Claudia Winkleman: ‘I wish I was cooler, but I like getting in bed by 8:30pm’
How do famous names spend their precious downtime? In our weekly My Saturday column, celebrities reveal their weekend virtues and vices. This week: Claudia Winkleman
6.30am
I’m up at 6.30, because I’m 51. I feed our rabbit, Cheese, who is mad for parsley, and I hunt for my 12-year-old; everyone else is asleep [Winkleman and her husband, film producer Kris Thykier, have three children, aged 12, 17 and 20]. I’ll eat toast with peanut butter, then get back into bed and fall back to sleep.
9am
I wake up again, look at the news online and have a Kenco decaf – I don’t believe in fancy coffee. I put on the radio, then mention the dreaded word: ‘homework’. All I want at the weekend, like some wizened orange control freak, is the homework done. When it is, we’re freewheeling: let’s make gravy, let’s look online at photos of baby otters, let’s live our lives. My daughter’s 17, and she’ll want to be on something called TikTok, which I still don’t understand. I said to her, ‘Is it for me?’ She was like, ‘I don’t think so.’
11.30am
We might go for a walk; we live very close to Hyde Park. Other than walking, I have no fitness routine. I went to a gym once and I was confused. I’ll be dressed in my uniform: black jeans, a black T-shirt and any old sweater. There is no make-up at all, and I rarely blow-dry my hair because I’m impatient and I can’t hold my arm up for that long.
1pm
Sometimes we go for dim sum for lunch, or we’ll come back and I’ll make roast chicken. This is if I have a Saturday off. If not, I’ll have gone to work [on her radio show, from which she has announced she will step down in March, to spend more time with her children] at 8.30am, then my husband and kids might meet me at 1pm and we’ll go for fish and chips. We all cook in our house. My 20-year-old, if he’s back from university, is the best cook – but everyone can make a bowl of pasta, 12-year-old included.
3pm
After lunch we’ll play cards – my husband and I are obsessed by bridge. We’ve taught the kids baby bridge, so we play that for hours quite competitively. I have been told that I’ve got to stop trying to make the 12-year-old cry, which I take on board.
5pm
The discussion starts about what to watch. It’s quite difficult to please everybody, but our happy place is Studio Ghibli. Spielberg works for everyone too, although we possibly showed them Jaws a bit young – nobody has had a bath since.
7pm
If there’s been a big sit-down lunch, for supper we’ll probably stand around and eat leftovers. I don’t really drink. I’d like to be a person who can, but I had to have a nap at my own wedding because I had half a glass of wine.
8pm
I like the little one in bed by eight-ish with a book. Then my daughter will go out and see friends. My husband and I get into bed and read. Demon Copperhead [by Barbara Kingsolver] is by my bed, and so is Robert Galbraith, The Silkworm.
I wish I was cooler – out drinking a tequila in a knee-high boot – but the fact is that I like to be putting on Cannaray Hand Rescue [part of a range she has co-created with the CBD brand] and getting in bed by about 8.30pm. I asked for a crochet set for my 18th birthday, this has always been where I was headed.
The Cannaray x Claudia range is available now, from £7, at cannaraycbd.com
