relatively speaking
We ask personalities about the special family relationships in their lives
Ifirst met Jules after attending the Army versus Navy rugby match at Twickenham in London in 2009. I'd gone to a nightclub after the game with some friends and Jules came up to me and gave me the worst chat-up line I've ever heard. I can't repeat it, but when she delivered it I just fell about laughing.
We began to see each other after that and I proposed to Jules on Valentine's Day in 2010, so we got married not that long after we first met. It was one of those things — I just knew and felt that we were compatible with each other.
Jules is very funny and she has a wicked sense of humour, wicked being the operative word. Being a sculler I'm the only person on the rowing squad who's not actually in a team and that makes me a bit more independent. I think Jules is quite independent, too, and we're similar in that respect.
Jules wasn't interested in rowing at all when we met, and in a way I'm actually very attracted to that. If I've had a hard day at training she gives me 10 minutes to whine, but I'm not allowed to talk about it after that.
Jules came to watch me at the
‘She wasn’t interested in rowing at all’
World Championships and she was at the Olympics. When she is surrounded by a lot of people talking about rowing I think she sometimes just tunes out.
Jules is definitely the cook. I make a guest appearance in the kitchen from time to time but I nearly killed us the other night.
We have house rules. There are pink jobs and blue jobs.
Jules does the pink jobs like cooking and stuff and then tells me what to do for the blue ones.
She's a PA and she organises her boss’s life, but when she comes home she organises mine as well.
Sadly the chat-up line that I used is not printable. We were in this horrendous nightclub in a dodgy part of London when I delivered the line, but at least I learned from Alan's reaction that he was up for a bit of banter.
I grew up in Bermuda where I was surrounded by boats and yachts so I suppose I should be into rowing but it's not really my thing. I think my dad summed it up best when he said all it is is sliding up and down a boat on your backside, going backwards as fast as you can. I tend to glaze over when I'm in company that's talking about rowing.
Alan trains seven days a week so we're kind of limited in terms of the social side of our lives. We are best mates as well as a married couple. I never thought I'd find myself with someone like Alan but you can't help falling in love.
When Alan's off to a training camp he'll be away from home for a while. At times like that I normally meet up with the wives and girlfriends of the other row- ers on the team and we'd go for coffee and stuff like that. Most of the other wives are in the same position as me, funnily enough. They aren't really into rowing and haven't rowed before. I think there's only one who's a rower.
‘I love cooking for him but he eats a lot’
On the other hand it was absolutely amazing to see Alan do so well in the Olympics, it was a really proud moment.
I enjoy cooking for Alan, but he eats an awful lot. His mum sometimes says it's hard to feed him at Christmas and I often ask her how she thinks I feel because I've got to feed him for the rest of the year.
We live in London, but we get over to Coleraine to see his parents quite a lot. I really get on with them and it's like I married the family as well as Alan.