Everyone has an opinion on why this could be, from a new TV show in the works, to Prince Charles being more unwell than we realise. But whatever the reason for this U-turn on Meg-xit (a Meg-trance, if you will) I think it’s also quite an important reminder that family estrangement doesn’t have to be forever.

Until recently, cutting off contact with a family member was rarely ever talked about - now it feels like it’s everywhere. Brooklyn Beckham, Adam Ramsay-Peaty are both currently estranged from their families, and we hear all the time about Gen Z ditching family they don’t like after watching TikToks about going NC (No Contact) or LC (Low Contact).

But amid all the chatter is the fact that unless you’ve been through an estrangement, you can’t understand how painful it is. It’s like a family member dying mixed with a bad break-up, but somehow even more awkward. And - as Harry and Meghan have proved - everyone has an opinion on it.

I should know. In 2018, I deleted my mother’s number and cut her out of my life. I’ve written about it a lot before (like here) but the TL,DR version is that we had never been very close, and after my divorce I realised that I had a choice in the people I spent my time with.

For me, at that time, it felt right. But a lot of people around me had trouble accepting it. I had well-meaning friends beg me to get in touch with my mum “because she wouldn’t be around forever” and total strangers tell me I was selfish for depriving my child of a grandmother (never read the comments).

I found that plenty of people like to spout clichés at you about how blood is thicker than water and family loyalty is everything and shout “but she’s your MUVVA?!” as if you’re in EastEnders. It was quite annoying / upsetting depending on how strong I was feeling about my choice at the time.

We ended up spending six years not seeing or talking to each other at all. Of course, there were times when I wanted to get in touch with my mum again but I wondered how to do it. I felt like I couldn’t just send a text saying “hi” after all these years.

Just because you go no-contact with a family member, doesn’t mean you don’t think about them. In fact, you might be thinking about them even more than if you were in touch.

In the end, it took an event as seismic as the death of my father two years’ ago to bring me and my mum back together. I wish that hadn’t been the case, and there is a part of me that regrets the time we lost together, but I think it had to be that way. That we needed that space in order to reconnect as two adults rather than recreating the tricky mother-child dynamic we had before.

Whatever your feelings about Meghan and Harry, I can tell you first-hand that it takes a lot of courage to row back on a decision you’ve made - especially as publicly as they have.

Who knows if being geographically closer to their family is the first step to becoming emotionally closer? But I do know that even when a relationship seems rotten and unrepairable, there is a way back if you want it.

^{The creepiest photo you’ll see all week aka Madame Tussauds’ PR department never miss a trick}

My so-called writing life

I had a bit of a breakthrough this week in the novel I’ve been trying to write for ages. I had got the baby down for a nap, my older daughter was on a playdate and I miraculously found myself with a bit of free time to just write the damn thing.

I opened my laptop, only to realise it was out of charge and the battery was in the baby’s bedroom. I knew that even if I crept in to get it she’d probably wake up (because that’s life), so instead I grabbed an old notebook and a biro and started writing longhand. In the two hours’ she slept I scrawled out five chapters. Astonishing!

Since that day I’ve been getting out my notebook whenever I want to write or think about my book and it feels so much more enjoyable than my laptop. I have no idea why it’s working so well. Maybe it’s because I don’t get tempted to check my emails or do some online shopping, maybe it’s because it feels less pressured than sitting at a laptop which I always associate with writing for work.

It’s probably totally impractical and I’ll end up either a) losing the notebook or b) typing it up and discovering it’s total rubbish. But for now it feels like a ridiculously simple hack which is actually getting me writing again so I’ll take this as a win.

^{A notebook and pen. How groundbreaking can you get?}

There’ll be no newsletter next week as I’m finally going on holiday (to Crete! Hooray!), and it will be the first time I haven’t taken a laptop in my suitcase in six years. I might even try to leave my phone behind. OK, I said might.

See you in September.

Kate x

In the end, after much debating and about three weeks’ after she was born, we settled on the name Harper for our second daughter. I loved the way it sounded melodic and warm, and went well with Blake (our first daughter). I still love Harper’s name. But - and I feel bad even typing this - there’s a little part of me that’s suffering from baby name regret

^{What’s in a name?}

I reckon a lot more people feel baby name regret than feel comfortable admitting it. According to a survey from the parenting platform, BabyCenter, 9 per cent of parents have felt remorse about the name they bestowed on their bundle of joy, and 15 per cent have wavered in their choice.

Some parents feel so regretful they take action. Kylie Jenner changed her son’s name from Wolf to Aire after feeling like it didn’t fit. Amy Schumer originally named her son Gene Attell Fischer, but when she realised it sounded like Genital Fissure (lol) she has started calling him David.

