I'm Shinada Moore, and you're listening to everyone on the podcast, supported by water types who are proven to be fewer than cotton wool and water and now biodegradable.

From fertilises birth pandemic parenting to taking care of ourselves here, we talk to women about their own unique experiences of motherhood, the insane joy and anxious to face the love, the laughs, the tears and the moments that we don't talk enough about.

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For me, I think I feel pride, exhaustion, disbelief, gratitude, sadness, hope, hopefully full after I emotionally eat my way through a box of chocolates, thinking of all the moments this year that I didn't think I could do us, but I did.

We did. Every mom did this Mother's Day. Take a moment for you to reflect on the year gone by. Think of one moment that you thought might break you and then think of one moment wouldn't have been possible without the pandemic, because we will emerge from this the strongest, most resilient, appreciative and most priority focused generation. Yes. And so will the children.

We are raising the to everyone who became a mom or had another one who is reaching this milestone, wishing they were a mom who missed their mom, lost their mom, who took on the role of carer, teacher, worker, chef, cleaner, appeaser, multitasker, negotiator, entertainer for builder, fixer, snack fetcher, nighttime comforter, constant worrier, and so much more than a mom who didn't know she could reach the end of another day.

Never mind a whole year of this doing her best as a mom, you have done enough.

Your best was more than enough. You are incredible. We are incredible together. We are every mom. And whether it's more than five K, another county or another country, we all miss home. And as we approach St. Patrick's Day, I'm joined by the glam shamrock, Laura Drury, to talk about her first year of motherhood in the U.K. and how much she cannot wait to touch back to an Irish soil with her little man. And as it turns out, they've been ricchiuti this summer.

We talk about her emergency C-section and recovery, returning to work after a year of mat leave in saying how hard it is knowing her family don't know her little boy as she would like them to know she will feel and she sees her next flight home to Ireland, says, looking concerned. Laura, thank you so much for joining us on everyone on the podcast, and I really wanted to talk to you today because I really wanted to represent a voice of a mother who has gone through this year but away from home and no doubt, Mrs.

Ireland so much. I would love nothing more than to just pack up that little baby, get on a flight, land here and see your flight.

Absolutely. That's like that's like the dream. And it's a like I've actually had such a dream, like as I've had it as a dream, like many times where I can literally smell the air and see the mountains when you get off the right air flight on your mind.

If I can walk in the rain into the terminal, I've seen it so many times in my head and I'm just like, when will this actually materialize? Like, when will this happen again? Like, how old will flame be? Will he be binding or Flame will be running down the stairs? I have no idea. Look, it's just it's mad because my expectation was to fly home pretty much every month of January, like I had it all mapped out.

And yet, I don't know, it's just fallen so bloody short of that. It's ridiculous.

So and of course, it doesn't it doesn't really matter if you're out of the country, out of the county, out of the five K people aren't being able to share their newborns, their babies, their experiences, the change in who they are as well. You know, like having your family see that you, the woman, aren't that same person anymore. You're this maternal, loving you, caring for this little person. It's a pride that you want to show off.

Absolutely.

Like for me, I was like, you know, I've this little longed for person in my life who we wanted for so long. And like now these here I don't get to, like, share with my family. It's absolutely mental. And it's and I'm like I'm like, you know, he is such a gift of a child. Like, he's so like funny and sweet and well-behaved. And he just like I feel so bloody proud that he's my child and I don't get to, like, show off to my parents.

They don't get to, like, cuddling and stuff like FaceTime is just not enough. But he's so used to FaceTime and his little face, like it comes on like he's so used to seeing people on screen.

But it's just like it's it's a weird little reality to them to adapt to like it. And, you know, they miss the physical contacts. And I just feel like it's going to be super hard on my grandparents and stuff. Like I know my sister finds it really hard that she doesn't get to see get to see him. But I find it really hard to get to see my niece and nephew and give them a little as well, because my sister and I obviously like our kids are like interchangeable.

Like I said, my childhood. We like her anyway. And I felt that way about her kids.

So in fact, it was my sister having kids that made me go. Actually, I do think I want to have them sooner or later. So, yeah, it's just one of those one of those things where you just feel like it's not a failure as such, but it's just a shit reality.

Take us back to because obviously Flynn Flynn was born before the world ever even heard the words. Yes. Coronavirus restrictions. Yeah.

Or the lovely luck to him both all these new vocabulary. Yeah. And so you had a glorious pregnancy. Assume the road ahead would be this maternity leave that wasn't to be now.

