Episode #18

Lockdown and Homeschooling with Timmy (8) and Alice (6)

We’re kicking off 2021 with a brand new episode in our Behind the Screens series. Lockdown 3.0 is here, and homeschooling is back on the agenda. So, who better for Nic and Nat to sit down with than their home co-workers – ahem, kids – Timmy (8) and Alice (6)?

As Nic and Nat are married co-founders, the kids have inevitably been involved in and aware of the CookiesHQ journey through the years. Timmy and Alice share what they really think Mum and Dad do, how they rate homeschooling vs going to school, and whether they think they’ll be joining Cookies when they’re older.

And, kids being kids, they’re not afraid to ask the questions on everyone’s minds. Questions like:

• Nic has proved he can build a website, even an agency, but would he be any good at building a building?
• Is Nat’s job actually just like playing a big game of Monopoly?
• How do we really know if Mum and Dad only do work for two hours a day and spend the rest of the time eating cake and chocolate?

This episode offers a child’s-eye-view of what a tech agency does and takes a hilarious, yet touching and sincere look at the impact of lockdowns on working families, and the difficulty of balancing home-schooling and work responsibilities.

Join the conversation on the CookiesHQ Twitter. Head over to LinkedIn to find out more on Nic and Nat.

Read the transcript

Nic:
Hello, and welcome to a new episode of the Tough Cookies podcast. This episode is going to be the very first episode of 2021, where finally Nat and I return to talking about what’s going on behind the scene in CookiesHQ. How are you, Nat?

Nathalie:
Hello, I’m okay.

Nic:
Yeah?

Nathalie:
Yeah.

Nic:
How is your start of the year?

Nathalie:
Not great.

Nic:
What’s happening?

Nathalie:
What’s happening? Lockdown, another one. Homeschooling, a lot of things happening in the business altogether. Not much time, basically that. My biggest fear was the school closing again, and they have, so now we’re back in homeschooling for another six weeks, which makes running the business a little bit harder.

Nic:
Yes. So, with that in mind, I think you had a fantastic idea, and that is your idea for today’s episode. Obviously, seeing some new announcements of lockdown 3.0, we are now being stuck at home again and we’re doing the homeschooling. We thought it would be a really good idea to actually invite two of our three kids, because the third one is a bit too young to actually speak into a podcast. But we thought it’d be really nice to invite Alice and Timmy to this podcast and actually ask them their own perspective about the lockdown, and mum and dad working together, and everything that evolves around the business.

Nic:
Obviously, Timmy and Alice are both … they are six and eight respectively, and they’ve never known anything else for them. We’ve always worked together, they’ve always known about cookies, so I hope it’s going to be an interesting one. But without further adieu, let actually Alice introduce herself. Hello Alice, how are you?

Alice:
I’m good, and my name is Alice, I’m six years old and I like doing art and gymnastics.

Nic:
Art and gymnastics? Are they your favourite things?

Alice:
Yeah.

Nic:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). What kind of art?

Alice:
I like to do painting and drawing.

Nic:
That sounds nice. What about you, Timmy?

Timmy:
Well, I’m Timmy, I’m eight years old. I really like eating and well, messing about.

Nic:
Eating and messing about. What does messing about mean?

Timmy:
Well, being silly.

Nic:
favourite thing? You are a bit silly. I would say a bit cheeky.

Timmy:
Thank you.

Nic:
Right, so Timmy, because I’ve got you on the microphone, what do you think about mum and dad working together?

Timmy:
I think it’s quite nice, because you can talk to each other about what’s happening about work, and the other one’s … dad, if you’re talking to mum about what you’re doing, and mum’s got a different job then she’s going to be like, “What are you talking about?” And then, so you know what you’re talking about to each other and you can work on the same projects together. You can actually build ideas together instead of actually having to do it on your own.

Nic:
Okay. What about you, Alice? What do you think about mummy and daddy working together?

Timmy:
I think it’s quite nice, because then you get to see each other lots, even if one of you are upstairs and one of you are downstairs, because you do lots of meetings on the computer.

