I quit drinking when I was 26, when my firstborn was 18 months old, but before I got pregnant with my second child.

I wasn’t drinking every day, but every time I started drinking, I couldn’t stop. Hangovers would leave me crushed with nausea and anxiety for days at a time, until the next failed attempt to moderate.

There was no rock bottom or arrest, no DUI or ruined relationship that signalled the need to quit. It was a personal choice I made, based on how my relationship with alcohol was affecting me and my mental health. Eventually, it became clear that alcohol no longer deserved a place in my life.

My kids have never seen me drunk or hungover. My oldest was too young to remember what it looked like for me to fail horribly at moderation, commit to sobriety and then fail again, then learn how to be sober. They only know me as their mother who doesn’t drink alcohol.

My husband is a “normal” drinker, which is to say that he is able to drink without it having an overwhelmingly negative effect on his mental health. He was supportive when I told him of my decision to quit.

Still, when I quit drinking, we had to navigate some changes in our relationship. First of all, if I wasn’t drinking anymore, what in the world were we supposed to do on date night? We met in college and drinking is, quite literally, what we did.

Did the beginning of my recovery signal the end of our marriage? Once we were able to confirm that it didn’t, we had honest conversations around what I needed from him as a partner to feel secure and respected in my sobriety.

I never expected my husband to quit with me, and I’m pretty sure he never even entertained the idea that he might. My husband continuing to drink was never triggering for me.

We set up a few boundaries regarding alcohol in the house (no signage on the walls, no glassware in the kitchen, move it to the garage) and got on the same page regarding how alcohol and sobriety would be discussed in our home, and with our kids, who are now 5 and 2.5.

Because my husband still drinks regularly, we acknowledge alcohol in our house without villainising it. My kids know they can always drink out of my water bottle or have a sip of my cran & seltzer at the pool, but their dad’s drink might not always be fair game.

“Daddy’s drink has alcohol in it,” I tell them. We also talk openly and honestly about why there isn’t alcohol in my drink. “Mommy doesn’t drink anymore because it’s not good for her.”

Over three years of trial and error, we’ve found these boundaries to be the most helpful for me and my sobriety, the most impactful in our family, and hopefully the most beneficial for our children.

First, we don’t advertise alcohol. The very first thing I did when I quit drinking was remove any beer, wine, whiskey or shot glasses from the kitchen cabinets and take down my wine-themed decor. All alcohol-themed decor or knick-knacks (magnets, cups, signage, etc.) were taken down. This quickly extended to clothing as well. (The “natural light” onesie we were gifted barely got halfway out the bag before my resolute “No.”) I also had my husband move all the alcohol out of the fridge in the kitchen and into the garage fridge.

One of the biggest “parenting turn-offs” for me is when I see parents posting pictures or videos of their kids involving alcohol. I’ve seen babies holding beer bottles, and I’ve seen tweens “practicing” beer pong.

Since removing myself from alcohol culture, I see this as problematic since, in my sober opinion, it normalises and glamorises drinking culture as aspirational. Beyond not taking pictures of the kids with alcohol in them, we also put down our own drinks (NA or not) when we take pictures without the kids.

Last summer we were at the lake with some family. It was the classic lake-day-with-kids setup – a semicircle of chairs, coolers stuffed with water, juice boxes, snacks, and drinks (both alcoholic and NA), and an explosion of sand toys in the middle. My husband asked his mother to get him a beer out of the cooler. She pulled out a can and asked my two-year-old to “hand this to your daddy, please”.

My husband held our family boundary on my behalf when he quickly said “No need to involve her,” and reached across the circle to take the beer can from his mom himself.

We are mindful of how we talk about drinking. For instance, beer is beer, not “daddy juice”. Last year, a neighbour referred to a High Noon as “juice” to my son. I shook my head, and said, “It’s beer.” (I know a High Noon is technically vodka, not beer. But to my five-year-old, any alcohol is “beer”. And it definitely isn’t juice.)

At dinner that night, I explained that some adults think it’s fun or silly to call beer “adult juice”. He couldn’t understand – and quite frankly, neither can I – why another mom would say something was juice (something he can have) if it was beer (something he can’t).