Yeah, he was born in the 1st December in twenty nineteen and over here in Glamour's Birmingham and he ended up having an emergency C-section after just forty hours labor where I wasn't given an epidural soon enough, even though I was begging for well they didn't have any anaesthetists for it, so I got absolutely screwed over and they kept saying, oh yes, I will be along so well.

We are liars. You're all liars, stop lying to me. And then eventually, I think it was just such a stressful situation. But he ended up getting in the wrong position and they just set his heart rate kept dropping. So they just said, we're just going to get used to it. I was like, OK, at this point I didn't know what was going on.

I was like, just get him out.

So, yeah, he was he was he was born in December. And I was really lucky, you know, like my my birthday's the 17th of December on Christmas. I'm a bit of a Christmas fiend. So I felt like my dad and my brother come over pretty much straight away and then my parents split up. So my mom came over a few days after my dad.

She was for sure got to take it in turns. And then my sister was coming over at the end of the month. So kind of everyone got to see him in December, which is really lovely.

And yeah, it was just a really magical little month for us because my my my husband James had just two weeks paternity leave, but then he'd also booked till Christmas. So he basically got the first month off. And I think having had an emergency C-section, I really needed him more than I thought. I was like, it's crazy. Like I hadn't prepared for having an emergency C-section all. I haven't even entered my mind that that would be that the birth that I would have at all, and so I wasn't at all prepared for recovery, almost like I just.

Yeah, I just wasn't. What did you find most difficult about the recovery? Like all of us. Yeah.

I mean, your your mobility is reduced. Like you just feel. I think because I wasn't mentally prepared for it, either like or physically protected, never, ever physically prepared. Like, I just there was like two weeks where after he was born, I was like, I can't really eat like that. I was like I was just kind of like, you know, I don't know, how are we going to get graphic? But, you know, like the practice for having a natural delivery and trying to get me think people know what kind of effort has to go into that.

And we're all about perineum massage has to be done. Yeah. So I was like, you know, I'm going to I'm going to do that. And hopefully, you know, my midwife to guide me through pushing and it'll all be fine.

And and. Yeah, and just to end up having a birth like that really mentally knocked me for six. And I really underestimated, I think the effect that that would have on me physically and mentally.

And like even the drive home, no one tells you that the drive home after a C-section, like even even a little dent in the road, you're like, oh my God, I can feel everything. And and yeah, like just like trying to change lanes, not me and stuff when I was just feeling like you just feel like jelly for about two weeks.

And yet James had to do most of us and obviously like left him in and out of the bed so that I could feed him and stuff like that.

So it was full of these actions were not intended or not. The chosen roofs are very difficult to get to wrap your head around. But after 40 hours of painful labor, your body has just exhausted itself, needs itself of energy, I don't think, in the tank absolutely nothing.

And so I can actually I, I, I couldn't keep anything down, like water, food. They gave me paracetamol and up like it's like all medication my body's got.

No, no, no, no. So yeah I was absolutely like absolutely at zero I'm running on empty and it is a very physical surgery.

You know, it's not just another way of giving birth. It's very intense search. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think, like, I was one of these people where, like, I was I was getting like before I got pregnant, I was kind of like super fit, like I was working out all the time. I was going walk and get in ten steps a day. I'm sorry. Like, you know, goal orientated students living world. I was probably like the best, the best it could be ten years, which, you know, might be why I got pregnant first.

But yeah, it definitely took like some getting used to, I think, adjusting to your body in pregnancy.

So I tried to keep fit as much as possible, a pregnancy. And then it's like your body just gets cold, OK?

And I was like, OK, it's really, really wasn't so far from my expectation.

But yeah, like I find women's birth stories now so interesting because I think we all have such a story to tell.

And like every birth that we that have, like I've seen to two babies, like I'm sure like, nope, no birth has been the same.

And so I'm always intrigued and I love hearing other women stories because it's like we've all been through it in some way, shape or form. But it's all it's always just that little bit different for everyone. And I really like to hear that. I think it's something we can all appreciate once we're on the other side of it.

Even when I was doing my second, I had a very rare we were we were in level three, I think, as opposed to level five. And I had a rare chance to to see a friend face to face. And we didn't know that. Actually, two days later, my waters would break. I thought I had a little bit longer, but the last thing she said to me, she was like, oh, I can't wait to hear your story.