Nic:
That’s true. Well, we’ve got one and a half office, so Nathalie, you’re occupying the upstairs office, which is the office … well the office, your home office. And our lounge windowsill has been taken over by me and is now my own office. So we have my standing desk on the windowsill for your own … no, that’s not your preference, isn’t it?

Nathalie:
No, it is what it is, isn’t it? We’re not allowed to change house just yet, so we’ll have to do that for another few weeks.

Nic:
Yeah, what about you, Nat? What do you think about having to work around the kids, or having to work with the kids at home? What’s your own feeling about it?

Nathalie:
Well, it’s an interesting one. Timmy and Alice are big enough now that they are independent and they will do their work independently, and they can access it and all of that. And they’re really good, actually, they can study. But you still can’t do the same and you still have to plan your meetings around them, and you still have to make sure that they’ve got everything they need and they’re on time on their online school meetings, and all of that. So, you can’t do as much as you would if they were not there, and actually at school.

Timmy:
Well, you don’t actually have to, we can just keep track of the time and find when we need to.

Nic:
Are you sure about that?

Timmy:
No.

Nic:
No, I’m not entirely sure. Yes, Alice?

Alice:
I don’t know the time, so I can’t keep track of the time, because I don’t know the time.

Nic:
No, Timmy was saying he can keep track of the time but we have to remind him every day, two minutes before … “Oh, Timmy, now it’s your time to go.”

Timmy:
Yeah.

Nic:
Right, so what about homeschooling? You guys, that’s your now, third lockdown and it’s the third time that you’re doing school online. Do you think it’s better than before? Has it improved? Is it different? What do you think about homeschooling? Yes, Timmy?

Timmy:
I think it’s actually nicer, because during break you can just do something else instead of go and run around outside. If you want to do a puzzle, if you want to play a little game you can do that, instead of you have to go outside. Then during lunch, you can have a hot meal. And because you might not like burgers or hot dogs or what’s at school, and you might not really like having cold meals so you can have something of your choice at home. I actually like it a bit more.

Nic:
What about you, Alice?

Alice:
I like real school a bit more, because you get to see your friends at lunchtime, at play time.

Nic:
So you’re missing, a bit, your friends, yeah?

Alice:
Yeah.

Nic:
I have to say, the school have stepped up their game in terms of digital transformation for their online schooling. It’s still a bunch of YouTube videos and Microsoft Teams. I hate Microsoft Teams with a passion, but this is still the same tooling, but it feels much more smooth and slicker this time. At least from my own point of view.

Nathalie:
Yeah, I think it’s more organized in that sense, where we only need to basically turn up at the right time, at the right meeting. It’s all organized for you, whereas the very first one I remember having to actually, basically build the lessons, almost build the lessons with the kids, because there wasn’t much to do. So yeah, right now … they have two live lessons every day, one in maths, one in English, the rest is pre-recorded. Everything is very well organized, they have a welcome meeting every morning.

Nathalie:
So no, it’s well done, it’s just still time that they are actually in the house with us, instead of us being able to get on with our work like we normally would.

Timmy:
I also like it a bit more because in geography, we definitely wouldn’t be able to make this at school. We get to make our own Top Trumps cards, and I don’t think you get to do that at school, because you’re going to have to make a certain amount and then you can’t actually carry on with them. So I quite like it, because there are some things that you can do at homeschooling that you can’t do when you’re actually at school.

Nic:
So, some good, some bad.

Timmy:
Yes.

Nic:
Right. So, we’re now back to the subject of cookies. Well, you know that these podcast is all about tough cookies, and Cookies, the company. What do you know about mum and dad’s work? Alice, do you want to start? What do you know about us?

Alice:
Well, I know you sit down and work on computers and have lots of meetings.

Nic:
That sounds about right. So we sit down, work on computers and we’ve got loads of meetings.

Nathalie:
Yeah, that’s very true.

Nic:
Do you know what we do on this computer, and do you know why we have meetings?

Alice:
No, but I know you make lots of podcasts.

Nic:
Lots, yeah, maybe. But we do some podcasts. What about you, Timmy?

