The Countrywoman’s Guide to Work, Life & You…

Kresse Wesling, CBE, is a multi-award winning environmental entrepreneur. After first meeting the London Fire Brigade in 2005, Kresse launched Elvis & Kresse, which rescues and transforms decommissioned fire hose into innovative lifestyle products and returns 50% of profits to the Fire Fighters Charity.

The company now collects 12 different waste streams and has several charitable partnerships and collaborations across industries.

In 2021, Kresse and Elvis, her business and life partner, also took on a farm in order to establish a regenerative agriculture project, generate their own renewables and implement a host of environmental initiatives.

Talking to Kresse was a real insight into founding and running a business with a social purpose, initially doing everything themselves to move the business forward and learning and growing as they progressed.Elvis & Kresse’s dedication to reducing waste, and always challenging themselves to do more is second-to-none.Kresse reminds us that kindness is embedded in our humanity and also that there is no perfect company, we can always learn more.PS : I purchased a desk tidy from Elvis & Kresse, part of their collaboration with Burberry and it really is gorgeous.

PPS: My grateful thanks go to Janet Hitchen who was my Do Radio Channel Producer. You can catch all the current Do Radio programmes by listening live here or by downloading the App and listening to the Archive here.

Thank you for reading A Countrywoman’s Guide to living life well and doing business better. Please join us by subscribing for free below

If you’re an ambitious entrepreneur scaling your business or you’re feeling stuck and can’t quite see where to go, then this interview with Les McKeown that I originally recorded for Do Radio should be on your list of things to listen to this week.

Les developed his own trademark @predictablesuccess model and has worked with thousands of people running businesses over the years, so his insights are profound.As Les himself says, “if you truly want to not just grow, but scale your organization, then I can help you achieve, accelerate and sustain that growth.”Whatever size business you run, Les has identified the stagesyou will go through and explains how to navigate them to achieve Predictable Success.

if you’re at an early stage in your business, forewarned is forearmed and you’ll learn about some of the decision points that will come up at some point for you.Take a listen - I’ve never nodded so much during an interview -Les’s advice is absolutely golden.

PS: You can catch all the current Do Radio programmes by listening live here or by downloading the App and listening to the Archive here. Our grateful thanks to them for allowing me to share this on CWG.

I’ve known Lara for a few years now. She first popped up on my radar when she approached me to ask for advice about running her holiday let business at Combe Head House because she’d seen Dimpsey and knew that we were nearby. We met up and have become friends, chatting about business and life in general when we see each other.

With three generations living together, two small children, properties to renovate and a holiday let business to build - Lara is a very busy lady and, like many of our interviewees, her instagram is absolutely dreamy and would have you believe that her life is all about choosing paint colours and styling interiors with the occasional trip to see her gorgeous sheep, goats and chickens.

However, the reality is that, as always, there is huge amounts going on behind the scenes to make it look that easy and more often than not when I pop to see Lara, she emerges from a dusty corner with a broom or a paintbrush in her hand.

In our chat, Lara shares how important the local Community has been to her, providing support and knowledge - and how a wide range of local women-led businesses have been her salvation through the times when it all seemed a bit too much.

If you’ve ever wanted to renovate a house, or running your own business at the same time as having a family feels totally bonkers, Lara’s insights will most definitely be of interest.

Outside of the above, it’s a great chat about women helping women and the countryside community being such a strong support.

I’ve scheduled this one to go out on International Women’s Day as I think it exemplifies the Give to Gain ethos that is already part of the countryside community.

Other Podcast listens that we mention during the episode :

Maddie Beaumont - Redefining Hospitality for 2026 and beyond

Kate Cullen of Fablefaine - Connecting brands with powerful rural properties Kate Cullen

Tamsyn Froom Architecture - Designing spaces that work for your life

As always - thank you for reading and thank you for listening. Please do like and comment if you enjoy the interview as it does help us to be seen by more people.

Thank you for being part of our Countrywoman’s Guide Community. Subscribe for free below to receive new posts.

Over Winter 2025, I hosted the Making Stuff Up Channel on Do Radio for 12 episodes, Do Radio is a new initiative which was the brainchild of David Hieatt and a fabulous team of people who came together to make it happen.

Do Radio is a radio station for people who believe in the power of doing something. Featuring thought-provoking shows from inspiring minds, over the eight channels there is always a show to listen to throughout the day and night.

It’s been an absolute privilege being an early part of the team and I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing really inspiring entrepreneurs and hearing their take on the entrepreneurial journey.