And even though it hadn't happened. Yes, yeah. Oh, there's this. Like, how wait to hear what it's going to be and how it's going to go and how it's going to start and how it's going to end there like war stories.

They are.

But they're also they're also transformation stories. They are. Yes. It's the story of Flynn.

But you the day before and you the day after. A different people. Absolutely. Yeah.

No, it's right. It's crazy what it does to you, but it's crazy, not just what it does to your body, but to just your heart.

That's OK. Don't maybe always tell you. I complete one of the episodes we had, we had Tara, the navigation coach, which is she gives me all the time she sees Oh, she's amazing.

Yeah. And she spoke about her birth, not her birth, but her her and how she she had a lovely phrase of like the woman that walks into that hospital is not the woman that walks by, guys. And we put all this expectation on ourselves to be the people that we walked back. But that is never the case. And if we could just learn to actually be kinder and accept this new, improved version of yes, she's softer. Yes, she's more emotional.

Yes, she's kind of. Lonely and confused and overwhelmed and trying her best, and if we could love her as much as we wanted to be the old version of us, we would sail through the next few months. But there you are, kind of in, as you described in January, you are processing this new version of you at the beginning of twenty twenty and. You know, one thing, I suppose the luxuries that you just spoke about before, the connection with your family.

Yeah, the maternity leave that we all on, our first think is this glorious, endless phase of our life.

I feel like I got a taste of it and then it was robbed from me, which I don't know if that's where. It's like if you literally go in and have a long time, baby, you're not allowed to have any of it from the start. But I suppose with your daughter, who's three, you've experienced a really lovely maternity leave before. So you just know that there's one that you have now. You're like, well, this is the job for you.

Yeah, I think I think I think because I was in locked in from the moment that I got the positive pregnancy test on my second. So by the time she was actually born. I used to know this new life, I think of it as if it was stolen from me when she was just born, I think I would have found that adjustment very hard.

It was hard. Yeah, it definitely was hard, because I think as well, like for me, I'm very much like, look, I wanted to get out and I wanted to put my makeup on. And I wanted to I wanted to still be like me. And I wanted to feel like I could get my shit together and get out the door every day with my baby, whether that was like for a walk or to go somewhere to make some coffee or go to class with them.

And I just very much a lot of these people, I feel like I need to have a little bit of a purpose in my day and like that, like literally I'm that can be like I said, just get in, get Nike to work on whether that is just a walk or get my face on and go to meet somebody.

And and that's the thing as well. I think, like, you have a baby, but you you shouldn't forget who you are as well. And what makes you happy even before the baby entered the equation. Like, for me, like I don't have the luxury of and dynamite in my face for an hour anymore.

But like that used to be more like therapy, my kind of like eggless and still it and it still is. And it probably will be again in the future when I have that time back. But yeah, like you shouldn't, I think, you know, don't don't feel like you have to completely change who you are as a person to be a mother.

And I think that's probably been like that's been a fairly valuable lesson. Like I never I never actually kind of went into motherhood going, oh yeah, I'm going to be a completely different person.

I think your perspective changes, but who you are as a person isn't going to change that much.

And what makes you happy before you have your baby still going to make you happy, but your your kid is going to be your be all and end all.

And you do factor them into the equation always with don't forget, don't lose sight of who you are.

And what makes you happy is as a woman, as a person first as well, because I think that's where I think people slip it into, you know, feeling lost and feeling really depressed. Like if you find the cues of what's always made you happy, I kind of think you can go wrong and kind of use that as your anchor.

It's just that so many of those things are now being denied. Know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what's so hard.

Like if if, if what made you happy was going somewhere, doing something different and something, you know, it's it's hard to stay the full spectrum of who you were when we've been so curtailed and my family in Ireland were a huge, huge part of that as well.

I have to say, like as in like I've I've always been a very proud Irish movement, and that will never change. Like, I've always felt very happy to be the Irish girl of the rainbow over here. Like, that's always been my my persona, I guess. And, you know, I've capitalized on it to a degree with my Instagram handle, I suppose. But yeah, like I've always I've always liked Loebs go back home still, but like hanging out with my sister and going shopping.

And I have lots of lovely memories of walking up and down Grafton Street with a butcher shop at my house. And, you know, like I love I love Dublin.

And I never I never left home thinking gogia. The door was open. Like, I'm over. I'm over being like, I'm we may we may live in Ireland, but you never know.

Like, I'm always really open to the idea, but. Yeah, I mean, the fact that I just kind of missed so much time at home like this is hands down the longest time we've been away from our lives ever in my whole life.