I once worked with someone who called her son Ralph but decided it wasn’t right and so when he was six months’ old she legally changed it to Huxley. She wrote an article about it and the comments were savage.

I have a friend who recently confided in me that she actively dislikes her daughter’s name and feels like she only agreed to it during a fog of hormones and drugs in the hospital after a 48-hour labour. She says she feels resentful towards her husband who bullied her into the name he liked, but she’d never change it for fear of what people would think.

For some reason we feel very scared to speak out about having baby name regrets, as if we’re doing a disservice to our child by saying we’re unsure about the name we’ve given them. But surely it’s OK to voice our doubts? Surely it’s OK to change our minds if we decide it’s not working?

Colleen Slagen, the baby name consultant who goes by Naming Bebe on Instagram says she gets weekly emails from people asking how to navigate their baby name regret. “I think it feels very isolating because you feel embarrassed to share and talk about this with anybody,” she says. “You are not a bad mom for having doubts about your child’s name. It’s very emotionally complex and there’s not a one-size-fits-all approach. I think therapy can be effective. I had one client who worked with therapist and got to a point of realising she did love the name it was just outside opinions making her question it.”

When Harper was born she seemed quite a serious baby, so the “fun” names I liked, such as Sunday or Goldie didn’t feel right. Also, when I suggested the name Sunday Rose to Guy, he thought I said “Sunday Roast” which - while I love Yorkshire Pudding as much as the next person - wasn’t ideal.

But now she’s a nearly one, she is a very smiley child - so smiley in fact that when I recently had to take her to A&E, she was so incessantly smiley that our nurse kept bringing other nurses over to look at her because they found it so funny. So maybe she could’ve been a Sunday? She also has lots of white blonde hair, so she could’ve been a Goldie too?

But the name that really gives me baby name remorse is Dusty. I thought it sounded cool and carefree and evoked Dusty Springfield-style Sixties chic. Guy thought it sounded like she was covered in dust and grime.

So in the end, we went with Harper which we both really liked. Although I find it funny that when I tell people her name, they either mention Harper Beckham or Harper Lee (which I guess tells you a lot about the person!)

The reason it can feel so tricky to bestow a name on a baby is that when they’re a newborn they’re basically just a little red-faced squirming maggot. You don’t even know what their hair or eye colour will be, let alone what personality might emerge.

And this is a name they’ll have for their whole life - so something that seems cute on a child might not translate to a fully grown adult.

Do you give a “big” name to a person who might not have Main Character Energy? Is their name special and unique, or is it just saddling someone with a lifetime of “can you spell that?” What if they want to be a lawyer / politician / insert serious job here?

I still love our choice of Harper, but I can’t help hankering after the baby names that got away. And maybe that’s OK. Perhaps my baby name regrets are tied up in realising that Harper is my last baby so there’ll never be a Dusty or a Goldie or any other babies for me to come up with a name for. But who knows? Maybe I can still make Dusty happen as a nickname? After all, Dusty Springfield started life as Mary O’Brien. We live in hope!

There’s this great little place I know in… LA

Off to the City of Angels? I got you covered…

_{Yes, that is a surfboard behind me in my garden and yes, I used it precisely once}

In 2017 I took got sent on an assignment to LA which changed my life (you can read about it here). The brief was to go to Santa Monica and live like a local, and I loved it so much I decided I had to move there.

I’ve lived in LA for short stints a few times over the past decade and while I know it’s a real Marmite city, I love the way it combines the best things about city life (amazing restaurants, fun bars, great shops) with natural beauty (hikes, ocean, beaches etc).

It’s a huge sprawling place and it’s impossible to narrow it down to a few things to do, but here’s a start:

Erewhon: Nowhere will give you a taste of LA’s wellness obsession like this ridiculous grocery store which is so bouji it makes Whole Foods look like Lidl. Browse the aisles of hyper-oxygenated water, grab a collagen and sea-moss-infused smoothie or just do some incredible people-watching.

KazuNori: It’s hard to pick my favourite LA restaurant as there are so many but this sushi bar cannot be missed. The handrolls - made in front of you - have the crispiest seaweed and the warmest squidgiest rice. The scallop roll is the best.

Angel’s Flight: this cute funicular railway opened in 1901 and is a great starting point to explore Downtown LA. The little orange train spits you out at Grand Central Food Market, and The Broad gallery and The Last Bookstore (one of my favourite bookshops in the world) is a two minute walk away.

OK, I guess that last one was kind of cheating as it was technically four suggestions in one!

