This time last year we arrived in Spain. Knackered. Shell shocked. Scared.

We came in search of a better life. A chance to start again in the sun. I needed to use this time to rest and build myself back up again after being poorly for so long. I needed to let the adrenaline and cortisol settle, to find a pace that worked for me, and figure out what I was going to do next. All while trying not to panic about the future.

I did this by walking Teddy every morning on the beach. Then sitting down in front of my computer and writing. I spent much of this past year writing my book ‘Shameless’ about the humiliation, embarrassment and shame of losing your business, your health, your income and your status, and trying to rebuild yourself again.

When I submitted it to the publisher I carried on writing, starting a novel, something I’ve wanted to do but never had the time. I’ve now started a follow up to Shameless, which I will tell you about at another time, and I have been working on another project I am excited about, and have high hopes for.

Finding something to work on that filled me with hope and purpose has been the longest part of these twelve months. But I found it.

Looking back over the photos and videos we have taken over this past year has been so interesting. Are we where we want to be? Yes in terms of living in Spain. A resounding yes. We love it here; for our own reasons. Nick is in a place where he can bounce around and play sports and connect with people, and he is thriving, which makes me so happy and proud. I have moved at a slower pace (in every way, I can’t keep up with him most of the time!) but no less fulfilling.

Have we achieved what we want and need? Yes and no. Our goal when we arrived was to build a future. That takes time. Generating work, income, security- that doesn’t happen overnight, but we have made progress, and have ideas and the energy to execute them.

I am healthy.

I am happy.

I am hopeful.

Three things I longed for one year ago. That seems pretty good to me.

#herewegoagain

One of the most powerful things you can do for a friend is just to ‘be there’.

It’s something that my friend Pete Cohen and me have experienced in our own very unique ways during our 20+ years of friendship. We don’t speak every day, or even every month, but we know that if the call is made we answer.

Pete has been through one of the worst experiences imaginable; in 2023 he lost his wife Hannah to a brain tumour after fighting, trying everything he could think of, including raising money for her treatment in both America and Germany, to keep her alive just a little longer. Her prognosis was 18 months, but she survived for 12 years, thanks to Pete’s efforts. He is an incredible man, a force, someone you are lucky to have in your corner.

Over the past few years, Pete has consistently kept in touch with me, at times simply asking: “How are you? How can I help?” Reaching out to support me when he was going through much more difficult challenges compared to mine. But that’s Pete for you.

Last week, we saw each other in person for the first time in a while, as we came together to support each other’s causes. He came to my Shame Changer event, a series of round table evenings encouraging people to reflect on their thoughts about, or experiences of shame and how they have, or are working on, changing their perspective on them.

I went to the London premiere of the global multi award-winning documentary that Pete made about his fight to keep Hannah alive, at the Raindance Film Festival. It’s called Hannah’s Story, and I urge you to watch it - I’ll put the link at the bottom of this. You can watch it for free on your phone or laptop.

The thing is, it’s called Hannah’s Story, but it’s not just about her. It’s really a love story, a true story featuring a man who will do anything, try anything, and will keep going until he has nothing left, to keep the woman he loves alive. It’s raw, and beautiful, and deserves every award it has got.

Pete told me that Hannah’s passing left him with something he didn’t foresee. He was forced to STOP, and in that stopping, he experienced grief, anger, loss, loneliness - these  expected, but still enormously painful emotions. But also what bubbled to the surface was deeply ingrained shame, once he stopped running around distracted by the desperation of trying to fix a problem that ultimately couldn’t be fixed.

Shame that he wasn’t good enough. That he wouldn’t be liked. That he wouldn’t be accepted. This wasn’t an emotion he ever thought he’d be working through, and yet on reflection, it proved to be the driving force behind so much of what he did.

As it is for so many of us.

When we met all those years ago at GMTV, when I was the cheerful weather girl and roving reporter, and he was the cheerful life coach, neither of us could have foreseen what life had in store, and that we’d end up being a support and champion for each other over 20 years on.

That’s what friends are for I guess, and I am beyond lucky to call him one of mine.

Watch Pete’s film here:

Hannah’s Story

Have you ever fallen flat on your face in public, and done that thing of trying to quickly get up so no one notices?

In a nutshell, I did the business equivalent of that when I quit my job on telly to go ‘all in’ on my entrepreneurial venture AND IT DID NOT WORK.

Humiliating.

Embarrassing.

Shameful.

We lost everything.

In 2024 I began to write about it. What it felt like, as a person, as a couple, as a parent, as a daughter- and of course what it felt like as someone who’d once had a big fancy job and then couldn’t even get work in a coffee shop.

It SUCKED. It still sucks.

But I’ve written an utterly BRILLIANT book about it.

It’s not your typical book. Whatever you’re expecting, it’s not that.

It’s a punch in the face kind of book.

It’s a swear out loud, can’t put this down kind of book.

It’s turning the pages faster and faster because you have to see how it works out kind of book.

And it’s finally ready for you to see it.

Buy it for yourself, or for someone you think would like it because they have been through a similar experience, or they just love tales of people messing up. They’ll love it.

Link below ⬇️

SHAMELESS: Finding Freedom and Resilience Through Failure

Love, Andrea. xx

I think I’ve had a Sliding Doors moment…

Last week during my flying visit to London, I was invited to attend a supper by The C-Suite at 60 Pall Mall by my friend Simon Alexander Ong To be honest, I didn’t really know what to expect and went because I was intrigued.

I was also intimidated. I was going to be in a room with wildly successful people; entrepreneurs, CEOs, authors and speakers who are no doubt in much better positions than me to talk about success.

I was awkward and flustered from the off; I couldn’t get the door open and literally stumbled into the room, which was filled with smartly dressed people who turned to see what the commotion was. Not a great start. I headed to the ladies room to take a breath and cool my overheated red face, then put my shoulders back, head up, and walked back out and started again.

I’ve always felt intimidated by ‘people in suits’, so I’ve kept my mouth shut when around them because all I’ve done for a living is write words and talk. It seems a lot less impressive than running multi-million pound companies! That night I realised I’d missed something vital.

We are all just people, trying our best, in the ways we know how.

Everyone around the table that night was invited to stand up and tell the room what they were working on, what they needed investment for, and crucially, what was energising them at this moment in time - to fit with Simon’s book, Energize, which was the theme of the evening. When my turn came, I took a deep breath, stood up, and told my story. That I was feeling energised by the very fact I am alive, something just over a year ago I very nearly wasn’t. I told them what happened to our business, about Shameless, the book I have written about the shame I felt at losing everything, and finally, about an idea I have been quietly working on with an incredible person and am now ready to ask for financial support. I figured the worst that could happen was that people would laugh at me, and I’d have a to face sniggers and sideways glances, and if that happened I’d hopefully never see any of these people again, and I’d now have a good dinner party tale about the time I pitched an idea to a room full of clever people and had to crawl out a bathroom window to escape the hideous embarrassment of how badly it had gone.

Not only did no one laugh at me, but someone leaned forward, and gave me their number. Someone else did the same. They understood what we are trying to create, liked it, and can help.

It was a revelation.

I realised I had been looking at these kind of networking events all wrong. I thought I had to ’sell myself’ and win people over. And I didn’t at all, I just had to be myself, and let what will be, be.

So thank you Simon, for the invite, and for Anna Eden for putting on such a warm, friendly and supportive supper where we could all share our stories and lean in.

And maybe, just like in the movie Sliding Doors, that night will become the moment when everything changes?

I have news.

My book, the one I’ve spent the past 18 months writing, is now out on pre-order. This means that I can start talking about it now, which feels strange, on two levels.

It officially comes out in May, but online stores such as Amazon like to put it up before then so they have a good idea how many copies they need to be ready on publication day - so if you’d like to buy it, then it’s best to get your order in. It’s not quite like pulling a numbered ticket at the deli counter to make sure you get served, but it also kind of is.

Now, I know that May feels like a lifetime away even though it’s just over a month, but I suppose it’s no different to a singer talking about an upcoming concert, and we all understand how that goes. So why does it feel so UNCOMFORTABLE telling everyone “Hey, I’ve written this thing that I think you’re going to like, and I really hope you buy it and enjoy it. Thanks!”

Is it because I feel like I’m showing off? Saying “Look at me! Look at me! Look what I’ve done!”

Is it a British thing to not want to blow your own trumpet? A female thing? Or just an individual thing? Even though you have put a lot of time and effort into something and genuinely believe it’s powerful and can help many, many people feel ‘seen’ and better about themselves? Something that we could all do with in these troubled times?

I do find it very uncomfortable, and I’ve been pondering on why this is. I find it very easy to talk enthusiastically about other things that I think are great; be they a person, product or an experience. I enjoy bigging someone or something else up. I genuinely mean it, and I hope they do well from my support.

But doing it for myself feels, icky. I give myself “The Ick” as the kids now say. Which is not useful when you are trying to promote yourself.

Part of the publishing process, as many of you will know, is asking other people to give you testimonials for your work. This doesn’t happen by magic; it literally means asking people you respect and appreciate if they will read your work and say a few words about it. It means calling or texting them if you know them personally, or trying to reach them via agents or contacts. It can be awkward.

For context, in terms of awkwardness I’m the kind of person who is too polite to bother a nurse when my leg is falling off, because she’s busy. I’m the one who sits on a window seat on a plane and almost wets herself because I don’t want disturb the people next to me by getting up.

And yet if a friend’s leg is falling off, or they need help, I am fearless. I am all over it! I will call in favours for other people in a heartbeat, I’m delighted to help. But not for myself.

Very strange.

Because of the nature of the book I’ve written - it’s called ‘Shameless: Finding Freedom and Resilience Through Failure’ - I’ve been wondering if this lack of salesmanship is because I don’t feel worthy of the attention, or worthy of inconveniencing someone. And it’s not. I know my worth, and I know that I am bloody good at what I do. It’s not that.

