The Wise Why

Kirsty van den Bulk
Hello and welcome to the wise why this morning I am joined by Anne Marie Myles. I hope you have said that correctly. I always get it wrong on the surname.

Annemarie Miles
Yes, you have.

Kirsty van den Bulk
This is a standard joke now, by the way, on the wise way that I go get to the surname I go. No, it’s it’s actually a dyslexic thing. So I’m gonna give it out the way that it’s a fear that I have of getting someone’s name wrong. Because I’m dyslexic, I know. And you got that. So I really I’ve known each other for about 18 months and I have watched her journey grow and she is a brilliant, amazing, multi talented individual. But as usual, the show isn’t about me it. Is about my best so. Anne Marie, introduce yourself and the bits that you don’t want to talk about. I’ll make sure we do.

Annemarie Miles
OK. So well, so my as you can hear from the accent, I’m from Dublin in Ireland and I’m the youngest child of a family of eight children. We grew up in a household full of music and parties and gatherings. I’ve got 27 nieces and nephews, most of them living in Ireland. Some of them in far-flung places, but most of them still back where we were, all born and grew up so. But I am living in South Wales. I’m married to Richard. Richard is a church minister and sadly we have no children. But we’ve got lots of musical instruments, books and fridge magnets, and that’s what our house is full of. Fridge magnets from all over the world and yeah. So I was brought up with music. Music was a big thing in our family and spending time with each other. So we still do spend a lot of time with. Each other. I’ve got 3. Older sisters and four older brothers and me and my three sisters. We do try and get together every so often.

Kirsty van den Bulk
And I love seeing that. I it’s there’s I love the connection you have. So I come from a very extended family. There are there’s a little bit of Irish in there because I’m I if you if you cut me in half I am miss UK because. My English is not so much. So my grand my great grandfather got kicked out of Dublin, I believe, for being a naughty boy. Yeah, that’s another story for another time. Like this life experience that you have has spurred you to write stories. Not only are you a speaker, a public speaker, but you’re a wife of a minister. I mean, my goodness. Ohh and you? Coach social media to people who are petrified of technology. So how could this all come about?

Annemarie Miles
Ohh gosh, I mean I I loved I. I started blogging years ago cause I just when the when the blog when the whole blog thing. I started blogging because what I was at the time I was trying to lose weight. Now I’ve been trying to lose weight since I was 12 years old and it is a constant, uh journey for me along an ongoing journey for me. So I started to blog about food and weight and then I gave it up and I started again. And as time has gone on, writing has become. More and more important to me, I moved into fiction than when I turned 40. I I moved into fiction and started writing short stories and longer form short stories, but I I never I never made. I never made. I never made the break, never got published. Never you know. So. But I loved it. I did it because I love it and I still do it because I love it and I find it very cathartic. We find it a great way to spend time, and I I’m always I’ve got notebooks in every handbag, in every corner of the house and and so that I can scribble if I have an idea so I can scribble it down. But I had a I suppose you could call it a bit of a a breakdown. Uh, something happened. I had an emotional crash just before the pandemic, so lockdown hadn’t started. The pandemic was some it wasn’t a pandemic. It was some distant virus that was happening on the other. Side of. The world and I was really struggling. In my job I was very busy in church, very busy in war. And very stressed and I hit a wall and I went in to work one day, burst into tears. My boss sent me home. That was January of 2020. I never went back to that job. I was off on long term sick for a good while after that, but I never went back to that office job again. And during the time of the pandemic. My Christian faith is very, very important to me, and God was very, very gracious to me because I think if I’d if the church was still going and active and I wasn’t able to be active in the church, I think it would have exacerbated my stress. And I’m not saying that the pandemic happened for my benefit, but it was an opportunity for me to actually stop doing everything I was doing because literally we had to close the doors of the church as every building did, every office building, every shop, everything we shut down. So there was nothing to do. So I literally sat and. Stayed at a. Wall for a few months and then eventually started to wake up and then I thought I need to do something I I need. I need to do something I need to. My place in the world again, I need to find a passion for something. I found it very hard to write during that time. I didn’t write a word and I found it very hard to write, very hard to read for any length of time. So I was really struggling with depression and anxiety. So the in May 2021 I spotted a an ad for a tech Pixie boot camp. I thought, well, I know a bit about social media. I was always mad into computers. I met my husband on the Internet. I’ve got the Internet down. I know, you know, I I’ve got this, but maybe it’ll tell me about some trends for 2022 and maybe I could learn a bit more. And and being a part of technically has just opened up everything for me. It gave me the idea for my podcast. It gave me the confidence to actually go down the road of encouraging people in smart technology in the Internet, which I’d been doing anywhere during lockdown. You know, you’re on mute, you’re on mute, you know of it that that we were all doing so older folks in our congregation getting to grips at YouTube, getting to grips with zoom. Was on the phone to them, talking them through step by step. How to get how to connect to our services and everything. And I thought that’s I’d love to do that. I’d love to go and help people to actually get the iPad that the grandkids bought them. Get it out-of-the-box and start using it. That’s what I wanted. So. A joint check, Pixies. But as is the case with a lot of people who’ve. Joined tech Pixies. It became so much more it became a. This window to a world of opportunity and a world of my own potential that there was so much more that I could do, hence the podcast and moving into social media and then my desire to speak had always been there. Because I was raised to stand in front of a group of people and sing a song, that’s how we were raised. So all of my brothers and sisters were all pretty confident in all of that stuff because my dad would say, right, stand up straight, sing a song there. You know. So and we’d all stand in front of Granny and sing for her, so that standing in front of a group of people, it’s for me. It was a natural thing to do. And I, but I thought you know something. I actually have a message. I have something that I want to say. It was basically. You are worth working on. You know that there’s a quote I’ve seen before. You are the most important project you will ever work on. And I remember reading that and going that is my message. I’ve struggled with my weight since I was a preteen. And sometimes I start my diet again or start my healthy eating plan again every Monday morning. And if that’s what I have to do, then that’s what I have to. Do and I am worth doing that for and so the last couple of years have just been amazing. They’ve opened my eyes, not just. To the potential that’s out there, but the potential that is in here. The potential I have to make a difference to speak into people’s lives, to support people. So yeah, it’s been an amazing journey over the last few years. It really has and I’m very excited about what the next phase is. And I’m feel like I’m revving in neutral a little bit ready to launch into something. I have no idea what that is, but I’m I’m very excited about it. Anyway so.

