Jojo Moyes

And everyone was completely horrified.

And I felt mortified.

You know, I was a 40-something-year-old woman weeping at a table full of people.

And at the height of my...

Success.

Like, what did I have to cry about?

But I got home, my best friend rang me and I didn't sleep for about three nights because my body clock was so messed up at that point.

And she got really angry with me.

And she just said, you have to learn to say no.

You have to advocate for yourself.

And I didn't, I learned the lesson a bit, but if I'm honest, I didn't learn it properly because then my mum died and that was it.

I did learn.

So this is such, this is going to sound so darkly humorous, but I thought after that, I thought, okay, I'm going to take a year off.

I've done okay.

I'm going to give myself that rest.

And I thought I'm going to travel a bit.

And I'm going to hang out with the kids and I'm going to do some horse riding.

I'm just going to have a lovely time.

I'd moved to a new house, which I loved.

I had all my dogs.