Have a great week,

Kate x

One bloke was training for triathlon, another collected antique Japanese swords (which is a bit serial killer vibes, but you do you), yet another had an allotment. My partner, Guy, is in a punk band with his friend, often plays tennis, meets friends to play chess. I realised that men are very good at cultivating and prioritising their hobbies, while women… well, not so much.

A few weeks ago, a survey found that that about 40 per cent of women craved more time alone to relax every day, far more than men. In the UK, men enjoy an average of five more hours of leisure each week than their female partners. It reminded me of the Instagram post from the therapist Nicola Jane Hobbs which went viral a few years ago, when she asked why she’d never met a relaxed woman.

So why are men so good at maintaining multiple hobbies - and elevating them to “projects” - while women are fobbed off with a hot bath at the end of the day? Why do we have to be like a hunted gazelle running to the nearest watering hole to escape the predators aka your family asking for a clean pair of pants?

Personally, I’ve never been very good at having hobbies. Productive? Yes. Great at exams? Yes. Earning money? Always. But just enjoying things for the sake of them? I remember the “hobbies and interests” section of my UCAS form was worryingly blank because I liked reading and watching TV and bitching about people while eating KitKat Chunkies, but apparently none of these counted.

I remember when I got divorced at 33 I suddenly found myself with a lot of free time on my hands and I really tried to nurture some hobbies for myself. I did a ceramics class (full of other midlife middle-class white women having a crisis), I went to tango lessons, I even tried beekeeping (see photographic evidence below).

^{Where my hives at?}

At first I felt awkward and like I was wasting my time and money being frivolous, then I really started to enjoy myself. But eight years later, after the pandemic and having two kids, I feel like all my interests have fallen away. My leisure time is so precious these days, I have to be really strategic about what I use it for. Last week I arranged for Guy to take time off work and have the kids so that I could go to the dentist FFS.

I’m not sure why men are such pros at ringfencing their me-time, but I think we can learn from them - especially in their love of sport and all the endless hours they claim they need for not just playing it but watching it. I wonder how many men were willing to stay up until 4am to watch that England match during the World Cup, compared with how many get up at that time to get their baby back to sleep?

Are women not getting time to relax because we’re doing so much more housework and childcare? Is it because our leisure time gets eaten up with skincare routines and beauty maintenance appointments? I personally loathe spending four hours stuck in the hairdressing chair so much that I can only bring myself to do it twice a year and so have roots and mad split ends at all times, but that’s me.

I have no idea why men are better at having hobbies but I’m on a mission to even out the balance beyond the odd yoga class. Relaxing is important. Frivolous is good. The leisure gap is real and we have to close it. See you at the nearest hive?

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Will the robots see my boobs?

I had an “AI bra fitting” and this is what happened (plus a life-changing bra hack)

I don’t know about you, but I absolutely dread the thought of going for a bra fitting. I think it’s because the memories of being taken to M&S with my mum for my first bra and getting told I was a 28-triple A and should just stick to training bras still cuts deep. But even now, I don’t want some old lady poking me in the ribs and shaming me because I only ever wear the same two bras on rotation.

So when the underwear shop The Pantry invited me to try their new AI bra fitting service, I was intrigued. Not least because after a year of breastfeeding my boobs are looking very sad and deflated and all my bras are soft and stained with milk.

I was a little dubious about the whole thing because I am scared of AI and try to avoid even thinking about it, but I figured it was for a good cause (aka my cleavage) and I am always very up for trying things that don’t require you to leave the house.

The whole process was extremely easy to use - you just line your body up with some lines on the screen, your face is blurred out and no pictures are taken. You don’t even have to be in a bra, you can wear a vest top.

It took me less than one minute to complete the fitting, and then the lovely people at The Pantry follow up with an online video appointment where they suggest some bras in your size and explain why the one you’re wearing is about as supportive as a soggy piece of kitchen roll. Not in so many words, but mine basically did not fit at all.

A few days later they very kindly sent me a #gifted new bra and matching knickers and they fit so well it felt like having a nice hug. I had been wearing completely the wrong size - like 80% of women are apparently.

The AI bra fitting service is free to try so I’ll definitely do it again when I finally stop breastfeeding - apparently boobs can take 4-6 weeks after you stop to reach a consistent size which I did not know.

Also - when it comes to washing bras - which I probably don’t do enough (is annually OK?), The Pantry website has this genius hack: “We recommend wearing [your bra] in the shower and use your shower gel with anti-bacterial properties to clean. Hang to steam and air dry.” GAME CHANGER.

Here’s to happy boobs, nice bras and some fun hobbies ahead!

Thanks, as always, for reading. Hit subscribe so you don’t miss a post, and if you want to be a paid subscriber you would have my undying love and eternal gratitude.

See you next week.

