We don't often get to hear the inside story of an adoption and less so the voices of both the parent(s) adopting and the voice and experience of the child.

In Margaret Reynolds book The Wild Track we get to hear both those voices and the intimate and often very challenging journey Margaret (Peggy) went on for seven years to finally one day bring her daughter Lucy home.

She shares both their different experiences of that actual day when she went to pick Lucy up. Her own being one of ‘getting it done’ and following the advice of the social workers – get in and get out, and the very different experience that Lucy was going through - being wrenched away from her foster family with very little explanation of why she was leaving them, what would happen next and for how long she was going to be parted from them.

Margaret (Peggy) shares that going through the often brutal adoption process really required her look at her own life and childhood and the realisation she was, in effect, a migrant from Australia and how because she (and Lucy) had both moved around a lot at a young age – the sense of home and belonging was so important for them – the nurture and sense of stability.

The fabulous Professor Norman Lazarus is 85, medication free, a long distance cycler and last year authored the Sunday Times best selling book The Lazarus Strategy.  Part manifesto and part self-help book the Lazarus Strategy calls on us all to take control of how we age.   And the good news is that whilst genes play a part, it is lifestyle that is the key factor in how we go on to enjoy our later years or not.  

Professor Lazarus knows his stuff!  For the past three decades he has been studying the science behind ageing and what we can do about it as a Professor at King's College London. 

Here we delve deep into his three key pillars - what we eat and how much we eat, how much exercise we do and what our mindset is like.  He believes that modern medicine is still failing to make the very important link between body and mind.

Professor Lazarus' positive attitude is so infectious that one can't help thinking that 85 looks ok if we can all be as fit and positive as him.  And the doctor says for most people it is all within our control but we need to start getting serious about how we live, eat and move. 

Talking to surrogacy lawyer Natalie Sutherland about the complexities of the surrogacy process and the joy of helping others to create or grow their family. We have both been following the column “The Mother Project” by Award winning journalist Sophie Beresiner in the Sunday Times Style magazine and discussed not just her journey but the often sensitive issues that Natalie helps people work through