Now you know that one of our key beliefs at Countrywoman’s Guide is that through sharing our journey, warts and all, we can help others feel less alone and inspire them that they too can get through whatever they are struggling with.

So, I’m going to share the interviews with you over the next few weeks in batches of 4 episodes, as the nuggets of wisdom that are shared by our interviewees are too good to miss.

This first episode was to introduce me to the audience, as I was taking over from another presenter. So the tables were turned and I became the interviewee with Janet Hitchen, who produces the Making Stuff Up channel interviewing me about my life and what brought me to this point.

Janet is a very wise Corporate Communications professional and she and I had an absolute ball working together, and our behind the scenes conversations were wide-ranging. I learnt so much from Janet and she has become a firm friend, you’ll hear me talking about serendipity in the interview and I am so glad that fate brought us together.

Anyway, I’m going to hand you over to the podcast now, I hope you enjoy!

Lucy Scudamore is one busy lady!

I first came across Lucy on her Defender Deli instagram, on a reel talking through a veritable feast of delicacies that she was serving from the back of her specially converted Landrover Defender.

Coronation pheasant, pheasant and stuffing sausage rolls, sticky mustard sausages - just her descriptions made me want to go and make some for my lunch!

Plus being a Landrover and picnic fan myself, I loved the fact that this wasn’t just a couple of picnic baskets in the back of the Landrover - this was a fully bespoke interior giving Lucy the ability to lay out her field snacks beautifully.

Landrover and food envy in one reel - I absolutely knew that we had to chat to Lucy on the podcast!

So tune in to get to know Lucy better. We talk job juggling, dog training, business growing and of course, food comes into the conversation.

These conversations always inspire me, I’m in awe of all the female-led country businesses that are out there and their openness to sharing their journey helps us to help you.

So please do like and share this podcast with someone else if this one lands with you - together we can all help each other to grow.

Thanks for reading A Countrywoman’s Guide to Work and Life!

I met Sam Cooper-Gray last year at an event for the launch of the HSBC Fearless and Thriving report about midlife female entrepreneurs, which was researched by Eleanor Mills from Noon.

Sam was so passionate about raising both the profile of, and access to funding for, female entrepreneurs and the words that she spoke to the assembled room stuck with me for many weeks afterwards.

Shortly after we met, Sam made the transition from 25 years in the banking world and became an entrepreneur, establishing her own business, The Wisdom Studio, which was a big change in her life.

A chance comment about putting a phrase on a T-shirt also led to the establishment of Sam’s Women are Good Business Campaign which is now a rallying cry for women entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, and allies who understand that supporting women-led businesses is not about charity — it's about economics.

The statistics that Sam shared with me on the level of equity funding that goes to female entrepreneurs were really quite shocking, and for this reason our conversation most definitely emphasises the need for women to amplify their voices in the business world and the importance of understanding your relationship with money.

This is true, regardless of the size of business you run or the size of your aspiration for your business - getting a better grip on the money side of things will always stand you in good stead.

With also being the host of The Beginner's Guide to Being a Grown-Up, a podcast mixing wit, wisdom, and real-world insight for navigating life's big questions and the Chair of the Gender Index, Sam is one busy lady.

Her work as the Chair of the Gender Index, leading the Conditions to Scale workstream for the UK Government's Invest in Women Taskforce, positions her at the heart of policy-making that will shape the future of female entrepreneurship.

So if you’ve ever wondered about making a big change in your life, or thought that everyone else steps into things and it all happens easily for them, this podcast is a must listen for you.

It’s also a great one to listen to if you want to understand more about how to run a business, both in terms of understanding your finances and for some insight into the types of things a bank might expect to see if you are going in to see them.

Sam also shares insights on navigating business growth, the significance of mentorship, and the personal growth that comes from overcoming adversity.

We’d love to know what you think - please do comment below with questions for Sam or me or let us know what in the interview really made a difference for you.

As always, thank you for listening, we really appreciate it and please do like and share if you feel it’s appropriate to, it really helps us to connect with other readers.

PS : A little glossary for you in case it’s helpful, as we mention these in the programme:

B2B means Business to Business, where one business sells to another business

B2C means Business to Consumer, where the business sells to an individual consumer

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Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Sam Cooper-Gray

05:51 Career Journey and Transition to Entrepreneurship

12:55 Challenges for Women in Business

20:52 The Importance of Experience and Mentorship

25:45 Embracing Autonomy in Entrepreneurship

27:14 Navigating the Emotional Journey of Entrepreneurship

30:03 Finding Balance: Money and Joy in Business

32:58 The Reality of Passion Projects and Viability

36:12 The Impact of Social Media on Business Perception

38:24 Understanding Financial Needs for Business Growth

45:10 Embracing Your Money Archetype

46:54 Life Lessons: The Importance of Authenticity

50:23 Daily Actions and Their Impact on Success

🌿 Discover the beauty of rural creativity with Kate Cullen.