Kirsty van den Bulk
So I have lots of friends and and it’s and I I just wanna put it out there that. Weight is an issue for a lot of people, me included, and I’m I’m I people look at me because they go. Oh yeah, you’re a size 1012. You don’t have a problem your weight. But I do. I have a massive problem in my weight because I was a dancer and I struggled to wear a leotard because when I put a leotard on or a swimming costume on, I immediately feel I am. Humongous when I look in the mirror. What I see is not what other people see. I see the girl that I used to be when I was dancing, and of course I was training lot, you know, I was at a dance school, so I was training in training, training. So I was very, very slim, slender and very, very fit. And now in my head I’m humongous and I. From a family that have always struggled with the whip off from my dad, my dad’s tiny. But it’s it’s a. It weight is something that we shouldn’t be judged on.

Annemarie Miles
You know when.

Kirsty van den Bulk
You look at somebody they could have easily have been or struggling with an eating disorder and it could be. I’ve got friends who have been make. I have got friends who have gone and. Sadly, are not here today and it does still hurt because I know exited their lives. So you know your podcast is incredible. I’m just gonna put the ticker tape on, so if you can have a look at it, which I don’t. We do. I’m hoping. I can do this, yeah. Ohh there it went.

Annemarie Miles
OK, there you go.

Kirsty van den Bulk
I love the fact that your podcast is is incredibly positive. And it’s not, it’s it’s for everyone. So I’ve deliberately put this on today because I know it’s a really difficult subject to talk about, but I want people to be able to know where to find your podcast and what is it called.