It’s not shame that hold me back either, it’s simple awkwardness. Maybe it feels like small talk, something else I am really not very good at. Sit me down in a corner with someone and let me listen to their life story and I’m all over that. Put me on a stage to share my own, take questions from a crowd, and even handle a heckler - yup, where do you want me?

But to stand up in the the middle of a crowd, which is what this is here on Substack, and ask you to stop what you’re doing for a moment in the middle of your busy day, and ask you to have look at this thing I’ve made? Ohhh, The Ick.

Anyway. Ok. Here goes:

“Hi. I’m Andrea. I’ve made this thing. I think you’ll like it, and I think you’ll know someone else who’d like it, and it’ll probably help them feel a little less, well, shit, about anything they have ever messed up or got wrong in their life. It’s a book called Shameless, and so far everyone who has read it has been blown away by it. And that takes a lot for me to say, because it sounds like I’m showing off, but they genuinely have.

Anyway. This is the link. Have a look. Give it a go, and let me know what you think.

Thank you.”

I’m off for a lie down now.

PRE-ORDER HERE

It’s been a strange few weeks, not gonna lie.

The weather has played a big part; the rain got to me a bit. The relentlessness of it, the opening my eyes to another wet, grey day and bitter wind has not been conducive to constructiveness.

I’ve tried not to let it bother me, and of course I’ve still got things done, but I know I’ve not been as chipper and enthusiastic as I am on warm, bright days. I’ve been thinking about why it should make such a difference, because it’s not like I work outside, it’s not even like I have to go outside. Other than walking the dog, I could pretty much stay glued to my chair at the kitchen table, tapping away on my laptop, only getting up for coffee, food and wees. And loading and unloading the washing machine. The weather really should have no effect on me at all, and yet it does.

I don’t do well in the cold, I never have, but when I’ve had a reason to set an alarm, get out of bed, set off to work and do a job in a place with other people, I’ve found it easier to ignore. There was a lot more to distract me from it, I had things to do, places to be, people to see, the weather was just there on the sidelines. And of course, my job in TV was exciting and all consuming, it was stressful but rewarding, and I came home at the end of the day feeling like I’d done something that mattered, even if not to everyone. It mattered to those of us in the room at the time, much like all our jobs do.

For those of us who now work from home, something that seemed so niche before Covid, and is now so normal, the idea of not having to wear uncomfortable clothes, or commute in packed trains or buses, or sit in traffic that never moves, the escape from the crush of other people has many plus points. I don’t think I could walk in heels anymore, it’s been so long since I’ve slipped into a pair of stilettoes. I like having my own timetable, because I work best in fits and starts. Sometimes I’m consumed by an idea, and wake up when it’s still dark, buzzing with it, and must get up and write it all down before it slips away. I can sit for hours at my computer, barely moving, just getting everything out onto the page, ignoring hunger and my growing bladder, until there! It’s out! And oh my god I’m starving, and I think I’m going to wet myself.

It’s something my husband doesn’t understand at all. He is a structured kind of man, he likes routine, and schedule, and is extremely disciplined and organised. He stands up every 40 minutes like you are supposed to, stretches regularly, eats well every few hours, and can switch off the TV at exactly 10:30pm because that’s when he wants to go to bed. A part of me is irritated by it, like a child, because it stops me being how I want to be, which is extremely immature of me, I know. Especially when technically, he is right and I am wrong. Being healthy isn’t just his passion, or his hobby, it’s his job, and he has the data to prove he’s right.

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This was something I didn’t notice too much in our old life, because we had our own schedules, and we had teens and young adults in the house who needed to be catered for, and my writing was done in between everything else. Even when we worked together in our business, I was still writing books, and it was acceptable to have to grab free moments when they came, to lock myself away in the evenings to meet a deadline and not come out until I was done. But I don’t think that either of us realised that this is just how I work, this is how I operate, until all the other parts were removed and this was what was left. Just the two of us, empty nesters, building a new life around our very different ways of operating in it.

Our versions of ‘busy’ look very different. He is sociable, gregarious and energetic, and loves networking and meeting new people. He is great at what he does, he loves doing it, and gets excited thinking of ways to expand and grow and help other people feel as good as he does. He also can’t sit still, which is one of the things I love about living here, because there is always something happening that he can join and play -it’s like living with a 53-year-old labrador who is desperate to be outside running around with his friends.

I also love hanging out with interesting people, and being sociable, and occasionally mixing that in with running around a padel court – which everyone plays over here, and to be fair it is lots of fun. But I don’t need to do it every day. In fact, I get tired if I do it every day. The kids have a term for it now; my social battery dies, and I need to be at home for a while to recharge it in peace before I can go again.

Maybe that’s why the greyness gets to me, maybe it’s to do with my battery charging? Perhaps its charge isn’t as strong during the winter months, and everything takes longer? I think so. Which is why I’ve been ok with my hibernation, it makes sense to me, even if I haven’t liked the weather. While it’s been raining and cold I have finished my fifth book, and I’m starting to get excited about its release in May. I will tell you all about it another time, but I think you’ll like it. It explains everything about how we ended up here; my back story if you like. It’s kind of punchy too, a bit shocking. How’s that for a tease?

I have also got stuck into my next book, my first ever novel. That’s been a process. I’ve talked about it before; that I’ve had this idea percolating in my head for a while and didn’t know how to get it out. So, I’ve done what all first-born good girls do, and I’ve done my homework before getting started. I enrolled in a few online courses and made copious notes. I’ve listened to audio books about creative writing and autobiographies about creative writers. The best by far has been On Writing by Stephen King, well worth a listen, even if it was written over 25 years ago it still packs a punch. I started writing, got stuck, left it for a bit, came back, made more notes, and still didn’t really know if I was onto something or not.

Then I had to stop writing altogether, because I developed a carpel tunnel type thing in my wrist and elbow, which seized up and hurt like hell, and I’ve had to wear an attractive splint thing, take strong anti-inflammatories and rub smelly ointment on it. The pharmacist said I’ve been spending too much time on my computer, and that it’s also my age. Those are two things I can’t do much about, as one is my job, and the other is, well, my age, so I’ve rested it for a week, and used the time to think. To mull things around in my head.

And yesterday I sat back down again and there they were. The voices of each character. It was like they’d been building and calibrating while I left them to it and stopped trying to force them to come out and play. Maybe they were in their own little cocoon, and would only emerge when they were good and ready? Just like me.

Tomorrow it will be the 1^st of March. The month that heralds the arrival of Spring, and that feeling that we made it! The days will get longer, the sun will feel warmer, and maybe we will all unfurl out of our own versions of mental or physical hibernation, like a character in our own story? Let’s hope so, eh?

I got to thinking about “What does success actually mean?” after writing my last piece about ‘going back’. My friend, the one who reformed the band, messaged me about it laughing, saying he’d read it thinking: “Oh, that sounds a bit like me…” followed by “It is me!” Then he said something that really struck a chord; that reforming the band had been interesting mentally because it had meant doing something where you know you won’t succeed in the traditional sense, and therefore having to shift the parameters of what success looks like for you.

That got me thinking.

I have spent the past year and a bit chronicling the parts of my life that have not gone well, where I have either made errors of judgement, or been dealt a rough card. I’ve been writing a book about the shame of failure, which has meant looking at all of mine (there have been many) to see what learnings I could take from them, or indeed if there were any at all, because not everything you experience can be seen as a ‘learning’ at the moment of impact, sometimes it’s just bloody awful, and all you can do is crawl out from the wreckage and piece your life back together again. It’s been an interesting process, not least because it’s given me the opportunity to look at certain things with hindsight, but it also made me see how much resilience it takes to keep going after you have failed at something.

And to be clear, ‘not succeeding’ in the world we live in now is viewed very much as the same as failing. And this is where the idea of reframing what our idea of success is becomes interesting. These are just my thoughts on it, but I see success as a multi layered thing.

There’s the external view - the perspective that others have of a person’s status, job, and the things they do or possess that look exciting or expensive and are outward signs of success. People will have a view on all of that, and if you have those things, some will be impressed and find this inspiring and aspirational, some will find it deeply irritating, and others will try to take these things from you, or use you, to raise their own status.

Then there is our personal view of success from the inside, which can involve everything listed above – how we personally feel about the job, status and ‘things’ that we have, or don’t have.

Then of course there is the view of success which doesn’t include any of these things, and is determined by our level of happiness or contentment, regardless of status or possessions.

When I think about success, the first thing I think of is money. It’s a reflex action, ask me what pops into my head and it’s a nice house, nice clothes, nice car, nice holidays, money in the bank, no worries. If you have all those things, then you’re doing OK, you’re successful right? You also may have the same instant go-to, because we all know what those things represent; that you’ve made some smart choices, this is what you get for them, and it means that things have worked put pretty well.

So, by that logic, does it mean that you are not successful if you aren’t rewarded financially for what you do in a way that allows you to build that type of life?

Now, I know plenty of people who have all the things I have listed that signify success, who have way more than I’ve ever had with their homes, cars and money in the bank, and they aren’t happy. Not even a little. They aren’t even content, which I think is a more useful barometer, because happiness is a peak, and you can’t maintain euphoria at all times, it’d be exhausting apart from anything else. We love hearing examples like this, it makes us feel better to think all that money and success can’t buy happiness. But if that’s the case, what are we striving for? What’s the point of having all that if it doesn’t even make you happy? And if that’s the case, can success in that form and happiness ever co-exist?

As usual, it took me losing the success I had to really appreciate it. As Joni Mitchell sang: “You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone” and I didn’t, until it was. When I lost my business and my health it was a double whammy of realising that the comfort I took for granted would not always be there. I wasn’t living a high life of diamonds and private jets, but I had a comfortable life that I worked hard for and enjoyed. I had a body that was fit and strong, that I also worked hard for and enjoyed. Having had challenging moments as we all do, with both, I had always found a way to get things back on track, both work wise and health wise. Until I couldn’t. It was quite the shock, and for a long time, too long, I kept thinking that surely things would change. And for a while they did, but not in the direction I was hoping for.

