I’m having my ex and new man to Xmas dinner
Loose Women star talks about finding love again and how she is looking forward to Yuletide fun with family
COLEEN Nolan is excited for Christmas with her new man.
But the Loose Women star won’t be setting a tinselly table for two – her ex-husband is coming too.
As the Daily Record’s agony aunt, Coleen knows all about the pitfalls of festive fallouts. But she’s convinced she can make it work.
She told Woman’s Own magazine: “I can’t tell you his name because it’s early days and I want to keep it to myself for now. But he’s lovely and he’s going to be spending Christmas with us.
“He’s met all the kids and family and he’s met my ex, Ray Fenton, and everyone gets on.
“In a way it’s what I wasn’t getting from my marriage. He’s very like me, he’s romantic and tactile and we’ve got the same interests. It’s been great.
“My kids are all settled and now it would be lovely to think I could have someone for me for the rest of my life, and hopefully it’s him.”
Meeting someone from a huge
showbiz family has not put him off. Coleen said: “He’s so laid-back, nothing fazes him.
“He handles the celebrity side of things very well. I’ve got a big family and we’re all mad, so to walk into all of them is daunting, but he took it all in his stride”
Despite her family and career, Coleen was lonely during her marriage to musician Ray.
She said: “I think we should always have been friends.
“I met Ray and was pregnant very quickly. But we have different outlooks on life.
“I think it’s lonelier to stay with someone you’re not happy with.”
Coleen takes the festivities extremely seriously. The family home, in Cheshire, becomes a winter wonderland. She said: “We’re just Christmas-mad in my family. We have about five trees including a 15ft one in the kitchen. Then I’ve got three little lounges and each lounge has got a tree in it. My daughter Ciara even has one in her room because she’s Christmas-mad.
“I tell them Santa’s coming even though my eldest is 32.”
Cooking dinner is a complicated affair, with carnivores and plant-only people sitting down at the same table.
Coleen said: This is my first Christmas being a vegan so I will probably have a nut roast. My eldest son and his fiancée are meat-eaters so they’ll have turkey and all the trimmings and pigs in blankets. Ciara and my other son are both vegetarians.”
She has seen a huge improvement in her health since giving up meat. Coleen said: “In January, I went veggie after watching a documentary.
“I was like an old woman, I had pains in my feet, my hips, my back. I was having physiotherapy and I was living on painkillers.
“It’s changed my life, I don’t think I’ve taken a painkiller since.
“I’ve lost about two stones and this lifestyle change means that the weight has come off and is staying off. I just feel so much better. I don’t think I could ever eat meat again.”
She’ll have a glass of something to wash down her sprouts and chestnuts – but not too many.
She said: “I don’t wake up and drink. I’m not a massive drinker anyway. I have a drink at Christmas obviously and New Year but even then I’ll have two or three, get a bit tipsy and think I’ve had enough.
“Then it’s straight back on the tea. That’s why I am always the last one standing.”
Woman’s Own Christmas issue is out today.