Annemarie Miles
It’s called words, wobbles and wisdom. And because I’m a writer and I love to write, and I wanted to bring some of my writing about the weight loss journey into. With and wobbles, uh refers to the physical wobbles, but also the emotional wobbles and the mental health wobbles that uh, overeating and compulsive eating and that kind of guilt that we feel about it and all that I wanted to bring all of that into it. And the wisdom because I’m a Christian, I find my wisdom in God’s word in the Bible so. I do bring that into it as well. I I don’t preach sermons, but that’s where I get my wisdom from, so I wanted. That to be part. Of it. So that’s how I came up with words, wobbles and wisdom, and that’s the title. And it’s it’s interesting what you say about you. Uh, you and your size and your weight, because I would have always thought that anybody who was, you know, any way skinnier than me had no business complaining about their weight. That’s how I used to feel. And I have nieces, you know, who’ve had children and they want to get back into this shape they were before. They have their children. And inwardly I’d be gone. Gosh, I would die to be your size. Stop complaining. Stop what? Over and over time I have come to realise that this is an issue that most women face. It doesn’t matter. You know, I know people who are only, like literally 3 or 4 LB away from their goal and they have been years trying to lose that last three or 4 LB. And they just can’t get it off and it consumes them and it ruins their day and ruins their weekend and ruins their their trip to the wedding. And all of that stuff because. All they’re thinking about is that 3 or 4 LB. And I suddenly realised, and I I wish I could remember which episode it is, but I talk about that. I talk about that kind of Hazara moment where I thought this is not just my issue. This is not just an issue for the big girls. This is an issue for lots and lots of people. I have men who listen to the podcast who have no weight on them at all and they listen because they have a thing in their lives that is not about food. It’s about something else that they wrestle with and they struggle with.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Well, food’s really powerful and and this is one of the things I mean I I. Can’t know why I know about this, but there’s food is one thing we can control as children. You know, it’s one thing that we can we can ask, we want or we we can say I don’t want. Yeah. And you know the. If you saw my underwear tore, I’m gonna say this. You would find things that are there for my fat days for my days where I’ve got to go out. I have a dress in my wardrobe that I bought a month ago, and I have. I put it on to wear somewhere and I haven’t worn it yet. And I am going to wear it and I’ve got a target for when. I’m going to wear it. When my stomach is flat enough. To wear it. What is that about?

Annemarie Miles
Yeah, I know, I.

Kirsty van den Bulk
So. So I don’t wanna just hang on about but wait. But I do think it was important that we we shared the fact that it body positivity is something that I struggle with. But I do say to myself every morning and I do look at myself and my husband knows you’re not fat. You’re you’re tiny. And I say you don’t use the word fat. And he goes, oh, for goodness sake. He said. Who? Who’s going yourself and I go. Yep.

Annemarie Miles
Yeah, yeah

Kirsty van den Bulk
So we’re going to talk about some of that, maybe some of the stuff that we that internal voice.

Annemarie Miles
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Have you got a way to switch it off?

Annemarie Miles
Yet Ohh gosh well, one of the things that. I do is I and they’re actually. This is a podcast episode. Don’t listen to yourself. Talk to yourself. Because I have a I have a constant constant running narrative going on. It’s always always running now. Ohh I I am getting control of it slowly but surely, but like 12 months ago say I it two years ago I would have this constant running narrative. You’re big. You’re huge. You look ridiculous in that top. Uh, you’re this. You’re that. You’re the whatever. You know, a constant. This this constant thing. And I would try and ignore it and I would try and block it out. And I would try and and now. I talk to myself. And God, you know something? You’re doing great. You are doing great, like in 2012, I was 24 stone. I was 2 lbs short of 24 stone. I’m doing great. I’m 51. I’m probably healthier than I’ve ever been, even though I’ve still got loads of weight to lose. I’m probably mentally and emotionally healthier than I’ve ever been, so I talk to the and I contradict that running narrative, and that’s how I deal with. It when I hear it. I don’t know. No, no, no, no, no. You’re doing great. OK. Yeah, you probably shouldn’t have eaten that this morning, but that’s it. Draw a line. You know, you didn’t run over a dog. You’re fine. Draw a line. Move on. Go for a walk. And I think it’s that. Positive and. What’s the word I’m looking for? Proactive mentoring of self that I find really, really useful. I think we do need others to speak into our lives. I think it’s great to get help and I am getting help at the moment I’m having some therapy and some nutritional coaching with someone at the moment. And it’s really really helping me, but this the importance of self mentoring and actually finding the value of yourself to say, you know something you are worth working on. You’re worth being gentle with. You are loved. You were created by God. You are loved by him and you are worth working on. And I find you speaking to that rolling narrative tends to quieten it for a while anyway.

Kirsty van den Bulk
I love it. Thank you very much for saying that. So I want to to know about who’s inspired you.

Annemarie Miles
I’m ohh gosh, I’m very inspired by my family and even though you know they’re not perfect, nobody is. I have found my my mother and father raised, you know, their eight children. They both worked and my father’s work ethic was, you know, get up for school. Get up for work and well, if your leg fell off, we’ll then pick it up. And go to.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Work so. So I’m not. I’m laughing because I’m like I’m hearing there’s so many similarities here. I should dammit my mum.