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My life is very different now, in all the ways. Thankfully, my health has slowly returned, and I feel good again. In terms of the ‘trappings of success’ that I once had, they are gone, at one point they were sold to pay for more important things like food and bills, and then we sold the rest to fund our move to Spain. That was an interesting process in itself, because I realised just how little I actually needed day to day.

Which brings me back to the idea of happiness and success.

Would I like to have more money in the bank, so that I don’t have to worry, and I can take care of myself and my family easily and without fear? One hundred per cent yes. Money is vitally important, and makes things smoother and easier and having it can be lots of fun. Anyone who says that money doesn’t matter has never lain awake at night in a ball of fear and clenched teeth, worrying how they are going to pay their bills. Money matters a lot. So let’s take that as a given and put it neatly to one side.

Does success bring happiness? Yes, I’d say it does, when you are clear on the parameters of success and what it means to you. We all know how it feels to be good at something, to do it well, and be rewarded and praised for it. It’s nice. Having a sense of purpose, something that gives you a reason to get up every day, a thing to do that is fulfilling, or satisfying, and if you are very lucky brings you joy, is success. That can be a job, but it can also be something completely unrelated to work – it can be putting the band back together even though the chances of you smashing the charts and selling out stadiums are very small.

We aren’t limited to succeeding or failing, these two things can and do co-exist side by side. I have had career highs whilst experiencing relationship lows and vice versa; there are countless examples of success and failure happening at the same time and running side by side. That’s how life is.

Does happiness bring success? Undoubtably. Just not in the way you’d expect it to. Happiness, that brief flare of joy that we feel in our bodies, is a fleeting thing, and can arrive unexpectedly and leave just as suddenly. But when you experience the rush of warmth and headiness that happiness brings, in that briefest of moments you are succeeding, because you have something that the whole world wants to have and hold and tightly grip so it doesn’t go… Not understanding that the best way to keep hold of that feeling of happiness is to pass it on.

A final thought; sometimes you don’t even realise that you have succeeded at all, because you’re so busy fighting to stay afloat.

I realised this the other day, during a lovely, long conversation with my parents. We were catching up on the phone, something that always takes time (I bring snacks), and they were filling me in on what’s happening in their world.

They asked how I was doing, and I told them about the preparations that are underway for the book I’ve spent the past year and a bit writing, how I’m looking forward to recording the audio for it in a few weeks and doing some promotion for it. I told them how I’m trying my hand at a new kind of writing, and how it’s proving tricky but I’m sticking with it. I’ve never started a new book before the other one is even out, and I don’t even have a fully formed idea yet, never mind a publisher for it. This is first for me, but I’ve never not had a ‘job’ at the same time. Dad said: “You’re a writer! That’s your job! It’s what you’ve always wanted to be!”

And it was a shock to realise he was right. When I mentally zoomed out and looked around, I realised that this is what I had hoped for, with a few differences. I had always imagined my life as a full-time writer would be a more glamorous thing – copious amounts of money in the bank, living in a gorgeous, whitewashed house, and someone else doing my laundry. Not a rented flat in my mid fifties, writing at an IKEA table in the kitchen, with half an eye on the washing machine. I thought I’d be better dressed as well, but I spend my days in leggings and an Oodie. But… I now live by the sea. I have a husband who loves me even on my tetchy days. I have friends. I am healthy and well. And yes, I’m happy. All these things were once dreams for me.

Bloody hell! Does this mean I’ve actually done it? Am I actually a success?

They say: “never go back”. And I get it, especially when it comes to nasty exes who promise they’ll change despite evidence to the contrary. But what about the other parts that make up our complicated lives? What about jobs, or friendship groups or dreams we chased that didn’t work out? Maybe it’ll be different this time?

This came into my mind today when a friend WhatsApp’d me a link to his band’s brand-new single on Spotify. I know, how cool, right? I know someone in a band, who has an actual single!

I got to thinking about the work that he has put into it, because like anything we do as grownups, it wasn’t simply a case of getting your mates round to your dad’s garage and jamming a few riffs. They are adults, with jobs and kids and mortgages and responsibilities and you can’t just jack it all in to reform your old band… can you?

For context, my friend’s band used to be quite something. In their 20’s they travelled the world with headliners that were a big deal in the 90’s. They got the chance to see and taste a rock and roll lifestyle that very few of us ever will. Then, for whatever reason, the band broke up and everyone went their separate ways. My friend went on to have a very good career elsewhere, becoming well-liked and respected in a job far away from guitars and fans. But a part of him kept that little rebellious twinkle. It was what made me like him we first met a number of years ago, and we, including my husband and his wife, all became friends. Like all of us of a certain age, the four of us have weathered some storms, which has a reignited the “fuck it” spirit that we all have inside us, before the reality of consequence freezes us into inaction. This has shown itself in different ways, borne out of both necessity and invention; namely, how can we make the most of the shit show we now find ourselves in?

My husband and I sold all our belongings and moved countries to start again. He reformed the band.

We’ve stayed up to date with his progress, and the challenges of overcoming geography (when the band split up, they moved to the four corners of the UK), parental and financial responsibilities, and, well, desire. By desire I mean, do you want it enough?

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That’s the thing with going back. Without the bliss of innocence and ignorance, you know that once the endorphin rush of excitement has worn off, the graft begins. Going back and starting again with a renewed adventure is not going to feel like it did in the ‘good old days’. It could be worse, but maybe it’ll be better, and become something new and different, and those old days can be viewed through a lens of nostalgia, and life’s learnings.

If you haven’t seen the Take That documentary that’s just been dropped on Netflix, I’d say give it a go. I was late to the Take That party; I was backpacking overseas when they exploded onto the pop scene in the UK. I didn’t properly enjoy their music until their first reunion tour, when I recognised more of their hits than I thought I would, and realised just how good they were. Are. How good they are. Because the boys have put the band back together, albeit a trimmed down version minus Robbie and Jason. They all look happy, like they are back where they belong, and enjoying things with a shifted perspective.

I guess that’s the thing. They say you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, but sometimes you also don’t know that you’d behaved like a bit of an idiot, or weren’t quite as clever as you thought, until after the band breaks up. And that band can be a friendship group from school, your mates from an old job, or a marriage that was going great until it was not.

Going back is sometimes the only way to really move forward, to make sense of things that you found bewildering or upsetting, because you can see them from a different point of view, and either apologise and make amends, or let the other person do so.

Sometimes it gives you a chance to recapture a part of yourself that you aren’t ready to say goodbye to. And sometimes it helps you let go of a dream, and stops the wonderings of “what if?’ because you realise that actually, you no longer want that ‘thing’ that was so shiny and fun.

I don’t think ‘going back’ is a bad idea at all – certain caveats regarding behaviour obviously inserted. If there has been change, and growth, and fresh outlooks on what was and what wasn’t, it can be healthy, and an opportunity to see what a certain future could have looked like.

But just as it was first time around, the only way you’ll know is to try.

Here’s a link to my friend’s new single if you fancy a listen. And for any avoidance of doubt, he wasn’t in Take That.

I heard this saying the other day, and I thought it really summed up what I’m trying, with no structure or plan, to do right now.

‘Try January’.

I like this. Because January is hard enough without giving up all the stuff that helps you get through the longest month of the year. I like the idea of thinking about what you can attempt to do that you have never done before, or know you’ll probably be bad at. I know I’m not the only one doing it; I’ve seen that kids (and anyone under 30 has somehow become a kid in my head) are doing this thing about trying to get 1000 rejections so that they build up their resilience. I think that’s a great idea, and I’m all for it, but I don’t need to do that as my resilience muscle is already pumped through repeated failure.

This week as part of Try January I attempted Pilates. It wasn’t strictly a ‘first’, but the last time I did it I was in my thirties, so technically still a young person. This class was led by a young Spanish man, who gave us instructions in both Spanish and English as the room was half and half of both, which was very impressive. He was a bit shy, and I think a little overwhelmed by the full room of women staring at him expectantly, so he didn’t say much, and fiddled with his phone a lot. It was all going well until we were doing some sit up type things, and he asked one of the class if she was pregnant “like that lady”, pointing to a woman with a beautiful round belly, who had already put her hand up and told him so. She was not. There was a collective grimace and intake of breath as the room clenched their teeth. After the class, her friends reassured her that she didn’t look pregnant at all, which she didn’t, but we all knew she’d be looking at her reflection when she got home and thinking otherwise. As I left the room, I saw every Spanish lady in the class surround him, and I didn’t need a translator to understand they were informing him, very loudly and with much arm waving, that he had made a BIG mistake. His first life lesson of the year, and it’s only January; never ask a woman if she’s pregnant, let her inform you if she is. I once had a very excited man, who I’d only met a couple of times and didn’t know that well, rush up to me at a party, clamp his hands onto my tummy and exclaim: “Oh my God! I’m so excited for you! When are you due?” I was not due. I don’t know who was more mortified.

The class had been hard, with lots of lunges and squatting and sideways plank-type things. It’s meant that for the rest of this week I haven’t been able to get on or off the toilet without hanging on to the sink because my thighs hurt so much. I’m hoping this is a good thing, and means I have broken my fitness seal, and nothing else. Can you ‘break’ thighs?

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I have also been doing a lot of sitting down, something I am already very good at and need no training in. That’s because I have been doing an online course.

I started thinking about this last year, as I finished my latest book. It’s my fifth book, and continues the theme of my previous few, mainly writing about challenges we all experience in our lifetime, and ways to overcome them. I’ve written previously about overcoming burnout and trauma (This Girl Is On Fire), and how to become brave (You Just Need To Believe It – I know, awful title, but it’s a great book) and my latest is about building resilience through the shame of failure. It’s a cracker, and I’m very proud of it. It’ll be out in Spring, and I’ll tell you more about it nearer the time.