I was lucky to not be exposed to problematic drinking behaviour or obvious alcoholism growing up. But alcohol and drinking culture was the norm. Both my parents drank; there was always beer in the fridge for dad and wine in the cabinet for mom. My developing mind concluded that drinking alcohol is standard for adults.

It does the kids no good for us to ignore alcohol, but it would also do them no good – and it would be a disservice to my own sobriety – if we approached alcohol with the same nonchalant attitude that I witnessed when I was younger.

My husband and I try to be aware of how we (and others) talk about alcohol as a coping mechanism or a treat. “I need a drink” has turned into “I would like to have a drink.” Alcohol isn’t something “for adults,” but rather something you have to be an adult to do.

We don’t allow alcohol to affect our plans as a family. The whole family should not be waiting on my husband to finish a drink at a restaurant or pour a drink at home. Our children should not feel like they are waiting on adults to get settled with a drink before they can be tended to.

Hangovers, infrequent as they may be, also don’t affect our plans. My husband is well aware of the expectation that we have a full day, no matter what time he went to bed the night before. This seems to mostly be motivation enough not to drink himself into a hangover.

We are honest with our kids about the ways alcohol affects our bodies. When my kids ask why I don’t drink if daddy does, I often say, “I used to, but it made my heart hurt.” I didn’t identify as an alcoholic before I quit drinking, so I didn’t find it helpful to say I had an illness or that my body works differently.

In sobriety, I’ve begun to identify as an addict, which I will explain to my kids when they’re older. When it is age appropriate, I will explain that I had no “off-switch” with alcohol. This led me to experience an all-consuming anxiety and guilt each time I drank.

Beyond my body’s personal reaction to alcohol, we are open with our kids about the fact that alcohol is a drug. It is not healthy nor a “good” thing to do, but many adults still choose to drink it. It is, mostly, a personal choice.

My goal with this approach is not to convince my children that they should or should not drink alcohol. My goal is to give them the education, the self-confidence and the critical thinking skills to make the decision they know will be best for themselves.

Yes, alcohol is bad for you. But drinking alcohol doesn’t make you a bad person. Many people drink alcohol, but that doesn’t warrant the celebration it often gets in homes across the nation.

Growing up steeped in drinking culture – even the normalisation of alcohol – can make it difficult to see through the fog. I just want my kids to grow up and know there is another option, because their mom showed them.

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The cast and crew of The Odyssey have made no secret of the fact that shooting Christopher Nolan’s new epic was an especially grueling experience.

And in a new interview with The Telegraph, the Oscar-winning filmmaker has shared just how much his actors were put through their paces on set.

While making The Odyssey, Nolan opted to shoot on location using practical effects as much as possible, rather than relying on sound stages and CGI.

As a result, the shoot took the director and his troupe of actors to Scotland’s Moray Coast, where they shot a scene on board a recreation of a 115-foot Norse warship in the middle of a storm.

The conditions led to many of the shoot’s extras experiencing seasickness, which gave the Oppenheimer filmmaker an idea.

“Excuse me,” the outlet quoted him as saying. “But would you mind if we get the vomiting on camera?”

“Credit to them, they said, ‘Absolutely, bring it on’,” he recalled. “They were really game for it.

“And that day ended up being fabulous as well as miserable; it yielded some of my favourite shots in the film.”

Matt Damon leads The Odyssey as its central hero, Odysseus, with the film follows his journey home to Ithaca at the end of the Trojan War.

Last month, the Ocean’s Eleven star opened up about just how gruelling the shooting could get, telling GQ: “The joke on the crew was we didn’t have a single easy location. Every time we’d go somewhere, we’d be like, ‘Well, Iceland will be easier’. And then it’s raining sideways and it’s fucking freezing. Iceland was like, ‘Yeah, easy? Hey, hold my beer.’”

Even though the last days of filming took place on a lot in Los Angeles, Matt admitted that even this came with its problems.

“Sure enough, we showed up [to the set in LA] and Chris has two jet engines blowing so much water at us,” he explained. “So it was kind of a fitting end.

“Even the controlled environment was cold, wet, and a little bit miserable.”

Meanwhile, his co-star Robert Pattinson agreed that he had “never seen people look so exhausted” before beginning his work on The Odyssey, which finally sales into cinemas on Friday 17 July.

Sitting back and relaxing, or sitting at your desk, are mindless movements, but how you sit (and how long you sit) can impact your health.

