From Health Visitor to Bespoke Baker, Lynsey Bleakley, on The Second Chapter podcast
* Content warning: miscarriage.*
Kristin : Hi Lynsey, thank you so much for joining me today. How are you?
Lynsey: I'm very good. Thank you. And thank you for having me.
Kristin : Yes, this is really exciting because I feel like your current career-slash-business is like the dream business… I wanted to say for everyone, but I don't want to speak for everyone, cause I've had lots of people on the show that have what maybe it's their now dream career. But I have to tell you, it ranks really highly as one of mine.
Lynsey: It is very good. I have to say I am very lucky and I do. I count my blessings often. I definitely do.
Kristin : So you started a bakery, your own bakery. How long ago?
Lynsey: I didn't intend it to be a business. It just evolved that way. I worked for the NHS for nearly eighteen years, I was a nurse and then I was a health visitor. And for lots of reasons, it just wasn't, it wasn't good for me anymore. So I left. In that impulsive way that you do with nothing to go to, nowhere to go.
And and I started to really concentrate and look after myself as part of that. I was having CBT and my wonderful therapist Alastair had said to me, “you're gonna have to find something to do. You can't sit and watch daytime TV all day. You need to find something to occupy your anxious mind.” he said, “an idle mind, is an anxious mind”.
I always enjoyed baking. I would have baked when I was little with my mom and loved it. She's an amazing baker. My nanny was a fantastic baker, so that's kind of just something that's been on our family. So I started to bake a bit more frequently. And more and more frequently. Then I was baking and I was giving parcels to my parents, to my husband's parents, to my friends, my neighbours, because it was… Baking is very simple and it's very straightforward, but you have to concentrate. So that concentrating on that meant that I wasn't concentrating on the things that I didn't want to concentrate on.
So I found the days that I baked, I felt much better in myself. And so then James, my husband, said to me, “do you think you might start to sell some of the things that you're making?”
Kristin : So we stop eating them all!
Lynsey: Yeah, we'd gone down to having one income and I was baking it all away. So we kinda thought, gosh, could we do this as a as a, maybe like a hobby business, I wasn't thinking kind of long-term I was just thinking here and now. I thought well, I could make a few cakes for children's parties. I could make a few buns. And that was the kind of early plan and nothing more serious than that. And then… so we only really got off the ground as a business when the pandemic started to kick off. And with that, we were just- goodness me- catapulted. It was quite scary at times because we just became so, so, so busy so quickly. My husband built the website, so because people weren't able to have parties and they weren't able to have events and things. People switched to online gifting. So my husband rustles up a website.
He never built a website in his life, but he built a website and we started to think about what we could sell online. Hence where I posted brownies all around the country and biscuits, that kind of thing, actually. Yes. It's been such a steep learning curve because I went from being health visitor to running a business which was just, goodness me, I never expected it.
And I really had to learn quickly and learn on my feet.
Kristin : So I want to go back to that health visitor and what you were doing before there. I have a million questions about the bakery as well. And I have to tell the listeners about my brownie experience, but I won't go there yet.
Lynsey: Okay.
Kristin : But yes, I would love to know a little bit more about where you originally started.
How you went into the NHS and how that all happened.
Lynsey: Do you know? When I think back to where my career has gone everything has always evolved naturally. I think that the things were meant to happen when they did. When I left school, I didn't go to university. And so I worked in the bank for a while and then I had my daughter, she is 20 now. And when she was born, a health visitor came to see me and I just thought what a wonderful job, but that's just the most amazing job. Visiting mummies and babies. And I thought how fabulous! And I can remember like, googling in those days- a long time ago- what do you have to do upstairs to the desktop dial-up? What do you have to do to be a health visitor? And you had to be a nurse and I thought, oh gosh, that's a big move to do your nursing degree.
But I really didn't enjoy the bank at all. It just It was just something that I found myself in. Then I left the bank. I do have a track record of leaving things before I have something else…
Kristin : I'll interject and say that the way we even came together was because you answered someone on Twitter saying that you left jobs without having something else to do.