As I was going through the final edit, and taking out bits that didn’t quite work, I realised that I have so much lived experience through my many, many misadventures, that I would like to write a different kind of book, where I’m not bound by the same constraints of writing about me. I’ve had an idea that’s been percolating for about a year now, and I want to give it a go and put everything together into a punchy, twisty turny novel. But I don’t know how. I know how to write my type of books, but not fiction, and it feels different and daunting. What if I try and it’s awful?

But what if it’s not? What if it’s great? The only way I’ll know is to do it. So I’ve been doing an online course in creative writing, to understand structure and where to put plot twists and to be honest it’s been a lot to get my head around. Apparently I need to buy a lot of Post It notes and a white board to plot everything out like a detective, which I don’t mind because I love stationary, but it also scares me a little.

Then today I put on a podcast as I was doing some housework and getting ready to take to dog out. I’ve been listening to different authors talk about their process, to see if anything inspires. Today I listened to Lee Childs being interviewed on Desert Island Discs. Lee has written the Reacher series of books, which are now a hugely successful TV series. And something inside me went ‘ding’! He explained that he doesn’t like to forward plan too much, if at all, because he likes the excitement of sitting down to write and not knowing where his character is going to end up. He said he feels as excited as the reader, and I liked the sound of that. I think I’ll need a little more structure, like I’ve put a destination into my writing sat nav, otherwise who knows where I’ll go, but I like the idea of all the unexpected diversions that will occur along the way.

I have my characters, and I already love them so much. I have my beginning, my end, and a rough idea of my middle. I just need to bloody start. To try it anyway. And Try January seems like a good time to do it, don’t you think?

So, I’m off to buy a white board.

I’m not one for setting new year’s resolutions. I don’t tend to do anything at the same time as anyone else to be honest, I feel a bit pressured, like I do when I’m expected to take part in ‘organised fun’.

This year has been a bit different. I wanted to start afresh and put some distance between where I am now in my life, and where I have been. Normally I head into January carrying on where I left off before Christmas, with maybe a vague idea about eating less chocolate and finding a hobby, but that’s about it. I usually achieve neither of these things because I remain head down with work, and because I like my work, I can’t think what else I’d rather do in my spare time. In fact, ‘spare time’ in itself has always felt like something other people have, my allocated hours have always been chock full.

Until now.

I didn’t realise how much of my time, energy and brain power had been taken up with running a full house until it was empty. It’s the part of empty nesting that we look forward to when we don’t have a moment to ourselves and just wish someone would empty the dishwasher, or make us dinner for a change, but we don’t think about how it will feel when there is no one to make dinner for.

The fact that so many parts of my life changed all at once last year has meant that for the first time ever I am starting January with no idea what to put in it. All the things I’ve not done because I didn’t have time are staring at me accusingly with their arms folded, because now I don’t have the excuse. I don’t have to rush anywhere, and I’ve realised that rushing was my default setting. Rush and stop. I don’t know how to travel at an average speed.

Everything feels weird right now, and I figured the only way to get over that feeling is to get used to it. So I have set myself the challenge of doing things that feel way out of my comfort zone, so that that the everyday things that feel weird will become my new baseline. Somewhere in my head this makes sense.

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I have started Spanish lessons. We had our first one last week, three couples sitting in a local café with a jolly Spanish lady, who patiently explained how to pronounce our vowels, and told us that it’s not “No problemo!” it’s “Sin problema!” which will take some getting used to. We sat around a table and introduced ourselves, and learned how to introduce our spouses: “él es mi marido” means “he is my husband” but apparently he has to introduce me as his ‘woman’. Not sure how I feel about that.

The biggest takeaway of the lesson was that men are very confident in what they think they know, while I buffer like I’ve lost internet connection every time I’m asked to speak out loud in another language. I can’t remember my own name because of the sheer panic of how strange the new words sound coming out of my mouth. My way around it was to copy how she spoke like a little parrot, and try not to think about it too much. I was sweaty and relieved when it was all over.

Yesterday I started phase two of “Doing things that are so out of my comfort zone that my every day discomfort will feel normal”. I went to a dance class. It was actually a NIA class, which it says is a mixture of dance and martial arts moves. It’s technically a movement class, which I need because I spend most of my day sitting at a kitchen table tapping into a laptop. My ‘day job’ is writing, and there is not much movement in that, other than to the fridge and back, or occasionally unloading the washing machine.

I was late because I couldn’t find the studio, and hadn’t left enough time to factor in getting lost. I rushed in, dumped my bag and took a spot. For the next hour I flailed about, tripped over my feet, and went left when everyone else went right. I refused to look at myself in the mirror and focused on what the teacher was doing, staring at her dainty feet and graceful arms and tried to follow. The few times I caught sight of myself, I looked like a very serious, gallumping bird. Like a sweaty ostrich in Lycra. I was all elbows and bum. Craig Revel Horwood would have had a field day with me. I felt panic and embarrassment rise up a few times, and I considered pretending I needed the loo and never coming back.

But I stayed. I did what I’ve done many times before when I’ve found myself in uncomfortable or challenging situations. I pretended I was OK with it, until I was.

Years ago, when I first started hosting Loose Women, I was so scared and out of my depth I felt like I was drowning on live telly. So I forced myself to think: “What would someone who knew what they were doing do?” I pretended I was an anchor I admired, and behaved how I thought she’d behave, and it seemed to work. Eventually I didn’t have to pretend anymore, and I not only got used to it, but I enjoyed it and became very good at it.

In this dance class I pretended I was my husband Nick. Nick has the most cheerful, confident attitude of anyone I’ve ever known. I knew that he’d be having such a great time he wouldn’t care that he was going the wrong way, or was doing things back to front, he’d be grinning and cha-cha-cha-ing his way through the class and loving every second of it. And, it worked. By the time the class finished, I was still terrible but I didn’t care.

And that was the most liberating part of it. I’ve always wanted to do well at everything I do; in work it’s part of my DNA and has helped me persevere and learn and keep trying. But in my personal life, it’s meant I haven’t wanted to try anything that I knew I’d be rubbish at, because what was the point? I didn’t have the headspace to put hours in getting better at something that didn’t have a purpose, because surely it was a waste of time?

As I walked home, I chatted on the phone to my sister and told her what I’d just done. She laughed, because she knows my history when it comes to choreographed movement. I can’t go to an aerobics class for fear of knocking people down like skittles, as I did on one fateful evening at a gym in Surrey. I still get embarrassed thinking about that.

I don’t want to say that I will never be good at dancing, or speaking another language, because that’s not the best attitude to start the new year off with. But it’s the truth. I will become better at both if I keep practicing, and they will serve me in their own way. With one I can learn to communicate in the language of the country I’ve chosen to live in, which will mean a feeling of belonging and hopefully friendship.

With the other I will learn how to dance like no one is watching, and hopefully the only thing that gets bruised in the process is my ego.

What a year. It’s one that definitely ended better than it began! For which I am immensely grateful…

It started in hospital, rushed in by ambulance over Christmas with pneumonia, kidney failure and sepsis.

For the first few months, my view was mainly of my very concerned dog, who didn’t leave my side. Well, he mainly lay on my feet, but you know what I mean.

I fainted a few times, and landed on my face, which took a bashing. I had speaking jobs booked in the diary that needed to be done, so I did them carefully, laughing off the swollen cheek and lips and black eye, which took ages to go.

I took myself off to Northern Ireland to flat sit a beautiful place overlooking the sea that not only gave me the time and space to rest and recoup and spend time with my sister, and the head space to finish writing my latest book, but it ignited a feeling inside me that changed the course of our whole life. A phone call from home with the question: “What if we sold everything and moved to Spain?” led to a lot of research, conversations, and ultimately decisions. My go-to over the past few years had changed, and every: “What If…?” led to instant fear and doom. For good reason, because the good old: “What’s the worst that could happen?” question had given the cheeky Universe the opportunity to go: “Ha ha! How about this, this, and this!” Or so it felt.

So we put wheels in motion, and something shifted. Green lights where there had only been red, for so long. Yes instead of no. Open doors instead of closed. “What if…?” slowly felt like possibility and hope.

Many changes. My parents moved house before we did, and also uprooted to start all over again.

Children flew the nest and settled with our love, help and support. We looked around, and everyone was ok. We were ok.

We cleared the decks. Sold it all. Gave away what wasn’t wanted. Kept some bits in storage for a ‘one-day’ transfer, when we found a new home. Years of children’s drawings, cards, Santa letters and school reports filed carefully in a box.

Filled the car with all we could carry, and left.

And then arrived.

In a movie of my life, this part would be the montage, set to a jolly tune, shortly before the ‘happily ever after’ part.

But it’s not the end, it’s a beginning, and I have no idea what’s going to happen next. None of us do, I guess.

Here’s to a happy, healthy and wealthy 2026, whatever that means. 🩷

Thanks for reading Here We Go Again by Andrea McLean! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

What’s the first thing that springs to mind when you think of Christmas? If you’re lucky, it’s probably a montage of dark, wet streets reflecting twinkly fairy lights, family squashed round a kitchen / dining table, comedy jumpers, paper hats, too much chocolate, party games, and falling asleep on the sofa with a full tummy and a happy heart.

That’s how Christmas feels to me. I’m not much of an entertainer, but at Christmas I can’t wait to get out the posh table runner, the shiny place mats and the dishes you put food into rather than plopping it onto your plate straight from the stove. I like having my family squashed round the table and seeing them smiling and happy. There’s something settling and reassuring about having them all in one place, under my roof, and knowing they are here, they are safe, and they are having a good time. Is that a mum thing? I’m not sure, because I feel it about my parents and my sister and her family too. For as long as I can remember, it was my house that we all came to. I liked that mum and dad didn’t have to cater for us all and that they could relax and enjoy themselves, and I could look after them.

This year, everything has changed. In a good way thankfully, but it’s meant our ‘normal’ will have to become something new. Which has made me realise that it feels extra strange because that’s not what Christmas is about; Christmas is about tradition and familiarity. It’s that safety feeling again, I guess. ‘New’ comes into its own on January 1^st; until then, it’s all about the ‘old’.

