was so exciting. It's funny, it felt really good. I didn't know where it was going to go so I just lived in the moment. It's like being given a second chance, you relish it." You recorded the album in Portland, what was that experience like? "It was really liberating. I must admit towards the end of my [ second ] pregnancy I knew I was going and it was what got me through the labour [ laughs ] I swear to God! The midwife was telling me to thing of something nice and I was screaming: I'm going to make a record! It was brilliant. It was good to not be so isolated, I was getting less isolated the more time I was spending with Sam. We had a baby, then I had his extended family, my life became full! It went from one extreme to the other, one minute I was isolated the next there were people everywhere! It was a complete reversal, it was very nice." Having written lots of songs, why did these ten suggest themselves as an album? "To be honest, we went in with 18 songs and these were the ones that we finished. Some of them didn't get finished, they weren't ready. The songs were ready - well, there was a couple of them that weren't done, which I realised in the stduio - but some of them just didn't come together. It just didn't happen, so save it for the next record.