Lynsey: Yes! So I wouldn't advise anybody to do it, it's so reckless, but I've been really fortunate that it worked for me so far. So yes, I left the bank and I got at that stage, Yasmine was tiny. And I I didn't really want to leave her. But she was about a year old and I find a job doing admin work in our local hospital.
And I really enjoyed it, but I found that I wanted to be on the other side of the desk. I wanted to be with the patients. So she was two and I applied to university and did my nursing degree. And I loved it. I really loved it. I think. How did I do that? And I was a single parent. So it was, yeah, quite a challenge, but I loved it.
Then I worked in the A & E department for awhile. And then the opportunity came up to work in the health visiting team as a nurse. And so I went there again, it just evolved, it just it happened. I was working as a nurse in their team and the opportunity came up to do the course.
So to become a health visitor, you have to do a further year at university as a post-grad. And so I went to, I went and did my post-grad training and I was attached to a teacher practitioner health visitor. And she was the girl that was my health visitor, whose job I had thought absolutely love to have.
So it all just felt like it was written in the stars. And
Kristin : No one can see my face, but it is just it's just like karma or not even karma... kismet.
Lynsey: Do you know? It really was. It was just and I have to say, I really did love my job. I felt really passionate about what I did. And I was able to support women at such a special and such a, sometimes such a difficult time in their life when they've got a new baby. And I really did. I thrived off of really, really enjoyed it.
And I got a lot out of it. Yeah, I did. I felt like it was meant to be. But then life took a very different turn and I met my husband, James, and we wanted to have lots of children and that didn't happen. Unfortunately, we had lots of difficulties in getting pregnant and then we had four miscarriages.
So whilst I loved my job, it became the source of so much pain. Visiting women with babies, when I, I, we couldn't have our own and having lost four. It was just terrible. It was just even when I think about it now, it still makes me really emotional.
Kristin : How long was the, how long was the course of time when all this was going on, that you were trying to have a baby and?
Lynsey: We tried for two years unsuccessfully, and then I got pregnant and it was such a shock. But I lost that baby. And then I had some pretty significant complications and I ended up in hospital for six weeks after. And then I had another miscarriage kind of a number of months after that. And then the following year, I had another two.
So in the space of two years, I lost four babies and I had that six week period in hospital. It took me a long time to recover from that physically and emotionally. By the time we had the fourth one and then I had more complications, physical complications after that. And I was just completely and utterly done. I was broken emotionally, physically. I was so, so anxious and every single day, every minute of every day, I just felt this overwhelming suffocating anxiety and going to work was, it was just complete torture going into people's houses and listening to them, talking about their babies and knowing that would never be James and I. I can remember sitting in the car park at work in the mornings and crying and not wanting to go into my office.
But I have felt there's something about nursing where there, you feel like it’s, it defines who you are. I was Lynsey, the health visitor. I wasn't just Lynsey, I was Lynsey the health visitor. So people know you know, people stop you in the street, they stop you in the shop, oh, do you remember so-and-so with my baby? And, Oh, he's at school now... It's part of who you are. And it didn't enter my head at that point that I would ever NOT be a health visitor. But then people started saying to me, why are you doing that job? Why are you doing it when it's clearly hurting you so much? And it took me a long time to accept that I wasn't just going to wish that away. And then my mom had a really kind of stern word with me and she said, look enough is enough. You can't keep doing this. You're really hurting yourself. And so yes, I went into my manager. I said to her, I can't do this anymore.
And yeah. And I remember her referring me to occupational health and the occupational health nurse said to me, You can't give up your nursing career. So was it better for me to stay, to do something for another 30 years that was actually slowly destroying me or to make a sensible decision for the sake of myself?
My sanity, my husband's my, my daughter and leave?