Last week we flew back to London from Spain to start a festive round trip. We went to a charity pub quiz and lock-in, and sang, and laughed and felt properly ‘Christmassy’ for the first time. I had a long lunch with a girlfriend, who bought me a Christmas decoration of ‘high tea’, complete with teacups and pot, so that I’d have something to remind me of our afternoon together at a fancy new restaurant in Mayfair called Lilibet’s, named after our late Queen Elizabeth. We drank pink champagne and gossiped and laughed and wobbled out into the cold afternoon, hugged each other and promised we would do it all again the next time I’m over. I then walked round the corner to an old favourite, Langan’s, and drank more champagne with another friend. What a day; so out of my ordinary life, of which the highlight is walking the dog and getting two loads of washing done and dried.

We then flew to Northern Ireland to spend ‘Christmas’ with my family. We stepped off the plane and drove straight to the shops to buy our gifts, then headed to the local town hall to watch my niece in a local amateur dramatic production of ‘Nativity’. We laughed and cried a bit, in all the right places, and my heart felt a tug watching the children sway and sing, because mine are grown up now and I don’t have to come to these things anymore.

We stayed with my parents in their new home; they relocated when we did, so it’s a new start for all of us. They were as excited to show us our room as I was to stay in it. My youngest arrived from uni to spend ‘Christmas’ with us, and within seconds her bed and floor was a riot of clothes, her discarded overflowing suitcase in the middle of the floor rather than at the side, so she had to step over it to get in or out. I left it as it was, and didn’t tidy everything away because she’s a grown up now.

We ate out, we ate in, my sister gave a us a sight-seeing tour of the area, which included Magic Hill at Spelga Dam, where you stop, put your car into neutral and it rolls up the hill! We did it three times because it was so much fun and I didn’t video it for ‘the gram’ because we were shrieking and laughing and having too much fun. We hugged each other tight when it was time to go, because it all ended too soon, and saying a goodbye that involves an aeroplane feels so much bigger than one that involves a car.

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We flew back to London to have ‘Christmas’ with Nick’s daughters, who unfortunately couldn’t join us in Northern Ireland. We swapped gifts, and caught up on what’s happening to who, how and when. But mainly we slotted immediately back into the role of grown-ups, listening to banter and sibling joshing, and paying the bill. More squeezes goodbye, and then the next day we were off again, back at the airport.

I’m knackered today, and not just from the travelling. We are home, in our own bed (with our own pillows). Teddy the dog is back with us, after his week living in another home that’s not only right on the beach, but has four other dogs to play with. He’s slept like a toddler exhausted from day care and all that, you know, playing. I know how he feels.

Last night we went to a friend’s home, where she and her husband put on their annual ‘Walk to Bethlehem’ in their back garden. It was beautiful. It involved lots of mums and dads, some we have met but most we haven’t, watching the school choir sing Christmas songs. The children did a reading about the nativity, and then we went on a little walk, holding lanterns with tea lights inside, to a space where a large nativity scene had been laid out and lit, and we all sang songs, shyly at first to the hymns, and then with gusto to ‘Last Christmas’ and ‘Feliz Navidad’. I watched the smaller children absorbing it all, and remembered the magic I’d felt at that age, standing in the cool and dark singing Christmas songs with the grown-ups. I watched teenagers pretending it wasn’t all that, giggling over their song sheets, hands thrust deep in pockets. I watched the adults swaying and singing, some in couples, some with their children, and wondered what was going on inside all the different heads.

Christmas means something different to all of us, and so much of that is tied up in whether it represents something good, or challenging, or more than likely, a mixture of the two. I’ve had the best of times, and the worst of times, over Christmases past, but every year I am always ready to pull out the fairy lights, and let their twinkling evoke the hope we all feel, that this one will be a good one. Even if it’s all changed.

There is a moment in the Disney movie Tangled when Rapunzel takes a deep breath and leaps free from her tower for the very first time. It’s followed by a montage of her swinging round a tree in pure joy shouting “Best. Day. EVER!”, then sitting hunched on the ground, rocking back and forth, panicking that she’s made the biggest mistake.

This is what packing up your life and moving to another country feels like.

There are moments when you are filled with Disney levels of excitement at what you are doing. Followed by waves of fear, overwhelm and then more fear, that you are making a big mistake, HUGE. What the hell were you thinking?

To be honest, when we first arrived, we were so exhausted and battered by the events of the previous days, weeks and months that we operated on autopilot. Unpack the car. Buy groceries. Walk the dog. Sleep. Do laundry. For the first week, my biggest thrill was that it was so hot I could get three loads of washing done in a day. It felt like we were living in an oven, but look how fast our stuff dried!

It was August, the heat was insane, and the place was heaving. I was glad I’d removed my hair extensions and chopped my hair short a few weeks before we left. I hadn’t done it because of the expected heat, but because it had been falling out in handfuls because of my illness, and, like me, just needed a break. I’d decided to ‘own’ it’ as they say, rather than keep trying to hide what was happening. My hair had become a metaphor for every other part of my life; no more pretending that things were better than they were, this is how it is. I had decided to write a book about everything that had happened to us over the past few years; the business collapsing during Covid, my illness, everything we lost, and everything we had found out, about ourselves and everything else. It was pretty much done when we packed up and left, it just needed some of its rougher edges smoothed. A bit like me.

Our plan was to move every six weeks, trying out different areas until we found somewhere that felt good. We had rented a flat via a friend of a friend, in the southernmost tip of Spain. Practically Portugal. We knew one person, or rather my husband did, a lovely guy he’d met playing golf back in the UK. It was a start. We lived in a beautiful flat, that if it was picked up and put by the beach would be worth millions. Fortunately, it overlooked a motorway and a car park behind Lidl, so we could afford it. And once you closed the curtains, it really was lovely.

The village was small, with tiny streets crammed with homes. On hot nights, when we walked Teddy one last time before going to bed, we weaved our way past families who had pulled chairs outside. Old men and women leaned towards each other, chattering and gossiping, small children played, couples laughed. As we were turning in, they were coming out. We walked past doors and windows opened to allow in some cool air, and peeked inside to see teenagers laying on the sofa watching TV, or scrolling on their phone. Normal life, happening in a way that felt so different to what we’d left behind. We felt awkward trying our very poor quality Spanish, but started small to get used to how the words felt in our mouths and sounded in our ears. “Buenas” we nodded on our nighttime walks. “Americano, por favor” we blushed each morning in the local cafe, hoping we wouldn’t have to repeat it. “Gracias” when our coffees arrived, and a shy smile.

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It didn’t feel real, that we really do live here, until three months later and we finally got our visas. I’ll tell you more about that in another post, it’ll take time to unpack.

By then, we had realised that there wouldn’t be any moving about every six weeks. A couple of reasons, but the first was that I was knackered, and couldn’t face it. I just wanted to stop for a while, and breathe, and recover. From everything. And secondly, we had begun to fall in love with where we were.

I was introduced to someone via WhatsApp from a mutual friend in London, who realised where we were, and knew someone who lived there and put us in touch. We’d arranged to meet for a quick morning coffee, and six hours later stood up to leave. Yes, we had that much in common. She took me under her wing and began introducing me to everyone she knew, which turned out to be a lot of people, all of whom were lovely. I then met another wonderful woman who also took me under her wing, and introduced me to everyone she knew, and between them, I suddenly had a diary full of coffees, lunches, padel games and dog walks. I bumped into a woman I vaguely knew in London, whilst heading to my car outside a supermarket. We swapped numbers, something I’d never have done before, but felt normal out here. I’m so glad we did as she’s become another unexpected friend.

Conversations with everyone have been easy because we all have the same thing in common; we have all taken a leap and left the lives we once knew behind. Not just from the UK, or Europe, but from all over the world, and all over Spain. Somehow, at this moment in time, we’ve ended up here. I’ve met people who decided to try something new and give it a go, for all kinds of reasons - ill health prompting a life change, new job opportunities, simply packing up and trying again and hoping for the best. Some are doing better than others, but none of it matters, because here we are, just, trying. Of course I have also met people who have always lived here, and have either never moved, or gave it a go elsewhere put were pulled to come back. Isn’t that the same wherever we live?

I’ve moved before; I spent my childhood moving every four years or so to different places around the world because of my dad’s job as an engineer. I’ve moved from one part of the country to another to find work, moved again to raise my children somewhere small and safe, and now I’m doing it because I want and need to slow things down. I need to feel the sun on my skin, to see blue skies and glistening sea while I figure out what to do next. To figure out what my next move will be.

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A little while ago, I let the world in on a secret. It was one that family and close friends had been aware of for months; that my husband and I were packing up and heading off to live in the sun. They were supportive and kind and understood our reasoning, and had been cheering us on in the background as we started the process.

And it is a process.

Like most big decisions, they don’t just pop into our heads one day, they tend to have been percolating there for a while. Little daydreams of “what if?” and “wouldn’t it be nice?”, and Googling, and reaching out to people who have done this thing before you.

I have wanted to live in the sun, next to the sea, for ever.

I grew up in Trinidad in the Caribbean, and it was the thing I missed the most when we came the UK when I was 15. I am better in the sun, and as I’ve got older, and life’s challenges have become tougher, this longing became more than just a “wouldn’t it be nice?” and became a pull.

But how? With children, and jobs and bills and responsibilities, there has never been a right time, or a ‘least wrong’ time. And then life took those obstacles away, in the most shocking way, leaving us free, finally, to jump. It has not happened in the way I had dreamed or envisioned, but isn’t that always how it goes?

At the end of last year, and the start of this one, I was very sick. While still struggling with the after effects of Covid, I was hospitalised with life-threatening pneumonia, kidney failure and sepsis. Getting better has been another ‘process’, that continued after I begged to be discharged, with daily hospital visits as an outpatient, attached for hours to a drip filled with the drugs I needed to fight infection. Then weekly visits. Then monthly. Then after more scans and tests I was finally released back into the wild.

