I'm Natalie Lou and you're listening to the baggage reclaim sessions.

Hello I am popping in just for a few minutes to say that I am taking a break for a few weeks.

It is August, my girls are on summer holidays, it has been quite a jiggle for this last few weeks,

and I remembered something that I said to myself last summer which was

to give myself a bit of space and Greece.

So as a result I am taking the month of August off in a couple of hours I head up to my mom's in

Birmingham to drop off Mr. Chester our dog because we are headed then to

Amsterdam for the best part of a couple of weeks on Monday

I will get to hang out with my mama and I will also get to spend time with my little brother Sean now

I know that actually quite a lot of you have reached out to ask how

he is doing as I mentioned a few times earlier on this year that it had been a pretty difficult

time that he had really struggled with his mental health.

So to give a quick update he has had a diagnosis and that has been really good and he is getting support and actually as

crackers as my mom and my stepdad can be at times. They haven't been together now for,

Jesus, I don't know, a couple of decades now at this point,

but they actually are coming together a bit,

so much so that actually my mom, my stepdaddad and my other stepmother,

because actually I technically have two stepmother's,

but we're able to hang out.

And I think that they are, even though they do like to almost compete about who they think it was,

airquote, responsible for my brother's mental half issues.

It's so funny the way that family do that.

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