And it's just, you know, he's been back in Ireland twice.

Was it once? Yes, he's been around twice, and how was that process of packing up and going and could you imagine being able to do it again?

The first time when I think about it was absolutely ridiculous.

He was nine weeks old before I went over on my own and on the proviso that my brother meet me at Dulles Airport on the other side.

And I was just like, I naturally somebody there straight away, because my family are factors like they would never like. I remember coming home from New Zealand after four months. There was no one at the airport to meet me. I'm like, you're all the sugar bastards. I'd have to get the bus into the city with all my bags. I'd be like, Right, I'll meet you somewhere. But they wouldn't come to the airport, for God's sake.

But this time I was like, somebody is meeting me at the airport with a car. It's all changed like a child. Actually, they're all very, very proud of you, of course. And where I was before, they're like, oh, make your own way, kids. Resilience, build, resilience, overexploiting.

Yeah, well, I got to boarding school when I was 12, so I've got to learn to be independent of life and I'm very comfortable enough to be there. And I used to do a lot of obviously traveling back and forth sort of the way I used to. I love traveling places on my own. I really like being able to and just, you know, passenger around airport duty free on my home.

I love that's oh, I would love to be on my own walking through an airport. Actually, you know something?

One of my last memories of leaving Ireland before having fled, I was over in Ireland by three and a half weeks before I was due, and it was my friend's wedding. And and I initially was like, oh, I don't think I'm going to be able to make the wedding.

But I was like, you know what? I feel fine. I'm just going to go over.

And we both went over and I remember crying on the plane on the way back being like, this is the last time I fly at my own ever.

I was like, I'll always have somebody with me, whether it's like it'll always be this little person with me because I was like, I can never I'll never do it on my own. So it was I was like saying goodbye. It's closing time now. Do you think it's kind of important to say goodbye to certain things that, you know, will never be the same again? And it just hit me like a ton of bricks like Satyanarayan, very busy.

Ryanair are pretty crazy, 37 weeks pregnant. People never going to get to do this good.

I was I to to Thailand to be greeted as a family member was there and and to have that experience of, you know, being back in Ireland. But with your son showing him.

Yeah, I was so surprised. Like I was really like he he he was an absolute dream on the plane, I have to say, like, I remember him being like when he was that little I just I just felt just before takeoff and cuddled him and he fell asleep then and he was a dream to write the house like she couldn't hear people like a couple of ladies at the front of the plane didn't even think it was a baby on the plane.

You know, and I love that.

I love like Irish. We would be like, God, you'd never know they were here. You I like. Yeah, it was just lovely. And I did lose my phone in the airport that which was annoying.

And I left it in airport security before I left Birmingham because I was just so flustered and I was like focused on getting all the baby shit that I how about, you know, basic shit for my cell phone and so before seeing my boarding pass printed out and usually I would keep them on my phone.

So I think I just have the had them printed out in advance just to be on the safe side. And but I still I think I asked somebody on the plane, I just said to could I? Because I know my brother's mobile and broke my heart. So I was able to thank God and just say so meet me at the airport. I've lost my phone and I message my husband as well. And I think the message over Facebook, I just have lost phone call airport, please, and find out if you can get it.

And he did. He managed to get it the next day. So I was like wrong. Although when I at least when I got back to the house that it was there. But, you know, having no phone when I went over, it was only seeing my family anyway.

I was just, you know, take the baby, see everyone. And I think I did like three, four days. And James, when I got back, he was like, I don't want you doing that again. Like I said, he was like, that was too long for us to be away from him with with the new baby. He was like, just how do I got. He's like, I can't I can't.

Have you guys been gone for that long?

Isn't it funny the killed the the fluster that you were just describing there and then you'll always lose something or you'll put down something in your mind has like too many tabs open. Yeah, but that is something that I found I haven't missed on this maternity leave versus my first. Yeah.

I felt like, like you. I loved having something in my day. I still wanted to feel like me. I still wanted to get up, get dressed, look, OK. And I'm not I'm not going to say good because I got no sleep. Look, OK, get in the car, get out the door, meet people, be on time, be on schedule. Like, three different things in a day. We're going to be out of babies and they we're going to do swimming.

Then I've got a lunch then. Yeah.

I packed so much in.

Yeah. So I was. Constantly on like this, like an anxious feeling of military precision and overthinking how to get to a destination and overthinking how I packed what I need completely forgetting about anything that I needed.