Kate x

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After weeks of having a cough, a headache and generally feeling terrible, I eventually got diagnosed with whooping cough. Can I get a whoop whoop? Etc.

Before I realised I had this highly-infectious and very Dickensian-sounding illness, I had tried to push through, taking my kids to the Lido, the library, the park and so on, all while hot blood pounded in my head and I coughed so much I thought I might vomit / wet myself (thanks pelvic floor!)

Three visits to the GP and two doses of antibiotics later, I was forced to just take to my bed. It’s been a reminder of the bleak and sometimes scary reality of parenting when sick.

Of course, if you’re a solo parent or if both of you get unwell then it’s even worse. And your kids getting sick is a whole other nightmare. But still, if even one of you is laid low things get out of control pretty fast.

^{Carmen Lomas Garza, La Curandera}

The physical effects of being ill were bad enough, but I’ve found the mental toll even worse. I had feverish nightmares featuring people from my long-forgotten past. I spent my days doom-scrolling, Googling recovery times, more doom-scrolling, and getting very depressed about how I was missing the whole summer.

I’d had big plans for this to be a great six weeks of spending time with both my daughters before the eldest starts Year One and the baby starts childcare. Instead I’ve mainly spent it lying in bed shivering and sweating, counting the minutes until I can take another dose of paracetamol.

The effect on your relationship when one of you is laid low is also huge. I’ve felt really sorry for my partner, Guy, because his workload has doubled since I’ve been out of action, plus he has me to look after. And he’s trying to work on top of it all because #freelancelife.

For the past month, it’s felt like we’ve barely snatched a conversation, because I’ve been sleeping so much of the day and he’s been doing everything else. I’m sure he has looked at me with envy for laying around in bed, while I looked at him with envy because he was out in the glorious sunshine with our daughters feeling well.

Even the most empathetic of us struggles to understand what it’s like feel sick when you’re not. In her book Illness As Metaphor, Susan Sontag writes about “the Kingdom of the Sick” and it genuinely does feel like you’re existing on another planet to everyone else when you’re really poorly. Of course, as soon as you’re feeling better, it becomes hard to really remember how it felt to be unwell. A bit like the way you can’t really remember the pain of childbirth.

Not to get all The Body Keeps The Score, but getting this virus has really made me realise I need to slow down. The week I started getting ill, I’d been on live TV twice, been weight training twice, gone to see Harry Styles and been out for a friend’s birthday. In normal times this would’ve been no big deal. But since I’m breastfeeding a baby, and still getting up multiple times in the night, it was way too much.

Parenting while sick is brutal and not something I had ever really given much thought to before I had kids. We’ve got through it by doing lots of horizontal games (I let my five-year-old cover me entirely in make-up because it meant I could lie down for 20 minutes). I’ve had audiobooks on repeat (Harry Potter has been great if a little scary for her - whoops!) I’ve been sleeping whenever the baby sleeps. We’re in survival mode which means ordering a lot of Deliveroo and just letting the dirty washing pile up like a Jenga tower.

So it’s not exactly been the summer we dreamed of (or the one I see everyone having on Instagram). But every day I feel I’m getting a little bit stronger and I know that chilled glass of rosé on a beach somewhere - if and when it eventually comes - will taste all the better for having been to whooping cough hell and back.

On the plus side I did get to read more books in the past month than I have all year. I loved them all. So if you’re looking for a holiday read, might I suggest…

Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke

This is probably the most-hyped book of the year - already a movie with Anne Hathaway, instant bestseller blah blah blah. The premise - tradwife influencer gets thrown back in time - is genius. The sharp, spiky voice of the narrator at the beginning is so fun. The twist at the end was clever. I got a little bit bored in the middle and some key parts felt a little glossed over, but it’s a cracking read.

Transcription by Ben Lerner

This short novel is about a man who goes to interview his mentor and former professor but accidentally throws his phone in a hotel sink and so can’t record any of their conversation which I could instantly relate to! But it’s also about memory, fatherhood and what our reliance on our screens is doing to all of us. You’ll read it in a weekend and be talking about it for months.

Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout

I love Strout’s writing and the ways she can click effortlessly from the microcosm of very ordinary people’s lives to the macrocosm of something quite profound about human nature. It’s the kind of book I would recommend to my mother, sister, friend, neighbour.

Thanks, as always, for being here. I’m really enjoying writing this newsletter and connecting with so many of you on here.

And a special thank you to all my paid subscribers who have given me hope that I can actually build something sustainable. I could kiss you! But I won’t. I have whooping cough.

Until next week,

Kate x

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_{Even moments of holiday bliss involve painful hair-pulling for me}

For five years, having just one fairly easy-going daughter made this fantasy a reality for the most part. But now we have two small children and our last big trip involved explosive diarrhea and a baby who kept trying to eat sand. I now totally understand why lots of my parent friends either don’t even bother to go away, or book the same kid-friendly resort every year and just have done with it.