Kristin : I have to say, too, you're not the first person that I've spoken to that has been a nurse. And just whether it was because something else called to them or whether it was because like you obviously. Like you said, why would you stay when it was mentally killing you? But it is definitely something that defines people, I think when they're doing it.
So I can imagine that it would have been very difficult.
Lynsey: I did find it very strange that period of time after I left. When I didn't know what I was going to do. Who was I? If I wasn't going to do the health visitor anymore? I didn't have anything. And I did feel very lost.
I felt like it was who I was. So that was definitely a big adjustment. But I think then when Bumble & Goose started to evolve, I stopped thinking about all that and it didn't, it wasn't relevant anymore. And I suppose it probably took me a while to think of myself as a business owner rather than a baker, but I'm obviously both.
But I do, I think very much, certainly from my personal experience where I have gone in my life with my career has evolved naturally without me pushing it in a certain direction. And I definitely feel like, now what I'm doing is where I'm meant to be. And I remember I Alastair again, my CBT therapist, saying to me be very careful when you go from a career like nursing and health visitor, and you get so much feedback you know, you get to see that what you do. If you're supporting a mum with postnatal depression, then you see her through that journey. You get so much from that. You get so much. You don't do it for you don't do it for the feedback, but you get a sense of satisfaction. That you're able to support somebody at a really difficult time. And Alastair said you need to be careful because you will be used to that. You've had that level of kind of feedback from your career for a long time.
But in a different kind of way, what I'm doing now gives me such an enormous sense of joy because people get so much joy from the things that I bake for them. So yes, I'm not nursing them when they're really ill or I'm not you know, but it's different. And especially through the pandemic. We've been sending gifts all over the country for people who can't see their loved ones or their friends and so I feel like I'm kind of a facilitator of that the sentiment behind it. Every day I sit and it takes me about an hour to write all the little notes that go in with all of the the gifts and it's “lovely I miss you, you’re fab, sending you a hug until I can give you a hug in person”. We made housewarming biscuits for a 102 year old lady at the beginning of the pandemic. Her granddaughter contacted me and asked me because she was living in a residential home.
And they wanted to keep her safe from the risk of contracting COVID. So they moved her and two of the other residents into little kind of apartments, little sheltered apartments. So they had interlocking doors. And so we sent her these housewarming biscuits and she phoned up her granddaughter and she said, "Oh, thank you so much. They're lovely. I'm sitting here with two friends and we're all having a cup of tea and a biscuit,” and she said, “but I can tell you, this is the last time I'm moving house”.
It's just. It's a different way of being able to support people. And obviously I'm involved at a time generally that's happier occasions to celebrate: birthdays mother's day, father's day, that kind of thing. But it's so it is, it's so lovely. So it's just a different kind of way to help people,
Kristin : This is a good moment for me to say I was lucky enough to get a package in the mail this morning.
Lynsey: Well, were you?
Kristin : Yes, I videoed an unboxing, so everyone can also see the joy and you can get the feedback from my eyes, but I have to say… so Lynsey sent me a box of brownies and I wanted to give you the feedback that maybe you were craving after not being a nurse for a while. I just don't even have words because I was. Dying. There are so well… I have to say that I was really good. I only ate one and I have to tell you this, those of you who are listening, they are just these gorgeous big fudgy. Oh my God. Yes. So I did restrict myself to one so far today, but
Lynsey: Ah, that’s good.
Kristin : wow.
Lynsey: That's good. They'll stay fresh for two weeks so don't worry. You have lots of time to eat them. Yeah
Kristin : And you mentioned before we started recording about storing them. So that's a great tip if you'd like to share with the listeners.
Lynsey: Absolutely. Brownies should be kept, I think, in the fridge, they are so much nicer when they're cold. It's a bit because there's so much chocolate and then the really high chocolate content. So in fact, chocolate tastes better when it's cold, just like brownies. So you don't need to heat them. You don't need ice cream on them. Just pure chilled brownie right out of the fridge. Just perfect.