Timmy:
I know that you make apps and websites on computers, like Yuup and BBC Maestro. During meetings, sometimes you try to solve problems, sometimes it’s deciding how you’re going to do something, and sometimes it’s … well, seeing problems that everybody has and then just solving them. That’s practically my first one, but.

Nic:
Sounds about a good-

Nathalie:
It’s a good summary.

Nic:
It’s a good summary of our day, yeah.

Nathalie:
Yeah. It sounds about right. No, it’s really true, Timmy. That’s what we do, we do websites and apps for clients. BBC Maestro and Yuup are two of our clients. You know some others I think. Good Sixty is another one that you might have heard of.

Timmy:
Yeah, I’ve heard of Good Sixty.

Nathalie:
So we’ve shown you a few recent ones, which is interesting. No, it’s what we do. Lots of meetings, which is interesting because we … we try not to get stuck in meetings too much, but apparently we do, we talk to a lot of people. It’s what we do.

Nic:
We’ve just started to use Harvest in order to keep track of time sheets, so I’m sure soon we’re going to have data about how long we spend in meetings. I certainly get stuck way too much in meetings.

Nathalie:
Do you know anyone that we work with? Have you met anyone?

Timmy:
I haven’t met everybody, but I know some people who I haven’t met, but I do know quite a lot of people who work.

Nic:
What’s their name? Which name do you know?

Timmy:
Gemma, Denis, Romaric, James, I think?

Alice:
I know you work with Gemma and Denis.

Nic:
Yeah, and we’ve got a big team. We’ve got 15 people, so I’m sure there are people that you’ve seen come and go, yes. Who do you remember now?

Timmy:
Two Emilys. Emilie and Emily.

Nathalie:
But yeah, it’s funny, because Gemma, actually, Alice, started working with us when I was pregnant with you. Because I was going to have a baby and I couldn’t work, so we decided to hire Gemma so that she could do my job when I was away looking after you as a baby. So basically, you’ve always known her all of your life, and same with Denis. I think he was there around that time, or very … I think I was on maternity leave with Alice when Denis started. It’s funny, because they’ve met you when you were a really small baby.

Nic:
And we have very cute pictures of you, Alice, as a baby, with Denis looking like a baby as well, looking much younger than he looks today.

Nathalie:
Maybe we should release that picture with the podcast. I don’t know where it is, I’ll have it.

Nic:
Yeah, it would have to go a collage of pictures that we have of the kids.

Nathalie:
I think it was Denis, actually, playing with Alice, because I think she had chicken pox or something, and there’s nothing you can do with a child who has chicken pox apart from bringing it to an office full of adults who have had chicken pox before and therefore are not at risk of catching it. So that’s what I did, and Denis spent a bit of time playing with you. So yeah, I’ll release that picture when we release the podcast.

Nic:
So, what do you think, Nat, about obviously our personal lives has always been mixed with the business life, how do you think about it? How do you think it impacts?

Nathalie:
It’s bound to have an impact. I think we’ve made efforts to not talk about work too much in the evenings or weekends, and to have separate family time. I don’t think we succeed all of the time, but we try. At the same time, it’s really good to have that flexibility and I think, to some extent, and I know they’re still quite young but it’s good for them to be involved and to see what we do, and to explain why we sometimes have to be out in the … well, we can’t be out in the evenings anymore, but why we used to go to meetings in the evenings, or why we have to go very early one morning, or why they have to stay in after school club when school is going on, because I think it’s important that they understand what we do and why we do it.

Nathalie:
There’s a balance, I think, to find … I’m not sure we find the right balance, but … yeah, I think it’s quite nice also for them to see us build something and to meet these people that we work with, because they’re all great people.

Nic:
Yeah. What I hope is that it’s going to give them the right attitude to work and seeing that, yeah, basically work as a collection of problems that you have to solve, and there’s nothing wrong with that, and just have to solve one problem after another. What about you, Timmy? Do you think mum and dad work too much? Not enough? What do you think, how does it impact you day to day?