I finally met Kate at an event run by Charlie Dobbs and Matilda Carr earlier this year, having followed her on instagram for some time. We only had time for a brief chat but just before Christmas, Kate came down to Dimpsey in Somerset and took some beautiful photos for Dimpsey and Fablefaine, her location listing website.

After we finished the shoot, Kate sat down with me for a mug of tea and a chat for the CWG podcast.

Kate’s journey has been an interesting one - from archaeology to entrepreneurship. We also chat all things balancing family and business. Kate shares her insights on the importance of personal connections and integrity in building a successful rural business. Her ventures, including Fablefaine and Poetica Lane are centred around rural locations, friends and family, offering unique opportunities for photo shoots, retreats, and workshops.

Tune in to this podcast episode for a heartfelt conversation that celebrates resilience, creativity, and the beauty of rural life.

Thanks for reading A Countrywoman’s Guide to Work and Life! 

Georgia Tanner (who edits our articles and does a lot of our social media) and I had a meeting this week to discuss upcoming content for CWG.

As part of that meeting, we were talking about the CWG lunch we held recently and all that we have learnt over the past year of working together.

CWG has changed during that time, and to set us up ready for next year Georgia asked me if I could note down what CWG is to me and some of our values and how I see them working together.

I was about to write her one of my wordy lists and then I thought about all of you, and how important you are to us.

So I decided to pull the headlines together in notes and then to record it as a podcast, together with some anecdotal advice as we go. That way, Georgia gets the information she asked for and as a billy bonus, I can bring you behind the scenes to hear some of our thinking.

You see, we’re growing too and I’d love you to come on that journey with us, your feedback helps us to shape where we go in the future, so please do comment or direct message us with your thoughts and ideas.

As always, thank you for reading and thank you for listening.

Emma

Photo credit : Rachel Collins: Lens & Pen

Thank you for reading A Countrywoman’s Guide to Work, Life and You, please subscribe to be the first to receive our notes from the field.

I used to suffer from this too…

And it took me a lot of years to get the past tense into the above statement!

* When I was in the corner at a family function, on the phone, frantically gesticulating that I would be done soon - my heart was torn in two. I felt I was being ‘less than’ at doing my job, because I wasn’t fully present, I felt I was being ‘less than’ at being a family member, because I wasn’t fully present.

I’d look around the room at everyone else and wish that I too could be like them, and not be the bonkers entrepreneur in the corner. I felt well and truly judged by them and found wanting.

* When I was in a Board Meeting and my phone rang with a school call - my heart was torn in two. I felt I was being ‘less than’ at doing my job, because I wasn’t fully present. I felt I was being ‘less than’ at being a Mum because I wasn’t fully present.

I’d look around the room at everyone else and wish that I too could be like them, and not be the bonkers Mother in the room. I felt well and truly judged by them and found wanting.

* When I was taking some time out for myself, maybe reading a magazine with a cup of tea, and someone walked in, I felt guilty. I invariably jumped up and moved ‘do something’, I felt I was being ‘less than’ in my household.

I wasn’t busy doing something to add value to my day. I felt like I was skiving and needed to justify taking some time out. I felt well and truly judged by them and found wanting.

* When I was…

I’ll stop here with the scenarios, I could go on adding to this list for you, because, believe me, there were many of them. I also think that you probably recognise yourselves in my story and that you too could add even more instances of feeling pulled in many directions at once to my list.

I couldn’t work it out, I couldn’t see what I was doing to myself, I had silently bought into the myth that I had to do it all, somehow be omnipresent and that the success of many elements of my life solely depended on me.

I could feel myself getting more and more frustrated by this, and also more and more run down. I was taking on too much and as our lives changed and my work responsibilities grew, I was still trying to do it all.

Having lost my father in my late 20’s, I absolutely knew that work shouldn’t be the be all and end all.

Having had pleurisy in my early 30’s and ending up off work for 8 weeks, because I pushed on through in the early stages of it I absolutely knew that work shouldn’t be the be all and end all.

But despite the above, I still believed I had to be it all…

Gradually, as life continued to layer in its lessons along the way, and I learnt more about me and how I tick, I started to realise that I was in an absolute ‘emperor has no clothes situation.’

Yes absolutely, in any of the situations I had been in and found myself wanting, someone in that room may well have been judging me, many of us have opinions about what someone is doing.