Running a busy household and working to pay bills added pressure to an already stressful time; we needed me to be well so we could keep on top of things that were already stretched tight. This is a situation many people who have come out the other side of illness will recognise, and it’s not one that’s often discussed. That thing of needing to hit the ground running when you can barely stand.

It’s normal to want things to ‘go back to how they were before’, but I didn’t. I’d had enough of how things were, and this seemed like the perfect point to have a reset. What did we want? It turned out, we didn’t want the life we were living and hadn’t for a long time. But what could we do about it? Options weren’t leaping off the page, as we were still fighting our way back to liquidity after losing our business during the pandemic, and paying off the debts that ensued. We sat down and worked out a “What If?” plan of action, and for the first time in a long time, we felt a flicker of something that I thought had long died. Hope.

We looked at what it would cost, the logistics, the timing, the short and long term needs and expectations. Although, one thing we did know for sure was that no one knows what’s going to happen in your future – losing my business and my health hadn’t been on my bucket list. We did our sums, asked around, and put some feelers out. Slowly, doors started opening. Lights turned green. Difficult decisions became easier. If we sold everything we had, and used what was left to get us there, and get us through the first few months, maybe this could work?

And so we did. My youngest daughter was starting Uni in Spain in September, so there was no guilt about ‘leaving her behind’. My eldest, my son, was travelling the world, with no plans to return soon. My stepdaughters were a few short months from being settled in their own accommodation, and we could offer some support until they were on their feet. Suddenly the road was clear.

We sold everything. The kitchen table we sat around as a family. The sofas we watched TV together on. The TV itself. Pictures, ornaments, clothes, shoes, if we could sell it, we sold it.

On the last few days, we did a dozen charity shop and tip runs, clearing out the house. The only things I asked a friend to store for me until I was ready to collect them were my Christmas decorations (there was no way I was getting rid of them), some bigger family photos and pictures that wouldn’t fit in a bag, and some winter clothes. On D-Day, we packed our car with everything we owned crammed into the back, leaving just enough safe space for Teddy our dog. A quick swing past family for a final goodbye, and we set off for the Eurotunnel.

Then we drove to our new life in Spain.

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In a movie of my life, this part would be a montage, because road trips aren’t as interesting as they sound. They are mainly just hours of road, following a sat nav, and getting out to let the dog pee, and to stretch our legs every few hours. It involves standing in smelly picnic areas surrounded by other people’s dog poo, drinking not very nice coffee from takeaway cups, and eating sandwiches that you aren’t too sure what’s inside, but they’ll do.

It also meant trying to find places to stay that allowed dogs and had secure car parks, as we had too much stuff to unload every night, and to be honest it was such a squeeze I’m not sure we’d have got it all back in again. The car parks needed to accommodate a rooftop box, which we hadn’t realised would be a ‘thing’. It was a thing, and meant there were a few nights we came very close to sleeping in the car in motorway services car parks, because we couldn’t find hotels that had what we needed.

Our last night’s hotel had an underground car park that technically wasn’t big enough, but it took pets, and to be honest I was just ready to stop driving. Nick, my husband, did some mental maths and figured that the car might have lowered a bit because of all the stuff in it, so maybe we could squeeze in. He needed as much weight in the car as possible, but also needed me to guide him in, to see if the rooftop box was going to be knocked off or stuck. It took a moment to understand that’s what he meant when he said: “Get back in, I need your weight to lower the car”, and in that moment, I almost decked him, and left him, in that order.

So, we edged our way down the tight ramp into the underbelly of the hotel with me sitting with my bum out the window, feet on the seat, stretching up to see if we were clear of the myriad of pipes and posts threatening to ambush the car. Getting that car inside (without either of us getting stressed or cross) was honestly the sweetest of achievements, and is still one of the highlights of our trip down. We laugh about it now, like we laugh about almost sleeping in smelly motorway service stations; in our heads at least, the road trip has become our own little movie montage where it was fun and exciting.

That’s the thing with packing up your once big life, and squashing it into a car. The things and stuff that you once thought were important lose their hold on you. What will other people think? I don’t care, they aren’t coming in the car. How do we make this work? I don’t know, but I may as well ‘not know’ in some sunshine.

I have three wishes for this life change: to get back what I lost. My health, wealth, and happiness. These things are subjective, they mean something different to all of us, but I know what they mean to me. I want to feel well, to have the energy and capacity to do whatever I want to do. I want to feel safe, and know that I have a roof over my head and I am not afraid that I am going to lose it. And I want to feel the warmth of contentment that comes with everything being ‘okay’. To feel that the sun is shining, the sea is glistening, and everything is going to be alright.

That’s not too much to ask for, is it?

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We aren’t young carefree backpackers travelling the world knowing we have mum and dad to go home to.

We aren’t spritely retirees, with a healthy lump of savings and a pension to back us up.

We are mid-fifties, and ‘getting by’. Doing ok, but no idea how long it will last. No pension, no savings – they all went when our business went under. So why did we do it?

Well, what have you got to lose when you have already lost everything? What did we lose? We lost health, wealth and happiness, in that order, which are the three things one must strive for – though not necessarily in that order.

This move has been about reclaiming all three.

How is it going? Well, it’s been a lot. And too much to share in one jolly Substack post. So over the next little while, I’m going to go back to where it began, from the initial: “I’ve been thinking… what if we move to Spain?”

Because of that, I’m changing the name of my Substack. I’ve given it a bit of a freshen up, because I realised I’m going to be talking a lot about the ups and downs of life, the bumps in the road and all that kind of thing. And the fact that if life was a road full of potholes, I appear to have driven through most of them. At the moment, I’m driving along in the equivalent of a clown car with a wheel missing and the bonnet open and steam hissing out. But at least we are moving forward, so I’ll take the win. It’s just another adventure, right?

Here We Go Again…

This month’s #4Things is a little late as I needed to see last night’s finale of The White Lotus and include my thoughts on whether it was worth the wait… I spent a much-needed week on my own in the beautiful Mourne region of Northern Ireland, learned to stretch my weary bones, and started self-hypnosis! Links to everything I did are below. Enjoy!

What I did:

I stretched. My friend Emma Gunavaradhana, (The Emma Guns Show) always recommends great things. She recommended I join Substack, for starters. She also, over a strong cup of coffee and a catch up, told me about a video she’s started watching on YouTube. It’s all about stretching, something we both agreed we needed to do more of. So I started doing it too, and it she’s right, it’s great! No chit-chit, just straight into it. Not too long, so you can fit it in in the morning. And not too hard (at least the ones that I’ve been doing) so you don’t feel useless, which is always handy.

Here is the link:

Stretch with Marie Steffen

Where I went:

I spent a week on my own, in a beautiful part of Northern Ireland called Rostrevor, in Mourne. I needed it, and I’m glad I did it. All of us at some point has got to their wit’s end with things, and that’s exactly where I was. I needed peace, quiet and space away from the busyness of our home, which felt like it had got to fever pitch! I am also a few weeks away from the deadline on my fifth book, so I needed to have the headspace to concentrate. I ‘flat sat’ for family friends, and loved it so much I didn’t want to leave. There is something so delicious about stepping away from your responsibilities for a while, and not having to think about anyone else; doing their laundry, cooking their dinner, pushing your own feelings to one side to better handle theirs – we all know, in a busy family home, it can be a lot.

I woke earlier than normal, I meditated, I stretched, I walked, and I wrote and wrote and wrote. I wrote lots of stuff that had nothing to do with the book, but helped get a lot out of head and off my chest. It helped me think more clearly and make sense of things, which we can’t do when they are all on top of us. I hired a little car and went for drives, for no reason other than to look at stuff. I wasn’t rushing somewhere, it didn’t even matter where my destination was.

I got home feeling like I’d breathed out, and was a ready to get back to it again. It was just what I needed; and is something that I’d do again. Flat sitting kept the cost down, and is something we could all do if we know someone who is away and is happy to let you keep an eye on things for them. It’s a win-win; and having a win was something I kind of needed.

Here is a link to the area, with some ideas for places to stay:

Rostrevor Northern Ireland

What I listened to:

I had got out of that habit of listening to guided meditations, which is silly because I know how much they help me calm down. I can be prone to getting myself into a ‘bit of a tizz’ and spiral into stress, anxiety and overwhelm by life’s curveballs. Meditating really does help me start the day at a lower rate of stress, so I’m less likely to yell when I’m driving, which is good for everyone.

I decided to get back into the Insight Timer app, which is free, but I paid to upgrade to ‘Pro’ so that’ I’d have access to more courses and meditations. You don’t have to, if you’d rather not, there’s still loads to choose from. I’m a big fan of David Ji on there; he sounds very growly and reassuring, which I like. I also re-discovered Glenn Harrold, a hypnotherapist I had used personally years ago, so I knew he was good. I’ve been listening to his motivational self-hypnotherapy sessions, and I think they’re really good! It’s only been a few weeks, but I can already feel the difference in my stress levels, which everyone is grateful for.

Here is the link:

Glenn Harrold Insight Timer

What I watched:

The Capture (BBC iPlayer / Netflix)

If you like pacey police dramas where no one is quite what they seem and there are lots of twists and turns, you’ll love this.

Holliday Grainger (brilliant name by the way) plays the young, feisty, Detective Inspector who takes no shit. She appears to only have one outfit all the way through, which I kind of admired. It was a very masculine move, kind of like the tech bros who only wear black T-shirts and jeans, so they don’t have to worry about minor details like ‘what to wear’.

Ben Miles is her handsome boss who helps her get a leg up, in exchange for a leg over. A great cast and lots of action, it doesn’t matter if any of it is achievable in real life, it’s great fun to watch.

Zero Day (Netflix)

This should have been called “What Would Dad Do?”. It stars Robert De Niro as a former President of the United States, living a comfortable life of retirement with his wife, played brilliantly by Joan Allen.