But I can’t give up on holidays. They may not make it into Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but for me, they’re up there with food and shelter in terms of importance. And while the shape of travel may have changed for me now (forget reading more than one book or getting a tan), it can feel unexpectedly lovely to show little people new places.

When holidays with kids are good they feel core-memory-makingly brilliant for everyone involved. When they’re bad, you can feel like you’ve just dropped a few grand only to spend the week counting the days until you can go home.

I’m still figuring out what kind of family trips suit us best, but here are some things that have made travelling with small children easier for me:

Back to black

Portable blackout blinds are an essential bit of kit when travelling with kids. One friend, who now has grown-up children, still takes them when she goes on holiday in case the hotel has rubbish curtains and she wants a proper lie-in. We used to travel with two portable blinds so that we could make a little tent around the crib, but then I discovered this pop-up shade called Cozigo which is a game-changer. It’s perfect for the bassinet on the plane, to chuck over the travel cot or to put over the pram. We actually rented ours from Tiny Explorers but we loved it so much we bought one.

Snacks are everything

However many you think you need, take more. Hide them in places you will forget about, until you really need them (coat pockets, your make-up bag, your bra). They will buy you moments of peace and/or you can eat them too when you inevitably get hangry because the flight is delayed.

In travel sickness…

Frankie Graddon’s brilliant Substack MUMISH gave me the genius tip to pack a man’s size t-shirt in your hand luggage just in case you - or your partner - get vomited on. She also alerted me to these absorbent sick bags which turn puke into gel. Weirdly fascinated by this so if anyone has tried them let me know!

Improvise!

I remember once reading about a blogger who packed a new toy in her carry-on for every hour of the flight and hands out ear plugs to fellow passengers with a note saying “sorry”. That sounds like a lot of hard work to me. New toys are a great idea, but my kids have been equally entertained on a flight by an empty water bottle and a plastic cup. And hopefully there’s a kindly old person or an energetic young person who wants to play Peekaboo with your baby.

Trust me on the Calpol

When babies fall ill it can happen really quickly (thankfully they usually recover just as fast) which means you want decent health insurance and also to upgrade your travel first aid kit with some baby essentials. You can buy most things where you’re going so you do not need to take a suitcase full of nappies and wet wipes, just enough for the journey and your first day. But make sure you have Calpol on the flight with you, as just sucking on the plastic syringe can really help with the sinus pain you get on take-off and landing.

If you’ve just got one baby…

You don’t need to splash out on a two-bedroom apartment or a family suite in a hotel, when most of the time the bathroom in a standard hotel room is big enough to double up as a baby’s bedroom. It’s often the coolest, quietest and darkest room too which is a bonus. If you have a noisy electric toothbrush, you might want to rethink this. Or brush outside with a makeshift sink made from an ice bucket. This is the closest I will ever get to camping now.

Adjust expectations

I totally get that if you’re waking up at 6am every day it doesn’t feel like much of a holiday, but there are pros to travelling with kids (not least that you’ll be the first person at the breakfast buffet every day). I find that holidays with children benefit from low expectations and removing a few activities from your itinerary. If you end up doing more then it’s a bonus. And perhaps you don’t even think of it as a vacation (given you’ll still be doing most of the grunt work you do at home), more of a change of scene. Don’t underestimate the benefits of just having new stuff to look at.

Enjoy it!

It can be annoying when people say this but kids really do take so many of their cues from the giants around them. In my experience if you’re feeling anxious and stressed, your baby can get a bit aggy too and then you feel more anxious and stressed and it’s a vicious cycle. It’s not always easy to calm yourself down, but deep breathing somehow overrides your brain. Try not to let thoughts spiral ahead into the future, stay in the present. And remember, even the most hellish journey has to end eventually.

Happy holidays!

This week I’ve been…

Reading: This piece in The New Yorker about “admin parties”, where people get together with strangers or friends to snack and have wine while completing their to-do lists. At first I kind of loved this concept but then I thought it seems like a sad waste of a night out. Your to-do list can wait, catch up with your mates instead.

Loving: Navy Grey. Their plain white long-sleeve t-shirt is now the only thing I want to wear. It washes brilliantly and goes with everything. I find it annoying when people talk about “the perfect white t-shirt” but this might be it.

Panicking… about how we still haven’t booked a summer holiday. I think because the weather’s been so great in the UK I haven’t been craving sunshine like I would be normally, but I think with six weeks’ off school we’re going to need to go … somewhere. If anyone has been somewhere lovely with kids can they tell me about it please?