Kristin : And even room temperature, absolute joy.
Lynsey: Oh, that's good. That's good. There's the feedback. You're smiling. I'm smiling.
Kristin : It is like just pure happiness. I've just yes. I will shut up about that because I want to talk about you more instead of just me, like, lost for words.
About how long was there the daytime TV? And was therapy something that was instant because obviously having worked, in health care, you knew about mental health, presumably?
Lynsey: Oh, absolutely very much.
So I supported, gosh, over the years supported countless women through difficulties, with their mental health. So I had been having CBT for probably about two years. And from early on after my first miscarriage, I started having CBT and that went on for quite a long time. But at that stage, I thought that I would, I didn't enter my head that I wouldn't go back to my my visiting job.
The benefits of it. I, Completely blows my mind. The benefit of it. It just enables you to think about your anxiety in a different way and to label it which is something I think for a long time I ran from it. It frightened me, but what the CBT helped me do was accept that I’m really anxious today. I don't like it, but it won't last forever.
And then you make it less of a big, scary monster living over you. But yeah, so I went weekly for a very long time and then fortnightly and monthly. I'm not, I still would check in with Alastair if I feel overwhelmed. I’m happy to pick up on an appointment with them, because I never want to get to that place again where I, felt so so anxious every single minute of every single day. I used to wake up in the middle of the night shaking. So there was never any peace or rest from it. And I don't ever want to go to that place again. So I'm very conscious of looking after myself emotionally. I meditate every day. I go for walks every day. And very mindful of, of looking after myself emotionally.
Kristin : I'm glad that you, you've done that because I think, especially having someone say to you, how can you leave nursing?
And someone question that decision.
Lynsey: That was very difficult because it was a really difficult decision to make. And then to have someone question? I did find that very difficult because at that stage, I didn't have any confidence. I didn't have any self-esteem. I didn't feel capable of making any decisions about what to have for my lunch, never mind what to do for the rest of my life. I did feel very undermined by what she said. But your career, what you do, you takes up such a huge portion of your life and it shouldn't be something that... that hurts you. It really shouldn't. I mean I worked with the NHS for nearly 18 years, that's a long time.
And I think if somebody said to me in the street, I worked for the NHS for 18 years. I say, gosh, that's great. Well done. I wouldn't try to take away the don't leave, leave, you know? But she was an older lady than me. And I think it probably is that old perception that you have a career, you have it for life.
Why? Who said? We all change. Changes in so many ways. Our friendships change. relationships change and evolve, and our careers can too. So there's no rule book that says the job that you have when you are young is the job that you have to retire with.
Kristin : Yeah I mean, that's the mission of this podcast is really, I mean, it's not just career changes, it's life changes, so much of life change brings about career change. Because if you're not happy in your life, you want to change your career , you need to change your life.
And I think it is such an old school mentality to say, you start this career, you work your way up, you retire. And most people don't have a normal retirement anymore either. So it's just something that you have to keep changing just to have a happy life. Really.
Lynsey: Yeah. And I think that so many people, I bumped into a girl that I worked with briefly a couple of days ago. So that's the second time I've seen her in the last few months. And she has a very similar career to the one that I left. And she said she hates it. I said, why are you still there?
And she looked at me like I was saying something ridiculous1 But it is so hard to understand how a young woman of 30 could contemplate 30-something years of something that makes her really unhappy. Careers, relationships, anything like that. If it's making you unhappy, you have to reevaluate it and think beyond the difficulty, because nobody's saying leaving a career's easy.
But sometimes you have to step out of your comfort zone for the bigger picture.
Kristin : So as far as changing careers. You mentioned that it was your husband that said, should we start selling these? Should you start, should you spending all the money on baked goods and start making some from it? Well, What kind of the challenges as you started building this business?
Lynsey: When I think about the now, it's funny you think that they're a big thing at the time, and then you move past them. and then there's another bigger one. it took me a long time, because I was feeling so not good about myself. It took me a while to fix that, but what I bake actually tastes really good and people want it and they love it.