On Zero Day, a one-minute blackout sees every bit of tech switch off, meaning it’s not just phones that stop working: trains, planes and automobiles crash, killing thousands of people in 60 seconds. It’s a scary thought. No one knows what to do or who to trust, so former President George Mullen (De Niro) is brought in to head up a task force and figure out what the hell is going on.

He's old school. He writes everything down in notebooks. He likes to get to the bottom of things, and find the truth, and doesn’t care about online chatter or popularity polls. He walks slowly. He takes his time. There are hints that he may be struggling with early onset dementia, but he keeps going, determined to fix the mess.

I loved that the heroes of this are in their 70s, and are smarter than everyone else combined. Mum and Dad will figure it all out and everything will be ok. Which is just what you need, even as a grown up, when it feels like the world has gone mad. It’s ok, Dad’s got you.

And finally…

The White Lotus (NOW TV)

This is the third series of the edgy drama series that had us all hooked when it began (and was filmed) during lockdown. Full honesty, I didn’t like this one at first. It took ages to get doing, and I didn’t like anybody. At all. I’m used to its premise that everyone is basically a bit of an arse, but there is normally someone, or something endearing that makes you give them a chance, or at least understand their arse-ness. For the first five episodes the only person I liked was Aimee Lou Wood, who I thought was adorable. The Ratliff family, headed up by Parker Posey and Jason Isaacs as the mum and dad, were so irritating that I struggled to care that their world was about to implode because of daddy’s underhand dealings. The hate-liking trio of beautiful forty-something girlfriends headed by Michelle Monaghan were so utterly dreadful they set my teeth on edge.

But I trusted writer Mike White’s process.

Ooooh, and then it changed gear. If you gave up for any of these reasons, go back and try again. It gets there. It’s a bit like years ago when everyone was raving about Louis de Bernieres’ book ‘Captain Corelli’s Mandolin’ and I could not get into it, I thought it was boring and tedious. A friend said: “Once you get past page 120, it’s on a roll and is brilliant” and I thought “Who the hell writes a book that needs you to ‘keep going’ past page 120?” But I did, and they were right, it exploded into brilliance, and I cried like a baby at the end.

No spoilers, but it all kicks off. Hard. Love bonds. Comeuppance is had. Tragedy occurs. Heroes are made. Fortunes change. And I cannot wait for the next one…

I was really fortunate to be invited to the UK Premiere of Mobland, starring Tom Hardy, Helen Mirren and Pierce Brosnan, at the Odeon Leicester Square in London. It was a Big Deal.

The stars were there, huge red-carpet stuff, very exciting. After working from home all day, wearing my husband’s joggers and hoodie because it’s freezing, I scrubbed up, putting on one of my favourite outfits because it’s comfy and looks nice.

It was scary but also kind of fun to stand in front of banks of photographers. What made it less scary was being the least important person there, so no pressure to ‘wow’.

When you’re standing there, feeling everything from self-conscious and nervous, to slight hysteria at how insane it all is, all you hope for is that you don’t fall over, and the photos look ok.

I was sent the final resulting photo today by the lovely team at Concorde Media who invited me. I couldn’t stop laughing. For all the effort, I think the word at the bottom of the pic summed it up well: ‘BLAND’. Must do better, maybe wash my hair next time.

Btw, the first episode, which we watched last night with the hundreds of glammed-up celebrities in the cinema, was anything but bland. If you like Guy Ritchie gangster stuff, you’ll love it. Tom Hardy, Joanne Froggatt and Anson Boon really stood out in this first episode, and I know it’ll grow.

Mobland is out now on Paramount+

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Things had already not been going well. But they came to a head quite spectacularly one morning, when I stood up too fast upon waking, and fainted. I felt a bit odd as I opened the bathroom door, and I remember doing a bit of a juddery thing, then I landed on my face on the cold tiled bathroom floor. It was quite the commotion. My arm bounced off the loo seat and my knee whacked something, maybe the floor as well?

The noise was spectacular. It’s like when you have a bump in your car, and you can’t quite believe how loud it is when two bits of metal bang into each other. My head hitting the floor and my arm whacking the loo seat was the same – the noise! I lay there for a stunned moment. OK. This had happened. The second time in two months, and this time I knew I’d done some damage to myself.

My first thought was: “Dammit. Have I broken my face? I need my face for work.”

My husband had flung himself out of bed and was now standing over me. Thankfully his blood pressure is excellent, so he didn’t keel over on top of me. That would have been quite something.

I awkwardly rolled over. I was in the strangest position. If I’d died and they’d had to do the white outline thing you see in movies, it would have made a very odd shape. “What on earth was she doing?” the hardened female detective with a heart of gold would wonder out loud.

I was also naked, so I was very glad it was Nick who helped me sit up. He helped me to the loo; I still needed the wee that had got me out of bed in the first place. Then he helped me to bed. I looked at my face on my phone. My cheek had a massive egg-shaped lump, and my lips were swollen and purple underneath, where my teeth has smashed into them. My knee was throbbing. I felt weird. Matter of fact about it, almost detached, but also a bit teary.

I was supposed to be filming something that day, luckily from home on my phone for some brand work, so there was no studio to cancel, or people to let down. I texted apologetically to let them know what had happened and said I’d get it over to them next week, when the swelling had gone down. I lay there for a bit, then got up and put some laundry on and fed the dog. Life goes on.

A few days later I was due to speak at an International Women’s Day event in Hull. It meant getting the train there, and then standing in front of five hundred women with a deep purple shiner of a black eye and a swollen face. I couldn’t cancel because one hand I didn’t want to let them down, but mainly because it was a paid gig, and I needed the money. Don’t work, don’t get paid is what being freelance is all about. But what to do about the face? There was only so much that make up could hide, and I knew people would see it and make their own mind up about what had happened. That would be bad enough anyway, but while whispers in WhatsApp groups are one thing, in today’s weird world where strangers speculate publicly about things they know nothing about, it wouldn’t be long before the press picked up on it and I’d be fire-fighting all kinds of stuff. There is something about a woman with a bruised face that piques interest much more than a broken leg; and we all know what that something is.

So I decided to put a post out on socials to pre-empt it, saying what had happened, and that I was on a train heading to the other side of the country because I was going to be on stage the next day. I kept it light by putting some music by the Black Eyed Peas over the top of it, because that a) I had a black eye, and b) I’d spent the past few days with bags of frozen peas on my face. All fair enough, I thought.

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It did what I hoped; people at the event knew why I was sporting a shiner, I made a joke about it, and the day went well.

A few nights later, I went to the theatre and bumped into some people I knew. They clearly hadn’t seen the post, and I could tell by the way their eyes kept glancing at my bruise and swelling that they were wondering what had happened. And yet they didn’t ask, which they obviously would have done if I’d arrived in a cast with crutches or with my arm in a sling. One woman, when I laughingly said: “Oh excuse the black eye, I fainted last week” stared at me intently and said: “Yes, I’d noticed that. How are things…?” When I said they were fine, I could see she didn’t believe me, and had already made her own decision about why I was at the theatre, with a bruised face and without my husband. It was awful. It didn’t feel caring and supportive, it felt judgy and scary.

When I said at the start of this that ‘things had already not been going well’, I meant it from the perspective of all kinds of things, but not that. I’d had a horrible start to the year with an emergency stay in hospital with pneumonia and sepsis, and things were pretty stressful at home because of, well, normal life stuff. But not that.

It shook me, the sideways looks that I got. In shops, on the tube, normal places where we barely make eye contact, but now I was getting double takes. It shook me because, well, if people assumed that I had been hit by my husband, which I hadn’t – then why were they making me feel bad about it?

I think it affected me more because I have experienced domestic abuse in previous relationships, but there were no bruises, no outward signs, so no one ever knew. I was able to walk around with the horrible, tight fear that being in a relationship like that brings, without the added pressure of people staring at me. Now I was feeling the judgement of misguided assumptions, and it weighed heavily.

What struck me the most was that the hurtful comments I received online about my face were from women. “Only one reason a woman gets a black eye like that… Just saying.” That kind of thing. Which I found bewildering. What were they hoping to achieve? Some traction perhaps, as people piled in to agree or disagree, and then they’d be part of a juicy online spat at my expense? Or were they simply, and thoughtlessly, Just Saying.

Why go public, if I can’t face the consequences, you might be wondering. The honest answer is, if I hadn’t had public work commitments where I’d be photographed by the press and be in a room with hundreds of people, being filmed on a stage and smiling for selfies, I would probably have kept it to myself. I normally work from home, and a few weeks of that would have meant that no one would have been any the wiser. But that wasn’t the case, and I am ‘known’. Of course I’m aware that I’m not exactly a Hollywood movie star, and we are all ‘known’ in some form or other; in our community, by people we work alongside, or other mums at the school gate. Not everyone can hide away until wounds heal; we all have to face the world in our own way.

Women get bruised faces for all sorts of reasons. And if you genuinely think that it may be for the worst reason of all, be supportive, helpful and most of all, be kind.

https://www.nationaldahelpline.org.uk/

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My phone trilled – which is unusual in itself as it is permanently on silent and Do Not Disturb and I like it like that.

It said ‘Mum Mobile’. I have a few people listed who can always reach me; parents, kids and husband and that’s it.

It was 8:30am. Very early for a Mum call.

“Hello? Is everything OK?”

“No.”

A dozen thoughts ran through my head in under a second.

Dad has had a fall. Dad’s cancer has come back. Mum has had a fall. Their roof has blown off. Do I need to call 999. I don’t have enough charge in my stupid, useless electric car, so I can’t get to them right away. I’ll call a taxi. I’ll get my coat.

“What’s happened?”

“We can’t get into that website for Joe and Alice’s wedding. How did you do it?”

The relief came out as a sigh that started in my toes and exited through my mouth. It was a full body experience.

“Mum! You can’t ring me at 8:30 in the morning and when I say is everything OK, you can’t say ‘no’ like that when it’s just about a website! You gave me a heart attack!”

“What did you think it was?”