With a jolt I realised that all this pickiness - very unusual for me, a person who will eat food that’s 5 days past its sell-by-date and has also been dropped on the floor - revealed something surprising: maybe I don’t want my baby daughter, Harper, to be looked after by anyone else.

^{Attila Manek}

Weirdly I never had these feelings with my first daughter, Blake. I was desperate to get back to work and when she turned one I blithely chucked her off to a childminder my friend had recommended. I didn’t even bother visiting a single nursery as where I live, you had to have put their names down in utero and one was so ludicrously fancy they called their arts and crafts table “The Atelier” (this is not a joke).

So I have no idea why I’m overthinking things so much this time around. I wonder if it’s because professionally I feel a bit lost. Sometimes I envy my mum friends who have “proper jobs” to go back to, with fixed hours and a set start date. For them, the end of maternity leave is an immutable prospect - planned months in advance and prepped for accordingly.

But when you’re freelance like me, it’s all a bit more ad hoc. I’m dropping Harper off with someone else at a random time determined by me in the vague hope that I’ll be busy enough to pay for childcare. And it all feels very vague at the moment.

As someone who loves and feels very defined by their job, I never ever thought I’d want to become a stay-at-home mum, but having had a second child, the mum-stuff feels ever harder to get done alongside all the other life stuff.

I know that for many people, the choice is made for them, given childcare costs have risen so much and access to flexible working has decreased. According to a study by The Fawcett Society, 1 in 10 mothers of children under 4 handed in their notice in 2023, and twice that number “considered doing so”.

Perhaps whatever your work situation is, you both dread and crave the moment when you’re not with your baby 24/7. The idea that it won’t be my face she’s slapping with her tiny little hands (she doesn’t even have knuckles yet, only cute divots!) makes me want to puke. Will someone I only vaguely know watch her take her first steps? Will they be able to comfort her when she cries?

And yet I also long for more brain stimulation than the endless churn of wiping and feeding and Shush-ing that is full-time baby zone. I miss the excitement I feel when work is going well and the “in-the-flow” enjoyment I get from sitting at my laptop tapping out a feature I’m proud of. She’s 10 months’ old now and it’s getting harder and harder to fit my work stuff - and my “me stuff” - into her nap times or when my partner can take her out.

I know that when she turns one in a couple of months, she’ll need more stimulation and socialisation than me taking her to a coffee shop for a matcha latte every day. But I also know that I’ll probably weep when I drop her off. And spend most of the next eight hours looking at pictures of her on my phone. I guess no one said motherhood was easy.

There’s this great little place I know in… Cape Town

Earlier this year we took our first holiday as a family of four to South Africa. I instantly loved Cape Town, which wasn’t really surprising as I have never met a beach city I didn’t like. At times it reminded me of LA (but half the price), at others it felt a bit like Miami meets Margate, but it was also completely unlike anywhere I’d ever been before - not least because the mountains are so close to all the action.

Here are three spots I am still thinking about…

Arthur’s Mini Super - The area of Seapoint is full of cool and kitsch little cafes, but this tiny supermarket slash brunch spot was my favourite. If only because the menu includes a “Jennifer Aniston Salad” (IYKYK)

Zeitz MOCAA - built out of an abandoned grain silo, this concrete cathedral (with fun glass elevators!) is the first ever major institution dedicated to African artists and also one of the most spectacular galleries I’ve ever been to.

The Codfather - don’t be put off by the name which sounds like it should be a dodgy provincial fish and chip shop. This Cape Town institution isn’t so much a restaurant as a whole experience. No menus, just head to the counter to choose your seafood and pick your sides. Langoustines as big as your head drenched in garlic butter was one of the best things I ate all holiday.

A massive thank you to everyone who has subscribed to An Open Book, but special hi-fives if you’ve become a paid subscriber.

It means so much to me that people value my writing and I know there’s never been more demands on your eyeballs, wallets and attention spans so deep gratitude for spending yours here.

Since then I’ve written a lot of articles about the topic, and I’ve interviewed many divorce lawyers, mediators, relationship therapists and child psychologists.

I thought I’d compile a few bits of the advice I found useful in the hope it might help someone else - around 42% of marriages end in divorce so chances are you or someone you know is going through this right now.

Divorce is not a fun process (it’s a horrible cocktail of grief, upheaval and very boring admin) but I do think it’s possible for it to end up being a positive experience if you can untangle your lives with respect and kindness.

#1 Don’t get a lawyer

At least, not right away. You might currently be feeling very bitter and in a “don’t get mad, get everything” mindset. Or - like me at the end of my marriage - be feeling very guilty for being the one to end things and so just want to run away with nothing. Neither of these are very healthy places to be.