Many people tend to default to certain seated positions, and one popular posture is crossing one leg over the other (seen here) – not like a pretzel, but with one leg draped over the other knee.

The position is casual enough to be done at football games yet formal enough to be done at job interviews. It’s a posture many people find themselves in for much of the day.

Physical therapists said there is nothing wrong with sitting this way, and there is a reason it’s so appealing. But there are a few things you should keep in mind if you often find yourself sitting with your legs crossed. Here’s what to know:

According to Valerie Rogers, a physical therapist at Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, this position “gives you a little bit of support.”

“So that when you go and lean forward, as you’re looking at a computer or something like that, you don’t have to use quite as many muscles to still keep you upright,” Rogers said.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is a less active posture than simply just sitting up straight with your feet on the ground, she noted.

If you sit this way consistently and for long periods of time, it could “eventually make your postural muscles not quite as strong,” Rogers explained. “But you can still sit in those positions with an engaged posture, too. So, it kind of works both ways.”

When you repeatedly sit cross-legged, you can create a bit of a pelvic imbalance, said Ethan Triplett, a physical therapist with Orlando Health in Florida.

“When you cross your legs, your body is naturally going to go into a little bit more of a slouched posture all the way up from the back, even up into the neck,” Triplett explained. “Putting one foot over top, you can obviously see how that’s going to push one pelvis side up compared to the other, and so that’s going to put a little bit of different pressure on your glutes.”

If you are constantly tilting to one side, your body has to compensate, he added.

“So, a lot of times, people will start to see that muscular discomfort, which is why we often tell people to change [their position] pretty frequently,” Triplett noted.

“There’s not a ton of robust research looking at this – what we do know is there is a temporary rise in blood pressure,” said Alex Hill, a pelvic health and oncology physical therapist and owner of OncoPelvic PT in Florida.

It happens in the moment when you have your legs crossed, which is why doctors and nurses have you put your feet flat on the floor when taking your blood pressure in healthcare settings, Hill added.

“But … it’s not that having your legs crossed every day is going to cause hypertension or cause a chronic blood pressure issue,” Hill said.

Sitting in a legs-crossed position for extended periods is particularly not recommended for those who have lymphedema.

“There are some considerations, also with crossing your legs that could increase the pressure on the lymphatic and the blood vessels, so it can temporarily reduce fluid drainage efficiency,” Hill said. “With lymphedema, it is recommended to avoid crossing the legs for extended periods of time because it does occlude those vessels for that temporary time period.”

“The phrase that I always tell my patients is, ‘your best posture is your next posture,’” Triplett said. Posture problems can be a big contributor for discomfort and pain.

“I don’t think sitting in any one position more than 30 minutes is good for the body,” said Ryan Galvin, a physical therapist with UofL Health in Kentucky.

Galvin recommends that folks set a timer for every 30 minutes or so to remind themselves to get up and move around.

“The reason you want to create variability in your positions and your postures is so your body doesn’t get accustomed to one position and mold into that one position,” Galvin noted.

This is how “tech neck,” a forward head posture, happens in people who look down at computers or phones a lot, he said.

“If you spend too much time in one position repetitively, your body ends up creating a new posture,” Galvin said.

It’s easy to forget to get up and move if you work a desk job or are tuned into a particularly good Netflix binge, but if you aren’t getting up to move, it can become problematic, no matter how you’re sitting.

“Those muscles can get weak, they can get tight, including those hip flexors, your hamstrings, your core stabilisers, and so over time that can lead to issues,” Hill said. “But sitting one day with your legs crossed isn’t the end of the world.”

BBC presenter Nick Robinson clashed with Robert Jenrick over his claims that the government is failing to give Nigel Farage the protection he needs.

The pair went head-to-head after it emerged the Reform UK leader rejected the same taxpayer-funded protection package given to Tory leader Kemi Badenoch when he was offered it.

That would have seen him receive a bodyguard, a car and a trained driver at all times.

However, Farage insisted it was not enough to protect him from the threats he faces and turned it down.

He is now set to have a meeting with the Royal and VIP Executive Committee (RAVEC), an independent body which assesses the threat posed to high-profile people, to discuss his concerns.

The row has erupted in the wake of the alleged murder of Ann Widdecombe, the former Tory minister who became a Reform spokeswoman.

