Before I moved from BBC Breakfast, I had bananas and lip balm hidden under the table. I don’t eat bananas on-air now and there’s a lovely make-up artist at ITV who does mid-show checks. So I don’t have to concentrate on bananas and my lips any more, I can concentrate on journalism. Another difference back at the BBC was commuting, for seven hours, from and to Salford each day. I’d catch the 7pm, or 7.15pm, from Euston, get to bed in Salford at 10.30pm, get up at 5am, do the show, then be on the train back to London at 10.15am, with a Pret and crisps, so I could see and feed the kids. As Nicky Campbell once said, “It’s Salford, not Helmand.”
I need to be fully functioning as I have to deal with Piers Morgan most mornings.I’m quite rigid with my optimum pattern and religious about sleep. Sleep’s the altar I worship at. Like my meals, it’s precious and scheduled. I’m in bed by 9pm and the alarm goes off at 3.45am.
I drink a glass of hot water during our programme meeting from 4.15 to 5am, then in the hour before Good Morning Britain goes on air I’ll have my chopped apple with a miniature jar of peanut butter, a shower, my hair and make-up done and a black coffee. Then another coffee during the news at 7.30am. I’ll come off-air at 8.30 then get home to Balham by about 10am. I’ll have my lunch of rye toast with avocado and poached egg and then get into bed for a nap before the gym at 1pm.
The kids come home at 3.30pm, so it’s all about them, their homework and their tea at 6pm. I’ll do meat and veg, lasagne or spag bol for them and – because I’m pescatarian – probably salmon and veg for me. At 7pm, after dinner, I’m back in work mode, prepping for the morning.
The other day I phoned my mother and she was having dinner with my dad. They split up when I was nine and it was a huge fracture, I can’t overestimate the impact, but when I went through my separation from my husband (in 2014), my parents’ friendship was an inspiration. One thing their divorce meant is that I got individual time with my dad which I might not have got if they’d stayed married. The food memory I most associate with weekends with Dad is us eating Findus Crispy Pancakes while watching Three Of A Kind. The thing about Findus Crispy Pancakes is that there’s a nanosecond between them being underdone and completely burnt. You have to find that golden moment.
For more read the full of article at The Guardian
