And so in the room that I'm staying in in my sister's flat, which she calls my room, it's her spare bedroom. The cup is in there.

And I was like, oh my creative writing cup. So I must have bought it when I was about 10. So I think even before that I wanted to be a writer. Yeah. I always knew. And that talent sort of clearly showed up, evidently showed up when you were young. People who go on to be writers, certainly ones who are as successful as you, tend, I'm sorry, Coco, I'm just going to have to stop here because look at this.

It's a beautiful deer with a spotted back. It's a beautiful deer. And it's called a Follow Deer. Oh, isn't that lovely, Coco? What does it say? Follow deer are lowland species, and in the world prefer a mixture of wood. and open farm land. I don't want to know about that. I want to know about their energy

and their personalities. I wish they would say something like this is what they're like. This is their star sign. Yeah. You've got it up on their attachment style. I think they're quite anxiously attached. Obviously, dear, I'm definitely anxious attaches.

A thousand percent. I think I'm a bit like a day. I know, I feel a deep kinship to dear. I was going to say, yeah, writers are often very, very forensic about detail, and you particularly are, which is why I adore your writing. I should have said that at the beginning, because you need to say this to writers first up, because you have to say, I love your books, which I do, I adore your writing.

And in fact, can I say my producer turn me onto your books? Oh, thanks. She did ages ago, and she was like, you've got to have. with this kid you're Patrick in Pakistan. I was like, oh, Faye, recommending her bloody, you know, Z millennial books to me again. And I was like, okay, this is good. I'm loving this.

But yeah, writers are, by nature, I think, certainly good writers are forensically obsessed with detail. And they're observers, aren't they? Yes. They see stuff in a room that perhaps other people don't. Had you always had that, that quality? I think I had this kind of scanning quality where I was always read

it's less things in a room like I might not notice what's on the shelf I might, I might not but I will know what's happening between the people like that is what I think for me as a writer I'm really oriented towards is character and how we interact with one another and intimacy

like how we're close to one another and how we push each other away, how we sort of circle each other, navigate each other, try to stay safe around one another, try to love, hurt each other. Like, that's what I'm obsessed with. And I think that started when I was really young. Yeah. You ended up, as we were saying earlier, you relocated to America because your dad was working there when you were a teenager. And I moved around a bit as a kid, because my dad was a little bit addicted to relocating. Your mom would have had a lot to say about that. And but you know when it's like a compulsion, it was like,

oh, okay, what's this about? But I think it can be quite useful. You sort of learn slightly, like ambassadorial skills, I think. Did you find that? Like you suddenly had to, did you have to reinvent yourself a bit when you went to America? I think it was less about reinventing myself and more about when everything gets taken away and you're not the negative space being defined by your

surroundings. When you change surroundings, you become the sort of positive space. Yeah. And you have to understand who you are. And that first year in New York, I had gone from being, I think, like a really normal teenager. You know, I had friends. I had friends who I'd known since I was two or three or four. I lived in the same part of London my whole life. I went to an all-girls school. I wasn't sheltered because I grew up in North London. I had a boyfriend and, you know, I was obsessed with like the strokes and the libertines and we were like getting an M. M.m. and reading magazines and going shows. So you're quite sort of cool, I imagine.

I mean, I don't know if I was cool, but it was the indie slees era. So I think I was cool for that time. Is it Johnny Borel and... Oh my God, Johnny Borel, I loved him. Oh, I'm getting the picture. I'm getting the picture. But I don't think if you like saw a picture of me, you'd be like, wow, I really want that. I want to copy that look with her skinny Miss 60 jeans, her side swept fringe.

Definitely some low slum belt going on. Yeah, exactly. And like a knockoff of the McQueen skull scarf. But at the time, it was cool for the time. And then I moved to New York and I went to a school uptown on the Upper West Side and I lived on the Upper East Side. And you must have been a very sort of exotic and... Well, I went to international school. So there were lots of kids who moved around.

There were lots of European students that would go because we did the international baccalaureate. London at that time was more what the downtown New York was like and I moved to uptown New York which is like waspy and traditional and the kids I mean they kind of socialized in a similar way to their parents it just it was yeah it was strange to me and I didn't fit in immediately and I had gone from I wasn't like the most popular girl but I just fit in you know I had gone from feeling sort of I didn't stand out in a way that was very comforting to suddenly standing out. And I think as a teenage girl, standing out can be really dangerous.

And so I got a lot of attention from boys because I was the new girl in school, which then sort of put a target on my back with the girls. And I just remember, like, I would wear vintage clothes and they made fun of me. They were like, oh, you know, like, how can you wear vintage? It smells. Like, just someone, I know someone wrote like a note. They called me Irish Slot and put the note in my love. locker, which I was like, I'm not even Irish. Not that there's anything wrong with being Irish

or a slut. And I just, I remember sort of feeling like, I'm like, how can you bully me? I'm cooler than you. But they did. So that whole first year, I was alone, basically. I had like maybe one or two friends who were in the band at school. But I smoked my first cigarette alone in Central Park. I got drunk for the first time alone on the swings near my house. I paid someone like 20 bucks to buy me some vodka and I drank it with orange juice. And why did you do that, do you think? Because I was unhappy, you know, I was lonely. And I had never experienced that before.