There are lots of different experts who can help you navigate divorce that aren’t family lawyers (who can often charge eye-watering sums per hour). There are mediators, therapists, divorce consultants, apps such as Amicable.

One person I always recommend to my friends is Laura Rosefield. Her clients call her a “divorce doula”. She trained as a lawyer but now gives advice on every stage of the process. (I wrote about her for The Times if you want to read more). One key tip really stuck with me from her: “Nobody ever knows that the divorce, the arrangements for the children and the finances are three separate legal processes,” she says. “So I draw on a pad three columns so my clients get that straight.”

#2 Do go on the apps

But take them with a big pinch of salt. When I got divorced I had never been on a dating app before and so I downloaded them all and then veered between kid-in-a-candy-store excitement and abject depression. They can be a fun distraction for a while but don’t get stuck thinking that’s the only way you’ll ever meet someone.

I always approached the dates I went on with curiosity and the outlook that it’s always interesting to meet new people. But a break up is an opportunity to figure out who you are on your own rather than rushing into the next big relationship. Which brings me on to my next point…

#3 Invest in a good vibe

If you’re used to having a long-term partner, being on your own can suddenly feel like a very lonely place to be. But going on a rampant one-night-stand-fest can be a bit time-consuming and you won’t always have the energy. Taking control of your own sexual pleasure feels really empowering and there’s never been a better time to invest in a vibrator. Gone are the days of rabbit-shaped sex toys in lurid pink packaging, today’s stylishly-designed ‘sex tech’ use the latest innovation and look more like luxury beauty products. My personal recommendation is a Lelo Sona (never fails) but discovering ‘The One’ for you is all part of the fun. There’s also a wealth of sex-positive, female-focused pornography and erotic podcasts to tune into. I highly recommend making your own sexual pleasure a regular part of your self-care routine whether you’re getting divorced or not.

#4 The kids are alright

When I got divorced we didn’t have any children and so I was spared what has to be one of the most painful parts of the process - telling your kids you’re splitting up and dealing with the fallout.

I always remember a divorce lawyer I interviewed telling me she instructs her clients to keep a picture of their kids on the negotiating table because so many people forget to prioritise them in the heat of the battle.

Divorce doesn’t have to damage children if handled in an age-appropriate way. All the research on the impact of divorce on children shows that it’s actually not divorce that’s the problem, it’s exposure to parental conflict. I really recommend the child psychologist Dr Martha and her podcast episode “How Do I Talk To My Children About Our Separation?”.

#5 Read this book

There’s no escaping the fact that going through a divorce is painful. Studies have found that a marriage split comes second only to the death of a partner or a child in terms of stress. But instead of trying to cling on to your old life and keep everything the same, dive into this opportunity for reinvention. A friend lent me the book When You’re Falling, Dive by Mark Matousek when I was peak-heartbreak and I found it very inspiring to try and reframe life’s painful moments as opportunities to shake things up. It’s very easy for life to get routine and humdrum and it’s only in these big, eviscerating changes like divorce or death or birth that we have a chance to step outside of that. Don’t waste it. And good luck.

There’s this great little place I know in… Cornwall

Bookmark these reccos for your next trip

In May we hit the holiday jackpot by booking a week in Cornwall which happened to coincide with a mega heatwave. When the sun is shining I don’t think you can beat a pretty Cornish seaside village and Mousehole (pronounced “Mow-zul”) in West Cornwall comes pretty close to perfect. If you find yourself here, make sure you check out…

2 Fore Street: this seafood restaurant is apparently Kate Winslet’s favourite place to eat in the world. Their deli around the corner also does incredible crab sandwiches.

Newlyn Filmhouse: technically in the next village to Mousehole, but this 19th-century fish cellar that’s been turned into an indy cinema is too lovely to miss.

The Old Coastguard: the clifftop garden of this hotel is the place for a sundowner (preferably after spending all day in the tidal pool below).

My so-called writing life

I’m not sure why, but this week I haven’t even been able to think about the novel I’m trying to write, let alone actually write or edit anything. Between the heatwave, this Substack, the World Cup and just life in general it always gets pushed to the bottom of my to-do list, and before I know it seven days have passed and I’ve not even opened the word document.

_{Leonid Pasternak’s depiction of Writer’s Block}

The longer I leave it, the scarier it feels to even get started again. Does anyone have any tips on pushing through this? My partner Guy has just taken our baby Harper out for a walk so I can publish this Substack and my daughter Blake is at school (although the summer holidays loom!) Maybe now is a good moment to just open it up for a read…. It’s now or never!

See you next week!

Kate x

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I’ve been a journalist for 20 years and during that time I’ve written about everything going on in my life.