“I thought you’d had a fall, or dad was ill, or something terrible had happened!”

“Why would you think that? We just can’t get into that website on the iPad. It’s sending us to a strange page and there’s no mention of Joe and Alice, just lots of other weddings. I don’t know why it’s not working.”

I breathed out again.

“Hang on a second. Let me go downstairs and get my laptop. I’ll talk you through it.”

And I did. For an hour, with dripping wet hair and a cold head as I’d just got out the shower when they rang.

They got in, they RSVP’d and I left them to it when it came to the gift buying. Though I did re-send them the couple’s address, to make sure they sent it to the right place, as I knew the website would probably automatically populate it with their own home address and they’d be very confused when a blender (or whatever they ordered) arrived on their doorstep.

As I dried my hair, relieved it was just a normal call, and we’d all had a laugh about it, I reflected on how lucky I am to actually like and not just love my mum and dad, and how I hope my kids will feel the same way about me when they are middle aged.

I am mum and step mum to 4 young adults; the youngest is 18, the eldest is 23. In our home we have my daughter (18) and my stepdaughter (22). And also her boyfriend (24), who now lives with us.

It’s a busy house, and with it comes all the layers you’d expect. Laughter and fun round the table on some nights. Sulking and slamming doors other nights. Family discussions about being tidier, not hoarding plates and glasses in bedrooms, please for the love of God will you clean the bathroom. Silent raging at how much they take for granted everything we do and pay for. Like rent, food, and heating.

Normal parenting stuff.

I also keep an eye on my own parents.

Now, my mum and dad are brilliant. Lots of fun, loads of energy, more than me in fact. I think they worry about me even more than I worry about them, so we answer each other’s phone calls with a snatched “Hello?!” if they are too early or too late.

My parents are in the process of moving house, something not to be taken lightly at their age.

Yesterday I popped round to go through some boxes that they’d been keeping for me in their loft. I’d forgotten about them to be honest; they were mainly filled with magazines and press cuttings from my lifetime of being on the telly, which they had meticulously kept. Even the bad stuff. I threw 99% of it away, and took photos of the bits I wanted to keep for old times sake.

Then we got to the boxes filled with stuff from my teenage years. Birthday cards, and yearbooks, and ohhh…. diaries. I opened one up that was in its own little box, and had a little lock and key. It said ‘Secrets’ on it. The year was 1984 – I was 14 going on 15.

I opened it, and had a quick read through to make sure it was safe to read out loud. I needn’t have bothered.

Quick aside: “Keep a diary and someday it will keep you” said the actress, Mae West. She was right; I’m now on my fifth book, all based on adult diary scribbles and notes taken. I think Mae would have been bitterly disappointed with this one, as there wasn’t a whiff of the “Come up and see me sometime” shenanigans that other teens probably wrote about in code.

It was so disappointing.

‘Dear Diary, today I mowed the lawn and cleared away that strange plant off the fence. Then I made a chocolate cake, and we watched TV.’

There was some stuff about going to a friend’s house, homework and missing old friends in Trinidad - we’d moved to the UK and I’d left them all behind. But mainly it was about tidying my room.

‘Dear Diary, I did nothing at all today, which is absolutely DISGUSTING!’

I put my head in my hands.

How embarrassing.

I have been a middle-aged woman helping mum and dad my whole life.

On the plus side, I’ve also done few things that Mae would have raised both a glass and a sharply pencilled eyebrow to. I just didn’t write those things down, because while you can always tell the truth, you don’t always have to tell the whole truth, isn’t that right Dear Diary?

So, what is #4Things all about?

#4Things started off as simply trying to find 4 things that made me feel good. There were no rules, I just had to stick to it, which is something I struggle with. So, I started posting about it, to make myself accountable.

This is my 2025 version, where I go into more detail, with links to stuff I’ve tried so you can have a go, and hopefully feel good too.

For my lovely paying subscribers, I also endeavour to bring discount codes where I can, as an extra thank you. My goal is that you end up saving much more money than the cost of your subscription. This first one is for everyone, so you can see what kind of thing you’ll get - every month will be different.

Here we go…

I had a bread fest for Valentine’s Day.

I love carbs. Bread is my love language. I swear if you cut me open, I’d be made of dough.

My husband knows this, so as a treat on the Sunday after Valentine’s Day - because we don’t ever do anything on the day itself, it feels a bit weird – he ordered a delivery of the most brilliant baked stuff for us to spend the day scoffing.

Plain croissants, chocolate croissants, cinnamon swirls, sourdough and as a bonus, some smoked salmon. Ohhhhhh… so good.

The company are called Butter & Crust, and they are London based, so apologies to anyone outside of London. First-time users get 25% off their order, which is great. You’ll see the little pop up when you click the link below.

Because he ordered something, Nick was given a code to share to give a £5 off to anyone who uses it. (For full transparency, we will get £10 credited to our next order as a thank you for passing it on, but we are not being paid to promote them, this is a genuine recommendation). The code is: NICKF_3

Use whichever code gives you the best deal, and enjoy! This is the link: Butter & Crust

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I went to a pub quiz.

We decided on the spur of the moment to head along to our local pub and join in the weekly quiz. I was up for it because it was a five-minute walk and I didn’t have to dress up. First decision: what to call ourselves? We decided our team name should be ‘First Place’ because surely that meant we were manifesting it, right? We ordered some food, got our quiz sheets and hunkered down.

Thank God we went as a group, because they played songs I swear I’d never heard in my life, but my 18-year-old squealed, jumped up in her seat and wrote something illegible down. Sport? No chance. Moments in history? Kind of; I was the only one at the table who had heard of The Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, which I impressed myself with. But I also didn’t know where Tyrol was, which was embarrassing.

We came fourth.

Which doesn’t sound too bad, but that was out of four.

I’m glad we did it though, because even though we came last, it got me out the house, we all had fun as a family, we didn’t just sit looking at our phones and we had a funny story to share. We are going to try again sometime soon, and may even keep the same team name, because you never know with this manifesting stuff. Maybe it just takes a few goes to get right.

If you are London based, here is a link to the best Pub Quiz nights in town:

Best London Pub Quiz Venues

If you prefer to quiz in your pyjamas, here are 300 General Knowledge questions to try at home:

300 Quiz Questions

I did something crafty.

I didn’t become a ‘proper’ crafter, because I don’t want a load more stuff in my already full house. I suppose I became a ‘crafty crafter’? Almost like a secret agent, I didn’t tell anyone what I was up to. A while back, my friend Lisa had sent me a little kit of things to do that didn’t take much concentrating, and got me off my phone for a while.

So, I started colouring in. I’m not going to lie, it felt a bit weird at first. Like I had better things to do than to sit with some coloured pencils and internally debate whether I needed to use dark pink or purple.

But, what I liked about my little crafting kit was that I could pack it away afterwards. I didn’t have to frame it and put it on a wall, or a shelf, for people to pretend it was any good. I realised that the point of doing it was simply to enjoy ‘the doing’, not the ‘showing’, and it’s been forever since I have done things this way. It’s all about the showing now, isn’t it?

This isn’t the exact kit I had, but it’s similar: Adult Colouring Kit

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And now my favourite part… what brilliant things did I watch on telly over the past month?

A Man On the Inside (Netflix) with Ted Danson. How I loved this. It’s charming, funny, clever and so heartwarming I almost burst. It’s a wonderful series about a widow (Ted Danson) who is urged by his daughter to try something different, and live a little. So he answers an advert to be an undercover investigator, looking into a jewellery theft in a retirement home. He unfurls with the renewed vigour of being ‘useful’ again, and throws himself into his mission wholeheartedly, or that should be big-heartedly, because he really, really cares about what he’s doing. The characters in the retirement home are simply fabulous, and I really, really cared about all of them too. I hope it comes back for another series.

Day of The Jackal (Peacock / SKY Atlantic). Starring Eddie Redmayne and Lashana Lynch. This was glossy, as slick as a Bond film, and as audacious as any Mission Impossible thanks to improbable but impressive disguises, quick changes, and getting out of scrapes. I loved it because I never quite knew what twist was up ahead, right up until the last gasp. No spoilers so I won’t say any more.

And last but not least…

Love Island (ITV2). I started watching this when my daughter was about 15 and “everyone at school was watching, so why couldn’t she?”. I didn’t like the idea of it at all. But I started watching it with her, to keep an eye. And I completely changed my view on it.

It turned out to be an interesting way to have conversations in real time, about things that she had heard of, or was experiencing but didn’t understand. It led to family discussions over dinner about how the thing that so-and-so had done was called gaslighting, or observations on how one person changed what they said depending on who they were talking to, or how someone flipped their narrative if they felt they weren’t getting their own way, and made themselves the victim.

We explored manipulation, love bombing, narcissism – all the tricky stuff that can happen in relationships, whether they are friendships or otherwise. We also talked about real friendship and support, about making mistakes, owning them and learning from them. We would never have had the opportunity to see these things being played out in (almost) real time, and talk about it in a non-judgemental way. I don’t watch every series, but when Amy asks me to watch it with her, I do, and am soon sucked in.

For a month or so, we settle down every evening to watch, laugh, cry, debate the rights and wrong of what someone is doing, and then say goodnight and head off to bed. In a house full of mobiles, laptops and TVs in different rooms, having my 18-year-old daughter choose to spend her evenings watching something with me has created another layer in our connection as mother and daughter, in a random way that I never expected. But I love it, just as I’ve grown to love the show.

I also think Maya Jama is a bloody brilliant host. She makes doing something that is actually very tricky, especially during the live final, seem very easy. Looking like you’re relaxed, having a few fun chats, while asking awkward, at times provocative questions, handling an excitable crowd, while keeping to time and dealing with all the tech challenges that happen behind the scenes when broadcasting live from a different country is not a simple job. And she does it brilliantly whilst looking like she loves it, cares about everyone she’s talking to, and like a drop-dead gorgeous supermodel, all at the same time.

She’s the real Love Island winner.