But I have no control over that, I don’t know what’s gone on in their life to lead them to have that opinion, but in reality it was probably nothing to do with anything that I was doing.

In fact, in most cases I actually had no clue about what they were thinking - in reality, the judge and jury in the room was me, and only me.

And I was judging myself harshly, I was speaking to myself in a way that I would never speak to anyone else…

The defining moment for me, was when my husband, affectionately known in my online musings as Mr W, held both my hands, looked me straight in the eye and told me, ‘You are enough…’

Don’t ask me why, but this particular time, it really landed with me and I realised that he was absolutely right.

I put my objective head on and stood back from my own situation and realised that I needed to change my habits if I wanted to remove this limitation that I was putting on myself.

I talked to my mentor, friends and Mr W, found positive role models to follow and over time, these became my new mantras…

* The only person you have control of is yourself and the only thoughts you really know about are yours. So you should stop worrying about what people think, as in reality you do not know what they are thinking.

* Only worry about things that you have control of.

* You are enough! If you’re doing your best and with good intention, you need to give yourself a break and know that you are enough.

* Congratulate yourself about what you are doing, rather than booting yourself about what you’re not doing.

* Family first, book in to take breaks together, prioritise getting to important events, but don’t worry if that involves some compromising between your conflicting priorities.

* You matter! Look after yourself because you are a precious resource.

* And finally, you can have it all, just not all at once.

This last one was an absolute game changer for me.

It’s like when you’ve got shopping in the car and in reality, it’s a bit more than you can carry but you try and make it into the house in one trip. Invariably, a bag handle breaks and you end up chasing oranges around the drive and it’s just a bit of disaster!

That’s what happens when you are trying to excel in all the areas of your life at once, you just can’t carry it all - so choose carefully what you want to carry and when.

So for me, my family and my career are both important to me and to be my best in both those capacities, I have to make sure that I make time for me too. So I choose to not care what my house looks like too much and to only say yes to going to things that I really want to do.

I don’t need to be superwoman in all the areas of my life and neither do you.

And when I know something is going to be really busy in one area of my life, I try my best to organise ahead and cut some myself some slack in the other areas.

It is possible to be a Mum, have a career and enjoy both elements, and I’m stating this here because I know that many women that I speak to feel it has to be an either/or choice.

In fact, I’m saying it’s possible to be what you want to be, in whatever form makes you happy.

I’m not saying it’s perfect and I have it all worked out - I still have Mum guilt, business guilt, you name it guilt occasionally - but that’s OK, I’m human. The fact that I don’t let the guilt consume me any more makes a huge difference.

For me, starting Countrywoman’s Guide, provided an opportunity for us all to share stories, to throw light into the shadows and to inspire others through difficult patches because you can see that you’re not alone in not having all the answers.

So that you can see that you too are enough.

You’ve shared some amazing stories over the past couple of years, and I know from the comments we get, just how helpful our community have found hearing other people’s journey.

So if you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed, I’d encourage you to take a breath and create your own version of my list above and then start out on the journey of changing your approach. It won’t be overnight and you will have stops and starts along the way. But keep reminding yourself about your list and what you want to achieve and you can keep yourself on the path.

Then start believing that it’s true - you are enough…

Thank you for reading - if there’s someone in your life you feel would benefit from reading (or listening to) this too - please do share with them using the button below.

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I’ve got to be completely honest with you and say that when I started doing the podcast I wasn’t sure exactly how many episodes there would be.

* Would I find enough people to talk to?

* Would you be interested enough to listen?

* Could I handle doing the tech side of things?

Well, happily none of the above provided to be a problem, our interviewees have been unfailingly generous in sharing their experience and knowledge and the CWG podcasts have become one of my very favourite things to do, so we have lots more to come!

Plus I have to say a big thank you to all of you for your support - your comments, your messages and just the fact that you take the time to read our articles and listen to our podcasts are very much appreciated.

So this episode is an overview of where we’ve got to and the things we’re thinking about going forward, as well as a little bit of life advice from me.

Please do comment or message me with any ideas you have about what you’d like to see - or if you have a moment we’d love it if you would fill in the very short survey below to let us know your views.

We have a lovely prize of some Rock and Ruby socks and some Dimpsey chocolates made by Cathy’s Chocolates to give away to one lucky winner - to be drawn from the list of the names of people who complete the survey by Sunday 14th September 2025.

As always, thank you for reading and thank you for listening, your support really does mean the world to us.

And for more conversations like this one, please do make sure you’re subscribed to Countrywoman’s Guide - bringing stories from countryside businesses straight to your inbox