Timmy:
Well, it’s really fine, so for homeschooling, we can look after ourselves so it’s fine, really. But when we’re at school, I don’t really like going to after school club. It’s okay, but then again I’d rather go home and play a game. But then I’m happy if we have to go there if it’s going to help with your work.

Nic:
So I have to say, you only need to go to after school club two days a week. What about you, Alice? What do you think? Mum and dad’s work, how does it impact you?

Alice:
Well, I don’t know how much you work because I don’t work with you, so I don’t know how much you work.

Nathalie:
So basically, every time you don’t see us, or every time you’re at school, or when you’re somewhere, that’s what we do. Unless it’s the weekend. But otherwise, we work all of that time.

Timmy:
Of course, Alice makes a good point because you don’t know how long she works. She might work an hour, you might work two hours a day and then you just stop working, and you stuff yourself with chocolate and cake.

Nic:
Maybe that’s what we do.

Nathalie:
We don’t do that, but we did just before Christmas, whilst you were at holiday club. We did go out for a sneaky lunch, just dad and I just because we needed a bit of time off, so we had a little bit of lunch in between lockdowns. It was very nice, actually. We took two, three hours off work whilst you were both at holiday camp. We enjoyed that very much, but it only happened once last year, so I think we’re allowed that.

Nic:
Yeah, I think that’s what I found the most difficult part of 2020, and now looking on 2021, is the never ending sense of responsibilities. You move from one responsibility to another, between homeschooling, business work, obviously looking after the family. There’s no down time, and obviously being all our support families are in France, so there’s no help, support and those kind of things.

Nic:
It was particularly draining, yeah, having that afternoon in between two lockdowns where we managed to go for a very nice meal, that was actually a very, very good time. I think we said, obviously, now we can’t, but we said it’s something that we need to do a bit more often to recharge the batteries between everything else, just make sure that we … when you run a business with your partner, just make sure that you take some time off together.

Nic:
And obviously, inevitably you talk a little bit about work, but I think we did a good job to not talk too much about work, and not talk too much about the kids, and enjoy some good food.

Nathalie:
Yeah.

Nic:
Cool. So, I guess now, Timmy and Alice, what mum and dad would like to do is to give you the microphone and let you ask questions. So, maybe we’re going to start with Alice. Alice, is there any questions that you want to ask mum and dad about their work?

Alice:
Yes. I was thinking I want to ask you if you like your work?

Nathalie:
That’s a very good question. I think you should always like your work. And yes, I do enjoy my job very much, most of the time. There’s always times where it gets a bit tiring, or you’ve had enough of one day, but then you come back the next day and there’s always something to do and something to look forward to. Whether it’s a new project or someone you want to talk to, or something exciting happening. So yeah, I think most of the time I do enjoy my work.

Nathalie:
Last year it was a bit tiring. I’m not sure I enjoyed it as much as I did previously. 2021 is not starting well, but hopefully we’ll get on better. But yeah, I do. How about you?

Nic:
I do enjoy my work very much, and I like to say, when grown ups, when we speak, I like to say that basically I only have my work and you kids, so I do enjoy my work a lot. Even if sometime it can be frustrating at times or it can be stressful at times, or there could be problems and everything that can feel, sometimes, that can feel a bit tense. I do enjoy, I think it is important to enjoy what you’re doing. It doesn’t have to be a passion, obviously for me, what I do is a passion, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that everything that you do for work has to be a passion. But it’s good to like what you’re doing, that’s for sure.

Nic:
Or try to find the joy in what you’re doing. So for example; I really don’t like writing documents. That’s not something I like to do, but I have to do it for my work so I try to still find ways to make that joyful, even if I don’t like doing it. It’s something that I have to do.

Timmy:
So, what’s the biggest bug someone has made in your work? It can be, if you find that you, yourself have made the biggest bug, fine.

Nic:
Right. The biggest bug. Are we talking about in my entire life, or just in Cookies?

Timmy:
In Cookies work. Making an app or a website. So maybe something that’s really stopped you, and you had to spend a long time re-fixing it for your website or app.