And the feedback that we've had has been amazing so that has been lovely. And then even the kind of the, the discipline of being self-employed and it took me a long time to stop working every single minute, every single day, seven days a week.
Kristin : I hear you.
Lynsey: That was really tough. And especially because we became suddenly so busy at the start of the pandemic and I was literally working 12, 14 hours a day, seven days a week.
And then when I wasn't actually physically working and I was answering emails, I was answering inquiries messages. And that was really difficult. And I got to the stage where I thought, I actually can't do this. All day, every day, I need to have some kind of life. We can only accept a certain number of cake orders, for example, because you can only make so much in one day.
I now, I don't work Saturdays and Sundays, which is absolutely wonderful. Maybe that's unusual when you, when you work in the business that I do but the post is Monday to Friday. So most of our stuff is, is postal gifts. That's great. We send them through to Friday. Yeah, so it means then that I just, I feel like there's kind of been a bit of a definition and my career might be where I'm going, especially because my bakehouse is at the back of my own house. I needed to be clear that that's work and this is home and this is my home time and this is my work time. Yes. That was a bit of a, a life lesson. But we've definitely struck a better balance now, which is good.
Kristin : I think you mentioned to me too, that it was it that your husband built the bake house?
Lynsey: My husband and my dad built the bakehouse. Yes. It's Pretty wonderful. I have to say.
Yes, so my dad has an engineering background and so does my husband. So they built my bake house. It's absolutely wonderful. I can see it out my window and it's just like a little miniature kitchen. I didn't want it to look commercial or industrial at all. So it's got lovely peeled peg walls and sage green cupboards.
Yeah, it's really lovely. And the shelves are stacked with piles and piles of chocolate. Yes. My neighbours are always talking about the smell of chocolate wafting through the area when they go out of their house! So yes they did. And, my husband built the website as well. No IT background, but he's a very determined and very clever man.
Kristin : It's interesting as well cause you said that outside is the bakery and inside is the house and you've learned to separate it. But I don't know if people have heard there's a little, every once in a while you hear a little sound and I've seen someone coming back and forth and there's cakes. So I just love it. I just am like, I feel like I'm getting a little insight into your life here.
Lynsey: Oh, gosh, if I took it to the bakery it- never mind audio and visual. You need to be able to smell the chocolate, the smell is wafting into my kitchen.
That's a smell that I never get tired of.
Kristin : I also think you said something - the way you described your baked goods, you were like, Oh, you know, I like to make a brownie and a biscuit and whatever, but your cakes, speaking of your website, which I've been on, the cakes are, this is not like, you're like a crafty home baker. This is like, you have real artisan cake skills. How did that kind of come about? how did these crazy cakes come about?
Lynsey: I um, I don't know. I've always loved cakes.
I mean what's not to love about a cake? I just, I completely taught myself. I think we've been quite, at the start, it was, people were messaging me and can I have this cake? And then I thought, I wanted the Bumble Goose cakes to be a particular type of cake. So I like them to be tall, elegant, and and so people asked for random things as cakes. And I thought that's not really what I enjoy and I don't enjoy working with fondant and moulding and things. And I don't think I'm particularly good at it.
Whereas these ones, I just, I love them. I think that they are simple and they're more of a grownup cake, obviously. But that's okay because grownups need cake too!
Um, but yeah, I taught myself. I just practice and practice and practice and you just kind of learn what works and what doesn't.
Kristin : They're really interesting. I love them. They're beautiful. And I absolutely agree. Adults, everyone needs cake.
Lynsey: Totally. Life without cake is as awful just as as life without brownies!
Kristin : Yes, exactly. So I knew you also had mentioned to me that you were a one woman band, but almost in the opposite of so many people's pandemic stories, your business has exploded so much and you've had, to, you've really had to grow from an employee standpoint as well.