Annemarie Miles
You know, he was married. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Just. You know, and if you, if we were sick of school, Mom would have to hide us till Dad went to work. If we were still in the House because he got mad. If he took a day sick off school, it didn’t matter how sick you were, you know? But. So yeah. So I find I find you know my my older sisters have been, you know, they kind of part reared me. My mother was 41 when she had me. And I think, you know, I was #8 and. She had the guts full of the child rearing and my older sisters were young mums at the time, so I spent as much time with them as I did. At home. So I you know, they’ve I’m still due uh, pour in to my life and they’re really instrumental in, you know, in keeping me, keeping me in clothes and keeping me in treats and. Stuff like that. They still spoil the baby and the family and another person who I don’t have anymore in my life. Well, and I only knew him for for three years with my father-in-law, he was probably the nicest Christian man I ever met, a very godly, very gentle and quiet but. Just faithful, man, he he had been ill and was recovering from an illness when I met Richard and got to know him and he uh he died about three years after I met him and that was like 2324 years ago and still I miss him every day like he was such. He was such an inspiration to me and he was so faithful and quietly faith. And in his Christian life, and and just in his, just in the way he was. And he was such an example. And he was an example to other people in my family. My mother used to say, whenever I feel down, I think of Bernard. And I think how faithful he is and how, you know, trusting he is. And he he just was an inspiration to so many people, a quiet inspiration. You know, there’s no plaque with his name on it anywhere, but he made a massive difference too. A lot of us in the family and we. Miss him. Still, 20 odd years later, we miss him. Terribly so for me it’s it’s less, uh, kind of the big names that everybody would know and more people that have spoken directly. Into my life and people who’ve, you know, impacted me and I have to, I have to mention, Joy Foster, who is the head of type Pixies because. She’s she’s just so super generous. And I tech Pixie says, like I say, has just opened a massive door of opportunities and belief in myself. And it’s so much. I mean, it’s social media coaching, but it’s so much more than that and very quickly became a lot more than that, a wonderful community of women who are supporting each other. Yeah, so it’s.

Kirsty van den Bulk
I think.

Annemarie Miles
It’s people like I. One to one connections to it.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Yeah, I was going to say I think what’s really special, you know, I’ve I’ve got to know you over the last 18 months or or however long it is. And I’ve always seen that you lift people up and even I think we’ve all had moments. I mean, the pandemic was particularly difficult for me. I’ve been where you are with where you’ve walked into the office. I’ve I’ve felt worse than that. I was at work to do and had one extra glass of wine and turned round and could not control the tears that were in my eyes and my colleague.

Annemarie Miles
Oh gosh.

Kirsty van den Bulk
John Mr. Hill, who grabbed me and went, goes bed now. No, I hadn’t actually drunk. It wasn’t alcohol, it was purely I was so at the end of my rope, I was. I was exhausted. I was trying to balance the life and mum and the expectations of work and the work was only supposed three days a week. Was this is not a critic of the job at all. I love the. But it gone five days a week trying to cram it into three days a week. So on a Monday and Friday I was put my daughter down for a nap and then having to pick up work to get it done. Working till early work at night and I was completely burnt out. But I didn’t recognise it. And then things happen in my life, which then allowed me to go off and do to to where eventually launched this. But the pandemic meant that I went backwards and I stopped being a worker. I stopped working and went back to being a full time mum and ohh I I my depression levels were through the floor. Is I really struggled. I was really lonely. My husband was in his office 24, you know, pretty much locked in in, in his office, having to work and all I had was my three-year old at the time, which sounds awful. I have my 3 year old, but I had walks and walks and walks and walks and.

Annemarie Miles
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Isn’t it interesting? Because I think for? For many people, what they do. Is very defining and it’s not a huge problem until you lose the thing you do and suddenly, who am I? Because I always wanted to be a mother like, say, 27 nieces and nephews and that when we weren’t married, I was sick and had to have surgery. And that was it. So it wasn’t like years of longing and waiting. I had surgery and that was that was the end. It was it. Was over and I remember thinking, I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I’m going to be and when there’s something in your life that. That defines you or that you know that you feel, or this is the thing I am. This is the thing I do and that goes. We can feel very lost. Very, very. Quickly, can’t we? Yeah, you know? Yeah.