I mean, I was 15. It was truly my first time, which I think is pretty lucky to have gotten to 15. But I was really unhappy and I didn't think it would ever end because I had never, I didn't have the learned experience of knowing that all my feelings pass. and I just remember feeling like my life in London was gone my friends had moved on my first boyfriend had a new girlfriend but I didn't have a life in New York yet

and I had sort of fallen between the cracks and when you're 15 you know those kind of things are huge like having friends you know having something to do on the weekends I so dread the weekends because I had nothing to do and so that year it was such a hard year but also I think it was a really formative year for me

because I had to sort of learn who am I? Who am I and what do I want and what kind of life do I want to lead? So I started going downtown to this music venue called The Knitting Factory where they didn't ID and I would pretend that I wrote for Rolling Stone magazine which is insane but I had watched Almost Famous and I would interview the bands. Oh did you have a jaunty hat on as well?

I know. Like a bit of a boho, Sienna Milovai. Oh my God, I was obsessed for Ciena. I loved her. I had a pair of thigh-high boots, these black leather ones. And I would wear these like clocks on chains and little waistcoats. Oh my God, I loved her. I still love her. I think she looks amazing. We should all look like Sierra Miller. I should be so lucky. But I would go and I would interview the bands.

And then I started to make friends. And then my second year of being in that high school, someone new joined. He was this young gay guy and he became my best friend. And he took me to this club downtown. My whole life changed. And then I stayed in New York for the next. 15 years. And had your parents, they were still there as well? They stayed for like 10 years, I think, or eight years, but a good amount of time. You've been really honest, and this is a subject that comes up in your books as well, about your own sobriety journey. When did you have that moment of clarity? I got sober when I was 26 and I didn't think I needed to get sober

until the day I stopped drinking. Like, I think unconsciously, I mean, I knew it was in my family. Like, that was no secret. So I knew, and I knew that there was a predisposition towards it. I knew that I was sensitive and that I was creative. And I thought that that was the reason that I was the way I was. But actually, you can be sensitive and creative and not have a drinking problem. That's very, very possible.

But it wasn't for me. So I think I started drinking when I was probably 16. and I stopped drinking, yeah, 10 years later. And it wasn't, I mean, it wasn't all bad. You know, a lot of it was really fun, actually. And I think I'm so glad I found that for a period of my life because I really lived my life the way I wanted to for many years. And then it shifted when I was sort of 24, 25,

around the age where I think a lot of people started to outgrow. That kind of life and that sort of partying. Yeah. I was growing into it and I was doing it more. And rather than it feeling fun and like this form of freedom, it started to feel really shameful and really scary. And I just, I feel lucky to be honest, because it didn't need to get that bad for me

to realize that it was bad enough that I could stop. And that was only because I had examples in my family of other people who had stopped drinking and their life had got better. And my first boyfriend, who's still one of my best friends in London, got sober three years before me. And his life got so much better.

And every time I saw him, like, he was just having the best time and all his sober friends were so cute. Do you know what? Your life, I'm just so fascinated by your life. I mean, it sounds like something out of girls. It's just like the most glamour. You're like the Jamima Kirk one. Oh, my God.

I wish, yeah, I love Jemima. Actually, her little sister Lola has just written a memoir called Wild West Village that is amazing. I loved it. I know Lola from because we went to the same university. I was right. Is he cold? He's freezing.

I'm going to wrap you up, my baby. Do you know what? It's a combination. He gets so frightened. He does have really bad anxiety. And I think that encounter just so terrified him and the cold. Because you can't run it off really. So I'm going to wrap you in mummy's little scarf.

Oh, and that's a nice idea. But you're with nice cocoa now. You're wrapped in cashmere. Yeah, you know, you're lucky boy. Well, do you know what? Well, do you know what? cocoa you know that takes work and I have a lot of respect for you you know I feel like I really I didn't do it's when you when I got sober the way I did which is you know with help and

in recovery I feel like you don't do it yourself like everyone helps you and carries you and I couldn't really stop drinking for even a week on my own to be honest because I would just feel like oh God why am I doing this I just want to go meet my friends and go out but then when I started to be around other people who were sober someone would call me like every day and be like, how are you feeling? Like, what are you doing this evening? Like, do you want to come meet up? Like, my first Friday that I was sober, I remember a young woman calling me being like, you feel like, you're feeling okay, Fridays are always tough, you know? It's just amazing. So, I can't really take credit for it, to be honest. I really, and I don't. I

just, I feel really lucky. I feel lucky that I was able to ask for help. I feel like that's the thing I can take credit for, but everything else is not me. I really hope you love part one of this week's Walking the Dog. If you want to hear the second part of our chat, it'll be out on Thursday so whatever you do don't miss it and remember to subscribe so you can join us on our walks every week.