Stacey Solomon has confessed that she sometimes spends evenings in silence with Joe Swash as part of her “self-care” routine.
The 35-year-old Loose Women presenter and her husband Joe are parents to a bustling brood of six: Harry, Zachary, Leighton, Rex, Rose, and Belle. They reside at their charming rural abode, affectionately dubbed Pickle Cottage, where Stacey frequently delights fans with snippets of their family life on Instagram.
In a candid chat, Stacey shared her approach to “self-care” with Grazia magazine, emphasising that it doesn’t involve any added stress or indulgent bubble baths.
Stacey expressed to Grazia: “I think we all put ourselves under a lot of pressure to be like, ‘Don’t forget you! ‘ and ‘Don’t forget to fit your self-care in or you’re going to go down the drain.’ Sometimes in life, it’s just not possible.”
She advised readers to “go with the flow” and avoid self-imposed pressure, then went on to describe her own version of “self-care” at home, which typically happens after the children have gone to bed, reports the Manchester Evening News.
Detailing those precious moments when work is done for the day, Stacey revealed she enjoys playing cards with her loved ones. However, there comes a time when she and Joe prefer to unwind in quiet companionship, without conversation.
She elaborated: “Or Joe and I will sit on the sofa and not talk to each other and watch some mind-numbing TV. That’s self-care for us. It’s not a bubble bath, I’m lucky if I have time to wash my important bits in the shower!”
Joe, who’s taken to batch cooking to manage the meals for his large household that includes two canine friends and a quartet of ducks, opened up to OK! about the trials of parenthood, describing it as “difficult bringing kids up”.
He acknowledged his previously untidy tendencies too, confessing: “It took Stacey a while to whip me into shape, to be fair.”
Elaborating on the domestic dynamics, Joe remarked: “It involved a lot of making me go back and tidy up the mess I’d left behind. A lot of, ‘This is how the cupboards are meant to look,’ and ‘I don’t want it to look different to this’.”
Their relationship has been going strong for over ten years, evolving from their encounter after Stacey’s victory on I’m a Celeb in 2010, culminating in their wedding at Pickle Cottage in July 2022.
Last year, the pair featured on a BBC holiday special called Stacey Solomon’s Crafty Christmas, which saw Stacey whip up festive decorations and gifts, and together they reminisced about their nuptial exchanges.
During the show, a revelation slipped from Stacey regarding Joe being a “blubbering mess” on their wedding day, with her commenting: “Your mum had to come out and warn me. I could see your tears from the beginning of the aisle.”
Taking the ribbing well, Joe replied: “Well at least one of us got emotional at the wedding eh. Oh ice queen.”