Nic:
That’s a good question. So, bug. I don’t think we ever had … I don’t know, very big, big, big, big bugs, I can’t think of any. But big, big, big problems, we had a few. The top one that comes into my head is … so when you have a website, you know when you open your computer and you go to a website, you go to www.wikipedia.org for example. Sometimes there are people that are called malicious people, and they don’t want your website to stay up because they hope you can bring your website down, and you’re going to have to pay them a lot of money to get it back up, for example, or whatever they’re trying to do.

Nic:
So we were at a party, actually, and a very big business party. Unfortunately, some people decided to attack on of our clients. They were sending … imagine thousands of millions of people trying to get to the same website at the same time, and it was computers after computer trying to load the website one after another, to the point that then when you try to go to a website, when you have loads of people going to the same website at the same time, the website sometimes can be a bit slow. That’s what other people that were just trying to shop and that were not there maliciously, were experiencing, and it took about a day to fix and to find the correct solutions and all that.

Nic:
So, that was a very stressful one-

Nathalie:
Yeah, the whole day of the long lunch, basically.

Nic:
Yeah. Can you think about another bug that we may have experienced, done, found, or?

Nathalie:
No, I think mine is not really a bug, but it happened a few years ago, it was more of a problem with someone where it was … yeah, quite a long time ago where we did a bunch of work for someone and they refused to pay the very large invoice, and that was a big problem because obviously if you’ve done a lot of work and you’ve spent a lot of time, and then the client you did it for doesn’t pay you, then it leaves you out of pocket and you need that money to keep the business running. So that was a big problem that took a long time to resolve, and we did in the end. It was a while ago, but yeah, that was a big business problem that we ran into.

Nic:
Pandemonium on that one, yeah, it was probably seven years ago, if not more. Right, what about Timmy, do you have another question for us?

Timmy:
So, if you could, so if you had the choice to change your job, would you change it or would you stay with your job?

Nic:
I’m going to let mum answer that one first.

Nathalie:
That’s a tricky question. I don’t know how to answer that one. No, I think I would keep it, because I do enjoy it. Sometimes there are days when having all of these responsibilities and a whole team to look after, and clients to look after, and a business to run and make sure that you’ve got enough money in the bank and all of that, it is tiring and it’s a lot of responsibilities. Sometimes I wish I could just have less of it, and less pressure, but I think to some extent, I would probably also miss … if I didn’t have this job, I would miss it. So no, I would keep it.

Nic:
Yeah, I think I would also keep it. I don’t know what my job is, but I would certainly keep it. My job involves between … I mean, I certainly like the technical aspect of it, and that’s certainly what I would keep, but the idea of … I like building things, whether they are things on the computer or building a team, or building a business, I like doing that so that’s why I think I would keep it. Yeah.

Timmy:
How about building a building?

Nic:
Building a building. No, trust me, I wouldn’t-

Nathalie:
I don’t think dad has got the skills for that one, I’m afraid.

Nic:
No, that one I’m afraid, I would not be very good at it.

Timmy:
Okay.

Nic:
Yes, Alice?

Alice:
What do you do in your work?

Nathalie:
That’s a good question. What do you do?

Nic:
What do you do in your work? So, according to mum, not enough.

Nathalie:
That’s not true, I never said that.

Nic:
No. So what I do in my work. Myself, and obviously mum and dad, we both have different things that we do. So I will sometimes be coding, so you know how sometimes you do Scratch or you do Switch with Playground. So I will sometimes be coding the websites, so basically the actual website itself. A lot of time, I will help other people coding websites, so I will work with James or I’ll work with Denis, or Harrison, or anybody. I will sit down with them and try to solve maybe the problems they have or try to find the best solution on how to do something.

Nic:
I do a lot of selling, so typically, if somebody wants to hire Cookies, they will talk to me first and I will just try to understand what they need, or try to understand if we are the right team to work with them, because sometimes we’re not the right people to work with, with clients. If they are, then we just enter a series of meetings to try to understand what they’re trying to achieve, and what we can do together. So that’s about it, in terms of my work. What about you, Nat?