Lynsey: So we now have a little team. We have someone that does the artwork on all of our biscuits. So he does that remotely from home. we email him the design kind of brief, and then he comes back to us emails them back, which is great. Then we have four part-time bakers as well. So we're a team of six. It's lovely because at the start to go from kind of, you know, a career where you're meeting people all the time and and I was, I was baking alone quite a lot of the time and that sometimes I did think, Oh gosh, I'd love some company. But now, it's so lovely. There's always music and there's always laughter and chatter and lots of giggles. We all really enjoy what we do. The girls that I work with, they both had careers that they were really dissatisfied with, and spent year careers and they both say, sorry two are students and two are fully-fledged adults like me. I'm not going to comment on anybody's age, but they both had careers that they didn't find fulfilling. And and they both say just, it's so lovely to go and do something that's really enjoyable. And, you know, really, quite relaxed. I like a nice relaxed vibe at work. And it's all very informal. And then my daughter, she works for me , and then another girl she's a year older. She's 21, and she works part-time as well. So yeah, I don't feel like an employer as such, I know I am and I should take ownership of it, but we're such a lovely team. I like that. It feels not like employer, employee. I just feel like we're a team that work together and Everybody pitches in and we get everything done on kind of the last dash of the afternoons, get all the mail ready for the mailman coming to collect it , but yeah, there's a lovely sense of kind of camaraderie and yeah,
I've taught my daughter to love 80's pop
Kristin : I think that'll be really inspiring though, because I feel like personally I have my own thing that I tend to run myself and I've really had a hard time , figuring out what my team should exactly be. And I know that for the podcast I spoke with the end of last season Jane Porter, who is a second- or third- or fourth- career gardener. And, she's had great success, but she's now struggling because she knows she needs to build a team. And I don't always think it's that easy because it is hard when you start, thinking of yourself as an employer, it is nice to hear you say that you just have fun in your team. I think that's , that's where I would want to be.
Lynsey: And there's no kind of… I suppose we all muck in together, we all get everything done. Some days it's absolutely frantic work, and other days it's just nice and steady. I guess it matters a lot that we all feel happy and important because I think, having been in a career where I did find everything so difficult, I don't want anybody to feel like that on my watch as it were. And I've been really lucky that.
Everybody has just gelled so well, we all get on so well, and it is very relaxed. it doesn't feel like work that way. I would hate them to think of me as the boss. Okay. I’m, this is my baby, but we're a team and everybody has the same goal.
We all want everybody to have delicious brownies and biscuits to eat, enjoy, and that's really it. They're all terrified of decorating cakes, though. None of them want to learn to decorate cakes because they don't love the pressure. So the next addition to my team has to be somebody that is willing to decorate cakes.
They're all too scared. No, we can't make them.
Kristin : Okay , I did say this would be like one of my dreams. So how can I come up, live close to the sea and learn how to decorate cakes? Because, oh my gosh, for me just to like pitch a tent or something in your garden, because I will do it. Seriously. I would, like I said, one of the dreams, so yes, apprentice me, or allow me to, however you would say that I will be your apprentice.
Lynsey: Perfect. I'll send you my address.
Kristin : I mentioned that I always have somebody bring a quote and I know you brought one today, so if you wouldn't mind sharing that.
Lynsey: Yeah, I think this one I remember the first time my husband said it to me and I remember thinking, “huh”. But it applies to so many things in life and it's not anything profound. It's not some kind of literary genius, but he, I remember when things were really difficult, I was feeling really, really overwhelmed and I didn't know what to do, and I didn't know how to feel any better. And I didn't know where to go. And he said to me, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time”. And it's so true. And when you are feeling overwhelmed and when everything's closing in on you, and do you think, oh, I don't know what to do. I don't know where to go. It's just such a sensible, logical advice.
Not that I'm advising eating an elephant to the bone but… even when you know, when, when Bumble’s really busy and there's so many orders and there's so much today and there's emails answering. And it applies. It applies to so many areas of life. You just have to literally do one thing at a time because when you try to do three, it doesn't work and you just feel worse.