Oh, yeah, I can pack anything for myself. That trip I literally said to my sister sisters, like, you got me right? And she's like, yeah, I guess I literally I went over the I went over it had one change of jumper, pretty much lived in the same leggings for three days and then just kept changing.

Whereas this time round because obviously I haven't been able to go anywhere or do anything, I have kind of enjoyed not putting myself through that.

Yeah. To be fair, I don't know if we'll ever have to go back to the life that we really necessarily I'm I'm a big believer, actually, that, like, things have to change, but I don't necessarily see myself going back to an office full time. Certainly not. And to be honest, I'm very grateful for the fact that I'm not having to, you know, get myself. OK, look, look, office officer, get him to nursery.

I can drive to the office, no doubt battling for what would be school traffic, which in the UK, oh, my God, Jesus is awful. And then have to, like, battle our way back to get to him. And like my husband works like his office is based in the centre of Birmingham. He used to get the train every morning and he you know, he was working late and stuff like he wouldn't look. He missed that time and he literally go whole days like you plan on it would be crap.

Whereas now obviously we're so used to this working from home lifetime. I mean, I've only been back working for about a month now and my job was, you know, it's so if just feels more manageable, like, yes. You know, I miss not being able to see other women in the office who are mums and kind of feel a bit kind of like part of part of that.

And I think that's probably been the most alienating factor for me, is just feeling like I've come back to work and I'm in a team where no one else has kids. So I just feel a little bit like I had a place in that regard. But if I had been in the office, then maybe I'd be seeing the other moms leaving on time and I'd be like, OK, yeah, they're doing it so I can do it.

Whereas when you're at home and it's just your team and stuff, you're kind of like shit. Maybe I do need to work a bit like you're kind of Muslim and stay on later like they do and stuff. But I even though I don't you just get yourself into these crazy like you get into your head, you're like, well, I'm like I do a little stay on like they are.

And yeah, it's it's definitely kind of a weird, vicious cycle.

It's an adjustment that you'll have to get used to. And I think everybody else went through this back in March and April. But you were off, so you didn't want to get in touch with them. And it is a sense like there's a there's an unrealistic guilt associated with working outside at home.

Yeah, completely.

And I get that now, like, I've only gone back to work three and a half days because basically I kind of I didn't really want to do any more than if I thought, because I've you know, I didn't want to I didn't want to be in nursery all the time. Like, I love spending time with them. I love seeing the little person he's becoming. And for me, it was about time. And I I've always said that, like down the line, depending on how many kids we have and if we could afford it, like I would like to stay at home for a few years because I do want to raise my children myself.

I want to have a very firm. Do they become. And, you know, I've got a lot of respect for for working moms. And I've always said to a degree, to a degree, I will always work and want to contribute to my to income in the house and have my own have my own income, essentially, but not at the expense of what you I think of having so many conversations about that right now.

This year, there's been a real priority, actually, re prioritization for women. Yeah.

And I think because well, firstly, the cards fell on on on women on mothers shoulders more than most at home. And but also, I think when when as a society, your role in this hamster wheel together. And it's very hard for you to be the one to step off and say, oh, actually, could I could I go three days? It's very hard for you to to be the person to ask that first or to to take that step because.

But you're competing in this hamster wheel of. But we're all we're all dead. We're all dead. We're we're all going a million miles an hour.

Nobody's anybody and nobody's present. And we're going, oh, mindfulness. And, you know, trying to to medicate ourselves because we're just doing too much. There's just too much.

And that's what this is, that's what this whole thing is doing. And which I think in a way, you kind of have to look at it and go cause it is a bit of a blessing. It's made us all like I talked to my cousin about it through the day and like we've all had no choice but to slow down. We've all had no choice but to take a step back and look at our lives to go. Why, what life was like living and does it really suit me?

Does it really fall in line to what I want? And actually what you want to, you know, have time to think about what you want, whereas before you didn't. Yeah, so it's it's all it's all of these things where you're like, is that really important?

What's that really important? Did I really need to do I really need to have a designer? I don't really need to have those expensive trainers. And that's why they're on Depok right now. So I don't give a shit about them anymore. You know, it's it's a big, like realignment of your priorities. It's kind of slowed down some life that we all live. So we actually could finally have an opportunity to to invest in ourselves a little bit, which I think some people get and some people don't.

And but, yeah, that's something that, like kind of dawned on me really late, but I'm I feel quite grateful to kind of start doing and I'm interested to see where that's going to lead me in future.