Nathalie:
I tell people what to do and when to do it. So, I basically organize things in Cookies, so I will look at the data we have and see if, when a client wants some work then I’ll see who in the team is available to do it and when we can do it. I will also try to organize the whole team to make sure that we have … everyone’s happy, everyone’s got work, everyone is looked after, that the project managers are managing the projects properly, that the developers are doing their job, that everything is running smoothly.

Nathalie:
I’m also looking at the numbers, the money in the bank, make sure that we’ve got enough. If we don’t, then I’ll tell daddy to go and sell a bit more. Yeah, just talking to the accountant and stuff like that. So basically managing and organizing Cookies.

Nic:
Yes, Timmy?

Timmy:
So for you, is a little bit of your job like Monopoly? You don’t have much money left, so you’re going to sell something for more money?

Nic:
That’s about it, basically. Except that we don’t have something physical to sell, so we’re not selling a box or we’re not selling a house. We are hopefully selling something that solves other people’s problems, so that’s what we call a service business. So you have an idea and you want a website for it, and then we can build that website for you, basically. Or you have problems on your own website and we can actually fix it.

Timmy:
And I do have another question.

Nic:
Go for it.

Timmy:
So I think we’ll start with dad this time. What’s your favourite app or website that you have made?

Nic:
Yeah, that’s a big one.

Nathalie:
He said you first, go.

Nic:
He said me first. The favourite one, I like them all for different reasons. So choosing one favourite one is going to be extremely difficult. But I guess it has to be … so we’ve worked with Good Sixty, as you know, and I think they’re part of my top three, let’s say, because they’ve been pivotal to our business, basically, and they’ve been a great business to work with and it’s a very interesting app to work on. I will put, from a technical perspective, I will put something called Stornaway, I think you’ve seen Stornaway a bit.

Nic:
So, Stornaway and BBC Maestro. They’re both extremely technical because you have to deliver a video over the internet which is quite … it can be quite complex. So from a complexity side, I do really enjoy those ones. I have to say, recently, I have a client crush, probably on Yuup. From a client perspective, they are quite good clients and they have … mean, selling fun experiences like sheep herding or paddle boarding and these kind of things is very fun. Daddy loves sheeps, so that’s for me. What about you, Nat? Do you have one favourite? Can you pick one?

Nathalie:
Yeah, it’s hard to pick just one, isn’t it? There’s a lot of really amazing ones. But I don’t work that closely to projects anymore, so I guess the one I’m the closest to at the moment is Yuup, because I’ve worked on it quite a lot last year, so I guess that’s got my soft spot at the moment. When you work every day on something and you really love it and you’ve got an attachment, that’s different I think. Especially for me, when I don’t normally do it. So yeah, I think that would be my soft spot at the moment.

Timmy:
I did realize that all the time when I came up to see you. So, dad was doing something different and I do realize last year, all the time when I came up to see you, you were always working on Yuup or, well, something close to Yuup, or looking at Yuup experiences.

Alice:
How many desks and chairs do you have?

Nic:
How many desks and chairs do you have?

Nathalie:
So, we moved to a new office in March last year.

Nic:
Just before lockdown.

Nathalie:
Just before lockdown, great move. So you’ve seen the new office and you’ve seen how much bigger it is than the old one. So, the answer is; I’m not too sure, but what I know is that they’re all sitting empty because no one is using them at the moment, so probably too many for what we have. But I think we have space, we said we have space in the office for at least 15 comfortably, 20 if we wanted to squeeze a bit more, that’s how many people we can-

Nic:
Sorry, no, that’s a bit more than that. We already have at least 15 tables.

Nathalie:
Is there?

Nic:
Yeah, we have at least 15 tables and there’s about 25 chairs right now.

Nathalie:
So yeah. It’s a good office, isn’t it? You’ve seen it, it’s a lot bigger than the old one.

Nic:
Do you like the new office?

Timmy:
Quite a lot. There’s more room to explore, so really your other office, a room here, a room there, a room there. Really, the only thing that’s different is, before in the old office, I don’t think we have actually room in the other one. There was this mini desk and we had the thing that you’ve got on the windowsill on it, and I sort of had my own little rocky chair. Normally when I went there I would sit there.