And yes, I have thought that my husband is a wise man. He builds houses. He builds websites, AND that he's got the saying of the day.
Kristin : And you say it's not profound, but it really is because it is the kind of thing. It's just, like you said, it's something that you can apply to almost anything , I'm sure when you were in the position that you were so filled with anxiety, it wasn't enough to make you better, but it was a great way to kind of think, you know what? I can only do so much.
Lynsey: I think because I think the world is a very overwhelming place for lots of us. And especially on the back of the pandemic,
I was reading statistics about that rise and um, mental health, particularly in younger women , and. And it is easy to feel that you have to be perfect at everything all of the time.
So much pressure from so many angles to be the perfect, everything you know, the perfect wife, the perfect girlfriend, the perfect mother, the perfect friend, the perfect daughter, and none of us are perfect, none of us. And, and I don't know where this has come from, because I don't think it was like that for our mothers. And I can say on the back of this, you know, people have been struggling working from home. They've been struggling alone and, people are in a difficult position and they might feel that they've got no no way out, and, I think sometimes just if you can take a step back and say right, the only way that I can do this is one step at a time. It's the only option.
Kristin : It's so true. And it's advice that I think so many of us need to hear. I need to hear it, I certainly think. I can say it to other people, but having somebody say it to me and hearing it, you know, really hearing it. Yeah. You don't have to be perfect because I mean, when it , it comes to everything I do, I'm so demanding of myself. And you get to the point, you have nothing left to give and then what's the point.
It's better to be able to keep giving.
Lynsey: Well, to get back to Alister again, this wise man, my CBT therapist , I can remember him saying to me, life is like a bucket of water. Everything that you do for other people is giving a glass of water out of your bucket So you're being a parent, you're being a wife, you're being good at your career, you're being a good friend, you’re supporting your neighbour. All of the things that you do, you're giving a glass of water out of your bucket. Well, what's going to happen to your bucket if you keep doing that? It’s going to run empty, so you have to keep topping up the bucket. That was something that was a big, big life lesson for me. And topping up your bucket. It doesn't have to be you know, a weekend in the South of France.
Kristin : Sometimes it's just a really good brownie.
Lynsey: Sometimes it’s a walk on the beach, you know, a chat on the phone with your friends, or nice hot bath, half an hour on your own, just peace and quiet. All of those things, all of these are your buckets, and I think that in life, we need to understand that there has to be that balance because you can't keep giving. If you don't have anything else to give, you just don't. So, I think hopefully off the back of this we’ll learn to be a little bit kinder to ourselves, a little bit kinder to each other because you know, you look at the other walk that people are walking and it's easy to think that people have a perfect life, but you don't know what struggles they've got going on underneath.
Kristin : Absolutely. Well, on that note, I feel, I just have to say, I feel so lucky that I've gotten to speak with you today, because not only that again, I'll say it one more time… I got brownies, but I just feel so lucky too, because your story is… I'm so happy that you found this joyful, joyful, I don't even want to call it a career cause it's like a joyful life. It sounds like an amazing husband and a really good… is he back there?
Hi!
Lynsey: I said to him, don't leave in I've got IT problems!
Kristin : Maybe I should say you're so lucky that the talents are, you know, well-balanced in your family,
Lynsey: That's it.
Kristin : I feel like it's always amazing with this podcast because I speak to people and sometimes it's just what I need to hear. Or, and if it's not for me, then it's definitely going to be for somebody listening. So thank you so, so much.
Lynsey: No. Thank you very much for having me. I really enjoyed talking to you. So thank you.
Kristin : Yes, same same. And you'll be hearing from me and my stomach again.
Lynsey: That's good, but yes, enjoy the other five.
Kristin : Thank you!!
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If you'd like to speak to someone about pregnancy loss or miscarriage, know you're not alone. There is information on the NHS website about a variety of resources.