Hello and welcome to Happy Place. I'm Fern Cotton and this is the place where we can all be honest about our real highs and our real lows.

It's all very cathartic. Today we're spending time in the company of Billy Piper.

This woman said to me that you can't have three things, you can't have a really successful career, really, really strong ties with your kids,

and loving intimate relationship with your partner. One of those things will always fall apart and I think that's kind of true.

I think it's really hard to do all of those things at the level that the world expects you to do them.

Billy and I have been dipping in and out of each other's lives since we were teenagers really.

I remember interviewing her literally decades ago. I'm surely not old enough but it's true I am. So it was really lovely to just catch up on where she's at right now.

This episode is sponsored by More Than Insurance. They partnered with Dogs for Good, a charity that brings people and dogs together to make life possible.

In just two years, More Than have sponsored a number of dogs for good puppies and together they provided support to hundreds of families and individuals affected by disability, dementia, autism and other conditions. Isn't that just so amazing?

I know firsthand that it is so, so important to have a support system around you and that's exactly what dogs for good are providing.

That's honestly all I can hope for Happy Place to do too. I think there's so much power in listening to other people's stories.

You might realise you're not alone if you've been going through something similar and I know for sure that so many of you have been inspired to reach out to check in on friends and family after hearing certain conversations that have touched you on the podcast.

You're a very kind-hearted bunch. Likewise, More Than has been helping to raise awareness of the incredible work Dogs for Good Do. So please visit More Than.com to read about their wonderful partnership.

Should we do it? Here's the show.

So good to see your face on that lovely background. Is that a padded wall?

Yes, that's very spenny. Well, you know what, I did a budget version because if you were to ask for a padded wall, it would be indeed spenny. But I bought fabric in a shop next door to my house, some foam off a big website, and then my builder just attached it to a plank of wood, well panels of wood.

So I've got a little studio wall at home now. It's so great. It's just I've I had to it was getting I was basically under a duvet or with a blanketed wall in my steps on Sbedroom for like a year.

I can't do this anymore. It's just been mad how have the last 12 months been for you?

Well, it's hard to think beyond the last three months, isn't it? Because I think that has been quite desperate times and a test of the human spirit.

And so I think the first lockdown, there was a sort of excitement about it and sort of new simplicity to life that felt quite welcome because it came off the back of a load of work. So I just felt like actually this is great.

And you know, all of that romance, I think being a homeschooling mother. I don't know if you ever did that, but I used to think I was capable of doing that.

Oh, yeah, how naive we were. So naive. I just and you know, you sort of like lockdown was like, oh, let's, you know, let's do an hour on bowie and you know, a three hour hike and just sort of like those sort of things.

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