Kirsty van den Bulk
And it’s my journey to mother who’s been fought. You know, it wasn’t easy. And it came with a lot of barriers. And I’m very blessed and very grateful that I have. Our beautiful, amazing, inspiring daughter. But it wasn’t an easy route to go, and I don’t talk about it because it is. It’s it’s actually her story. So I should leave it there. But it is very it. It wasn’t easy. So we’ve talked about that. You’ve talked about our home, our home and our home and kind of speak this morning. That’s how much.
Annemarie Miles
Yeah, yeah.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Gosh, public speaking caption You can’t even speak. I love that. So, and let’s come and joined us, which is lovely. She’s also a tech Pixie, and I’ve watched a necro and I think that’s something to to mention about what Joy Foster does is is she brings a group of women together there. Whole group of very different people, very individual, but the support and the lifting up and people find their desire, their passion and they grow. Now that growth could be immediate and you could just be somebody. That just. Is a a star just shooting on a head or you could be somebody who takes a bit of time and takes a couple of years. But it doesn’t matter. You’re supported, you’re empowered, and there’s lots of different courses that you can go on. So I’m very grateful to joy as well. And I remember my first call. I think you were on and. I was not in a good place. And my wise why? Yeah, this podcast happened because suddenly I realised I could look. And let’s also said weight loss organisations need to take responsibility.

Annemarie Miles
Yeah, absolutely.

Kirsty van den Bulk
They do because they give you a target. Yeah. Everyone knows if you give someone a target, it’s a weight on your head.

Annemarie Miles
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kirsty van den Bulk
You know, I used to be a member of Weight Watchers. The approaches from because in most cases there was. There was so much behind the way we look at food. Do you know what drives me man and. And I’m sure. You’re the same is when you turn on. Some social media platform and all you’re confronted with is images of women putting up the the body contouring things or an app that’s gonna. Help you eat correctly.

Annemarie Miles
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Yeah, I’m. I don’t know how you feel about this marketing, but I just it does my nuts.

Annemarie Miles
No, I just ex. Ex. Not interested. Not interested. Not interested. Yeah. Yeah, because everybody’s different. It’s not. You know, you have to find, you have to find a way that works for you and. I I mean even the the body positive thing and. I don’t want anybody to hate themselves because of their size and I wouldn’t want anyone to, you know. So I want. That’s why I deliberately use the body positive hashtag and I deliberately speak into body positive issues. But. Being really, really, really overweight and I’m only going to talk about myself because I only have the right to talk about myself, was not good for me. It was not good for me. It was not healthy. I was unhappy. I was just on the verge of being diabetic. It was a strain on my heart, a strain in my lungs, a strain on my knees, you know, so. I I think body positive is great, but there is a side to the body positive movement where I don’t have to change. I have to stay exactly the way I am now. If you want to stay exactly the way you are, that’s that’s your right. But don’t pretend it’s not going to cause. You issues as you get older because it is. Going to cause issues as we get older.

Kirsty van den Bulk
That’s really powerful.

Annemarie Miles
You know and and I think that’s one thing that’s kind of. I’ve woken up to that a little bit. It’s just the the other side of the body positive movement that UM, yes you are. You are beautiful. I follow some really, really big women who who demonstrate, you know, fashion for plus size, fashion and all that stuff and that’s wonderful. And and they are and they are. Some of them are part of the anti Diet Brigade and I’m part of that too. Diets. I’m fed up to the back teeth have been on them since I was 12. But don’t pretend that this is not an issue, that this is not a strain on your heart, a strain in your symptoms. Sorry your strain on your system and that as you get older and other people are going. To need to care for you. It is going to get harder and harder and harder and. Harder to live. Your life to stay alive. Because most people we’re on the high end of weight, their heart just can’t cope with it. So I want to be gentle in that and be humble in that. And but I also feel that that side of the body positive movement needs to be addressed, you know.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Thank you for sharing. That’s really a really, really value what you’ve just said there. I know you published. Your book yourself. I’d like to touch on that because. That’s really, really.

Annemarie Miles
I love my books. They’re they’re my babies. They’re the babies I never had. And the first time I got to hold a proper printed copy of my book, I thought this is the nearest thing I’m ever going to feel to holding my own newborn. Yeah. So the first two books are collections of short stories. So there’s the long and the. Short of it. Is the first one and then a sense of the sea. Is the second one, and then I decided to write a longer story. So like it’s like a short novel. It’s. About 55 so. Onwards and that’s gorse Lodge and that’s my favourite. I love gorse lodge. I love the characters, I love the story. And all three are self published and I’ve probably spent more money on them than I have taken in on them, but I love them. I love writing and I love the fact that they’re out there and when people do read them, they’re they don’t have a massive fan base. But when people do read them, they really enjoy them. And the short stories were deliberate. Like the shortest story in the first book is 99 words and the longest one I think is 3 1/2 thousand. I think the longest one. UM, but I wanted something that people could pick up. You know, on A cause, some of them are funny and silly, and I wanted something that people. Could pick up and it say if. They were ill, recovering from an illness or something, and you know you can’t read. So this is like one page, a phone or poignant little story. That’s one page. And then you put it down again.