Nic:
Yeah, you had your own desk in the previous office, which I’m sure we can find you your own desk in the new office, I’m sure. But for the moment, we haven’t had the time really to experience the new office.

Timmy:
No, but that’s fine. There are the other desks, and there’s more room to actually play in when the other one, that was really the only thing because there wasn’t much room. There’s also a board which I like writing little things on, like for the listeners, here’s the riddle I wrote last time, see if you can work it out; what room has no windows and no doors? Here’s a hint, think about something in a forest or a wood.

Nic:
I’m going to give the answer, it’s a mushroom.

Alice:
Do you miss your other office, and do you miss your work from your other office?

Nathalie:
So, the work hasn’t changed, it’s just the office. So do we miss the office? I don’t, I certainly don’t. I really didn’t like that old office, and I wanted to change it for a long time. It was too small, it was too cramped and we couldn’t move, so I don’t really miss it. But I think dad’s got a different view on that one.

Nic:
It’s not that I miss the old office, it’s just that obviously it’s been part of … it was our second office and it’s been part of our journey for quite some time, that I still have some sort of attachment to the quirkiness of it. But no, I don’t miss it, per se, but I miss the idea of being small and nimble, maybe.

Nathalie:
We weren’t small and nimble at the end because we had to cram four or five developers in a tiny room and I felt a bit sorry for them. So at least they can breathe now.

Nic:
No, it’s certainly much better. Now, I don’t miss work because obviously we continue to work. We just like working a little bit differently now, in order to support you at school and to go outside, so you can still get some fresh air and vitamin D.

Nic:
Right, so this is now towards the end of the podcast.

Nathalie:
I have one last question before we wrap up that I’d like to ask both of you. So, let’s start with Alice; what would you like to do when you grow up?

Alice:
I’d like to be an artist, and work with you two.

Nathalie:
That’s a good answer. What about you, Timmy?

Timmy:
I want to be an archaeologist.

Nathalie:
So you want to travel the world and dig the Earth, basically.

Timmy:
More or less.

Nic:
What about you, Alice? What does an artist do on a day to day?

Alice:
I like painting and drawing, and that’s what an artist does.

Nic:
Do you think we can work together when you paint and draw? So for example, you could actually draw websites and be an artist, building or designing or drawing websites.

Alice:
Yeah.

Nic:
Yeah?

Nathalie:
Sounds good.

Nic:
Right. So, that’s the end. Thank you, thank you, very much, Timmy and Alice, for having done this little exercise. That’s something that mum and I wanted to do for quite some time now, so we finally managed to do it. It was quite fun. Did you enjoy it?

Timmy:
Yes, and thank you for having us to do the podcast with you. It’s been a really good experience.

Nic:
Oh, talking about thank you for doing the podcast, Timmy, what are your favourite podcasts?

Timmy:
I’m going to have to go with … how many can I choose? Three? Brains On, definitely. The Week Junior podcast, so I get the Week Junior which is this magazine for eight to 14 year olds, I’ve had it since I was seven but that’s fine. There’s also a podcast, so if you don’t get it but you still want to listen, every Thursday, or maybe it’s Friday, they make a new one. So just get that, it’s really good. It’s things about what’s happening. And then number three-

Nic:
It has to be Tough Cookies.

Timmy:
Yeah.

Nic:
Number three has to be Tough Cookies.

Timmy:
Yeah, number three is Tough Cookies.

Nic:
Right. So, thank you very much, both of you, for having done that. So I’m going to put some little music to say bye-bye to people, and then after that we can go on and prepare tea.

Nathalie:
Thank you.

Nic:
Thank you very much everyone, that wraps up a new episode of the Tough Cookies podcast. We’re going to be back next week with an interview of Kate and Rupert from Stornaway, where we talk about actually another founders couple and we talk about their app and their perspective of running a business together.

Nic:
Right, have a very good week. Nat, I’ll see you and talk to you next week, where actually I will see you and talk to you in about five minutes again, but see you next week.

Nathalie:
Bye.

Nic:
Bye.

Timmy:
Bye.

Alice:
Bye.