A 28-year-old man has been arrested and counter-terror police are now leading the investigation.

On Radio 4′s Today programme, Jenrick, Reform’s Treasury spokesman, accused the government of “downgrading” the protection given to Farage after he became an MP in 2024.

“He initially was given a comprehensive plan that was commensurate with the threat that he faced,” he said.

“Then that was downgraded. I don’t know why, maybe that will be explained to Nigel when he meets the committee. But that feels to me to have been very unwise, to say the least.”

He added: “Sadly this is a man who is under great threat and think the authorities are just very blase about that, as are parts of the media.

“Just the other day parts of the media were happy to publish photographs which made it very easy to know where his daughter lived [and] his homes.”

But Robinson told him: “Nigel Farage posed in front of his own homes for the cameras repeatedly.”

Jenrick insisted that Reform MPs face a greater threat than other politicians because they “raise issues that many mainstream politicians shy away from”.

He said: “If you talk about Islamist extremism, as I do and Nigel Farage has done for many years, you are likely to be in considerably more danger than those who don’t.”

Robinson hit back: “You can’t say that Mr Jenrick, there’s no evidence for that at all. There’s a threat from the far right in this country. Ask Diane Abbott, if she was in that seat, ask the family of Jo Cox. There are people on all sides of politics who have become a target.”

He went on: “In the last few minutes, you have attacked the media, you’ve attacked the police, you’ve attacked the government, you’ve attacked the [Commons] Speaker, you’ve attacked the establishment who apparently want someone dead in the Reform party.

“What do you say to those who say ’yes, this is a terrible tragedy what happened to Ann Widdecombe, we don’t actually know why she was murdered yet, we don’t even know if she was murdered because of her connection with Reform UK. It could be. None of this is clear until the police complete their investigation.

“But it does suit you and Nigel Farage to change the subject nationally from the fact that Mr Farage took a vast donation of £5 million from someone living abroad and he wishes to connect that with his security when in fact it has nothing to do with it at all, it’s about a breach of parliamentary rules.”

Jenrick then accused Robinson of reading off “a pre-scripted final question to me” – something the presenter angrily denied.

The Reform MP went on: “The point I am making is that the government chose not to give Nigel Farage the security he needed. They now have, as a result of Ann Widdecombe’s appalling murder, offered him a meeting.

“The home secretary could have offered him that meeting a year ago, two years ago, she chose not to. That is playing politics with the safety of politicians and I suspect that’s because they don’t like the views that Reform politicians take forward.”

Listen to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

Right now, there’s an “exceptional” risk of wildfires in parts of the UK (especially the sunnier South of England and the lower parts of the Midlands).

Hot, dry conditions, influenced by the back-to-back heatwaves we’ve experienced so far, are continuing into the longest period of unusually hot weather in years.

That means that something as simple as a glass bottle or embers that travelled on the wind risk setting spaces like your garden aflame, the London Fire Brigade (LFB) said on its site.

A National Fire Chiefs Council spokesperson told the BBC: “When the weather stays hot and dry, it only takes one spark to start a wildfire. What can begin as a small fire can spread incredibly quickly, putting people, homes, wildlife and our countryside at risk.”

One of the ways the LFB recommends reducing this risk is by getting rid of combustible materials (things that can easily catch fire) in your backyard.

This includes keeping your grass below a certain height.

“By removing anything flammable, like dry grass or piles of rubbish, you’re removing fuel for any wildfires,” the LFB explained.

Keeping your grass below 7cm can help with that, as can removing dead leaves from areas like your gutters, positioning things like sheds and garden furniture away from your home, and cutting back trees and shrubs near your house.

Ensuring your garden is watered can help, too, but be aware that many parts of the UK are currently facing hosepipe bans.

“If a hosepipe ban is in place, consider using water butts or wastewater from your home to water your garden,” the LFB added.

This involves clearing a 2-3cm space around every side of your home and garden to reduce the chances of fire spreading.

Anything else? Yes. Compost heaps can be a fire hazard in gardens, so it’s best to keep them away from buildings and structures like sheds.

Keep them moist and use a watering can if you’re worried it’s running dry.

A “good balance” of green (plants, kitchen scraps, natural fibres, and leafy garden waste) and brown (like cardboard and shredded woody prunings) materials helps too, as does turning the heap over often.