I’ve detailed my divorce, two miscarriages, mid-life burn out, the death of my father, going through IVF, and my estrangement from my mother.

I’ve written about pregnancy sex, post-baby sex, post-divorce sex, why I wish I’d had more one night stands. Spare a thought for my mother-in-law who often reads my work.

For the past six years I’ve had a weekly column in a national magazine called Fabulous and no topic has been off limits.

Although I’m not up there with Liz Jones (the Daily Mail columnist who famously wrote about her eating disorders, her facelift, her bankruptcy, and trying to impregnate herself with stolen sperm), I have told millions of strangers very intimate details about my life on a weekly basis.

When I look back on the first column I wrote in April 2020, it feels like it was written by a different person. Not only because the writing is a bit clunky. I actually use the words: “Life is like a cake” (yes, really).

I’d recently got divorced after only a year of being married (you can read more about that here if you’re interested) and my first column was about wondering if I’d left it too late to become a mother.

Now I’m 41, and have two kids (Blake, 5, and Harper, 9 months) and it feels a bit ridiculous that at 34 I thought I was over the fertility cliff - although in fairness, Harper was bloody hard to make happen, hence the IVF.

Although one silver lining of that was that it provided lots of column fodder. I’m (sort of) joking. Because the truth is that whenever something bad or annoying happens to me, I always have a little voice in the back of my head going “well, at least I’ll get an article out of it”. Writing about my painful moments helped me make sense of them, and they also turned out to be the ones that people really connected with.

Sometimes I am painfully aware that the things I write about often don’t just affect me, but lots of other people in my life, many of whom didn’t sign up for having their personal life spilled all over the newspapers.

I always try and ask friends and family first if I’m going to be writing about them, and I often change their name to protect their privacy. Friends will often ask when I’m going to write about them, and when I wrote about a friend who only talked about herself about twenty mates messaged me, worried it was them (it wasn’t).

There’s a lot of discussion about whether confessional writing like this is exploitative. Whether it’s OK that women - and it does often seem to be women - feel they have to package up their pain for public consumption in exchange for payment or likes.

But for me it’s a kind of therapy, a way to feel less alone, a way to break down taboos about subjects that still carry a lot of stigma for women. It’s also always these pieces where I write about myself and make myself vulnerable that really resonate with people. I still get messages about a piece I wrote seven years ago about getting divorced in your early thirties. I would like to think it can also help people reading about these topics to know others have been through it, too.

I think this is what compels me to write about my masturbation habits, my pregnancy piles and my mum rage. There’s something intensely bonding and beautiful about oversharing that makes you instantly feel connected to someone in a way that many years of coffees and polite conversation can’t come close to.

I seek out fellow oversharers in my friends, too. One of the first times I met one of my best mum friends, she casually dropped into conversation that her husband has a massive penis while we were in a baby singing class.

And when celebrities overshare it is one of life’s great delights. Think of Prince Harry telling the world about his frostbitten penis, and Kim Kardashian laying bare about pretty much everything. When it comes to artists I love the ones who mine their life for material, from Sylvia Plath to Frida Kahlo, Lily Allen to Tracey Emin.

I’m looking forward to sharing more intimate details of my life here - this time with no editor and no filter. If my TMI sounds like something you’d enjoy, please subscribe so you never miss a post.

Oversharing is caring!

There’s this great little place I know in… Folkestone

Bookmark these reccos for your next trip

A few years ago I felt like all my London friends were moving to the Kent coast for sea, space and sourdough that didn’t cost a tenner. But the great upside of this has been getting to visit them on weekends. If you find yourself in Folkestone this summer here are the spots to check out (courtesy of my mate Ella who knows her way around a fancy pastry)...

Mugs: Cafe in a carpark - their banana bread with cherry compote and Greek yoghurt is the thing to order.

Herbert’s: the best coffee and ice cream in town.

The Potting Shed: A cool clothes shop with a hidden cocktail bar in the back.

My so-called writing life

I had an idea for a novel on my honeymoon back in 2017 and nearly ten years later I am finally getting around to trying to write it (along with being a pro oversharer I am a great procrastinator). Despite writing for a living and having already published three books (this, this and this) I’m finding it really hard to write fiction for the first time. I have no agent or publisher yet, so it very much feels like a shot in the dark.

At the moment I’m still on my first draft - it’s 35,000 words long - sometimes I think it’s terrible and I’m wasting my time. Other times I have a sneaky little hope that it’s pretty great. Trying to carve out time to write sometimes feels impossible with two small children. I’d love to hear from you if you’re also writing a long-form project right now. It’s a lonely old game being a writer sometimes, so I’ll be sharing any tips and tricks that work for me here.

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