I think there's always a fear of change.

Nobody likes change and nothing of like. Yeah, but if everything fell away tomorrow, what would matter? Yeah, we've had that. Everything fell away.

And now we know with more clarity what matters. Yeah. And I'm excited to see how people are going to like shift that work balance demand change how employers are going to finally feel. Oh yeah. We can trust a remote workforce and a flexible workforce.

They have had no choice. It has been the most amazing kind of global experiment to free up workers and to say, like, yeah, I can do this and be a parent. And I'd imagine, like having your partner home. Throughout your maternity leave, I know he was working, but having himself present. Yes, that is Dad.

It's been absolutely amazing.

Like James is such like the bond the two of them have is just it melts me. I, I absolutely like I'm not a weak person at all, but like seeing seeing them two together, I'm just like it just gets me I love it. And he's he's just like he's the dad of mine. Like he's the he's become the dad of my dreams like that. I always knew he would be like even more so like Flint is always data first before me on nobody to him he's really good.

He's a really good child. Like I said, that's what makes it even harder that I feel like people around this agency and all of my kids, you know, and you want people to fall in love with your babies.

You just want them to.

Yeah, absolutely. Like, my mom even finds it really hard being on face on because she's like she's like, I just want to cuddle them and it's just too hard, but it's just through screen, you know, it's a lonely old time for everyone.

Like, so having this chat with you this morning, like, I just not that I don't love my children, but I've had them all week.

Adult female conversation will never be something that I that I take for granted ever again. And that's kind of like that's one of the reasons why, like, I really like where my pages are on Instagram at the moment because it's kind of like I think since having fled, I've become way more of a community feel like, whereas before it was just like my creative outlet to just put up pictures of products and make them like that.

But since becoming a mom, I feel like it's become a real place where I can use it as a sounding board and like I am a bit of a aronsohn, a bit of a chatty. You know, I love giving it a bit of chocolate. It's it's the community I feel and the other women I've met that actually make it what it is for me now. And it's so much better than what I'd originally intended to be. So in the absence of home, an Ireland and family and all that, isn't that what we need right now?

We need that connection with other women and that's the thing.

And a lot of like because I'd say like 80 percent of my fellow men still Irish or I actually get a lot of messages from fellow women who are Irish abroad, too, because any time I get on it, I talk about how much I miss home and little things that I miss. And like I said, even so much as, you know, walking down the street with a Buller's hot chocolate, getting to go in for two for a while, Gerbrandt Thomas, like all these little things, that would have been second nature on a day of Dublin, like you, I'll never take them for granted again.

I hear from other women who kind of feel the same way. People in Australia, people in America and loads and loads of hotties over here in the UK just not getting to do the same and just saying, gosh, I took it for granted before. And you saying this is really kind of brought it home. So I love hearing that my love, that sense of community. And it's really it's really helped me this year massively.

How do you think it'll feel when you step onto the flight with Flynn? Oh, God, I can't even I can't even think about it right now, because, like I said, until until it's until it's actually going to happen. Like until I've actually gone on Reuters website and clicked on, paid the money. I just can't I can't picture. She isn't much like I'm just I'm and I'm trying not to picture it either because it's kind of it's too much, too much to think about.

But yeah, it will happen someday. It will happen.

And I'm an absolute believer and keep it keeping that kind of faith. But like like even getting home. Last July, we had beautiful weather. Like we we had such like we used to just walk right up here in Arklow and it's so funny. Like I don't have romantic notions about my childhood at all, but like I was really like, gosh. What a lovely place that I got to grow up in, like, oh, no, Ark-La-Tex, probably not the most Lieberstein, like when the weather's good on the beaches there and the sea side and everything, I like Jesus.

You know, like, I, I totally took it for granted, but what a lovely place to live. And I was just so proud, like I haven't seen anybody walking around.

I can't wait to hear that those tickets are booked and that flight is taking off and that you're back up for a coffee. Definitely.

They'd be more than coffee. Yeah. Befouled. And thank you for joining us this morning.

Honestly, I can't wait to hear that you're home.

Thank you very much. And yeah, I think I'll be I'll be all over my stories. Let the people know I liked your books. Don't worry. Thank you. Thanks. Tonight. Thank you.

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If you enjoy this conversation, subscribe to leave review, share this episode across social and get in touch with this week's guest, Laura, at the Grand Shamrock on Instagram. Talk to you again next week.