Kirsty van den Bulk
I love it.

Annemarie Miles
You know, we get. The whole story in one go.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Yeah, one of my favourite books that I’ve I’ve I’ve ever read was twisted fables for Twisted Minds by the Barefoot Doctor. And then the little short stories. And there were tourists, some advice and absolutely amazing book. And it was little short stories with a nugget of really good information and then an affirmation at the end of it.

Annemarie Miles
No, please.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Give yourself permission to to, to be foolish. Give yourself permission to go and get drunk. It’s OK. Don’t do it all the time. But you know, don’t do all that. If you help me to eat that that chocolate cake all the time. But yeah. And and.

Annemarie Miles
Yeah, yeah.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Just. I’m gonna go and read your little book. I I was gutted that I hadn’t thought to do that, but then this is really short notice so. I was like, would you? Like to do it on. Friday. And you’re like what? Like, yeah, yeah. Somebody dropped out. And I was like, we would talk about September. Then it was like, come on, let’s let’s just do it.

Annemarie Miles
Yeah, yeah.

Kirsty van den Bulk
I love it. We’ve had Annette with us all morning. And thank you, Annette, for joining us. This is where the tables get turned and you get to ask me a question you’ve. Been in the hot seat for or. Nearly 30 minutes. And so you now get to turn the tables directly on me and I get to try and answer your question.

Annemarie Miles
So I’ve got. I’ve got two questions for you. One is, what is the? Where does your surname come from? And the other is tell me about the hair.

Kirsty van den Bulk
No, I’m moving the second one. I’ll start with the first one. It’s really easy. It is my husband’s surname and most people I’ve been married before and I really fought with the idea. At that point, I. Was quite right on to take my first husband’s surname and I kept my own. And at that time. I was an actor and I wanted. To keep my acting then but.

Annemarie Miles
Of course, yeah.

Kirsty van den Bulk
My surname was my as my as childhood surname was unique. There was only at 1.1, Kirsty Elkin and I really loved that cause. You know the runner in the world, there was only one Kirsty Elkin and it really. And I loved that uniqueness. And then I met my husband and obviously he is. He is the love of my life. Next next to my daughter. Oh my goodness, I am the luckiest woman alive. So I took Dennis’s surname and he laughed and went. Are you serious? It it’s random bulk and you’ll prefer the spelling it and I was like, I used to spell Elkin all the time. ALK and like no El. Yeah. So it was no big thing, but I absolutely love it. It also makes me the only unique again. So there isn’t one of them. I I, I do think God decided to have a laugh on everybody when they when he chose to put my soul on Twitter because I really do believe he went, yeah, this was going to be a firecracker.

Annemarie Miles
Yeah, yes, yeah.

Kirsty van den Bulk
God help the world so, but I love it. I love my uniqueness. I love my my husband. ‘S name. I’m proud. As hell to be Kirsty Vanderbilt and be married to Dennis because he he gets me and I think that’s really important and the purple hair, the the crazy purple hair. Is actually for my daughter. It’s completely nicely for my daughter. I’ve always done stupid, crazy things with my hair, since you know since my mid 40s, particularly since becoming a mum. But I had purple hair when I was off on.
Annemarie Miles

Oh cool.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Parental leave and she doesn’t remember it. So she asked me one day if I would do it and she’d been really sad she’d learned something about her story, and she was really sad about it, really sad. And she’d said something to and she was falling asleep going. I wish you had purple hair and I was. Actually at the hairdressers the next day and it was. Like I can make that happen. So I sat in the hairdressers and went. Could you do something? With the bottom maybe bright purple, the hairdresser went. Yeah, and the purple hair is 100% for my daughter.
Annemarie Miles
Isn’t that wonderful? I love that. That’s absolutely fantastic. That’s great. I love that.
Kirsty van den Bulk
And really, this has been an absolute joy. Thank you so much for sharing your past. Your inspiration and your absolute honesty.
Annemarie Miles
Thank you. It’s been lovely to be on the wise wife feel very privileged because it’s been a fantastic series. So I feel very privileged to be a guest on the wise. Why thank you, Kirsty.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Well, make sure we put a link in for words, Whoppers, and wisdom. You are tagged where I can and go and listen to Anne Marie’s podcast and read her book.

Annemarie Miles
Thank you.