Episode 163: Anya Lautenbach

Spinning Plates with Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Kat Rulach

Kids & Family, Arts, Music, Parenting

4.8 • 527 Ratings

🗓️ 29 September 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Anya Lautenbach is a gardener who I discovered on Instagram as anya_thegarden_fairy. From Poland originally, Anya moved to to the UK 17 years ago and has two boys aged 12 and 14.

We talked about the grief which Anya has experienced because of her sister having two sons with a rare genetic condition which turned out to be terminal.

Anya explained how every time she had bad news from home, she turned that into another garden border and has ended up creating a beautiful garden out of her ocean of grief.

We also talked about her ADHD diagnosis which came soon after her son’s diagnosis, and how gardening helps her to escape the overwhelming busyness of her mind.

Spinning Plates is presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor, produced by Claire Jones and post-production by Richard Jones.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Sophia Lysbexter and welcome to Spinning Plates, the podcast where I speak to busy working women who also happen to be mothers about how they make it work.
0:14.1	I'm a singer and I've released seven albums in between having my five sons aged 16 months to 16 years, so I spin a few plates myself.
0:22.3	Being a mother can be the most amazing thing.
0:24.6	It can also be hard to find time for yourself
0:26.8	and your own ambitions.
0:28.3	I want to be a bit nosy and see how other people balance everything.
0:32.0	Welcome to spinning plates.
0:36.1	Good day.
0:37.1	I am speaking to you from Naimchen.
0:42.1	This is a really pretty city in the Netherlands.
0:48.0	And I've never been here before, so I've had a little wander around.
0:52.0	I just like being in the Netherlands. It's so nice. And everybody's so articulate in Dutch and in
0:59.4	English. It's super impressive. And yeah, life just kind of works here. Everybody's whizzing around on bikes.
1:06.5	It'll look pretty happy and well. Had a good coffee. walked past a cat cafe. Any place that has a cat
1:14.2	cafe is good by me. Last night we played the Paradiso in Amsterdam. It was the first on the
1:21.4	tour to sell out, which had particular residence for me because it's also the first place I ever did a gig outside the UK when I was 18 and we came over as part of something called London Calling.
1:34.0	Sorry, I'm a little bit out of breath because I'm walking up an incline.
1:38.0	Maybe not the best time to press record.
1:40.6	There we have it.
1:42.3	So it's a beautiful venue.
1:44.0	It's really famous, actually.
1:46.4	I've heard this glorious very Friday night crowd.
	...

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