Sophie Ellis-Bextor: I don't mind if my children switch off my music – I'm not trying to raise tiny fans
5.50am
I've got five children [Sonny, 21, Kit, 16, Ray, 13, Jesse, nine, and six-year-old Mickey] so it's pot luck if we get a lie-in. During the week I'm the house alarm clock, but on Saturdays hopefully I'll get to wake up a little later. If the youngest does wake early, we'll send him downstairs to watch cartoons and snooze for a bit longer. On a good day, everyone will stay in bed, and I'll get two hours more sleep.
9am
I love Saturdays at home and without fail I'll make pancakes for everyone after I've had my cup of tea, the first one always with sugar, the rest of the day without. I have the same breakfast I have every day: two slices of toast, one with Marmite, one with peanut butter.
10.30am
Our morning soundtrack will be some news then BBC 6 Music if I'm in charge, but usually the kids will order Alexa to switch channels to something they like, or Sonny and Ray will put on music for their Saturday-morning guitar lessons. Occasionally, one of my songs will make it on to the stereo, probably something from my forthcoming album Perimenopop, but it's an unusual day when it gets to the end without being taken off. But that's fine. I'm not trying to raise tiny fans.
11.30am
Now the weather's nicer, we'll open up the garden and have a bounce on the trampoline, usually still in our jim-jams. I love trampolining and even filmed one of my videos on one once. I love a good bounce. I find it quite contemplative. No somersaults though. I'm worried I'll break my neck.
1pm
Richard [Jones, Ellis-Bextor's husband and bass player of The Feeling] and I both love cooking, so we'll pick up fresh food from the local butcher, fishmonger and grocer and often have loads of people over. Last weekend we had 40 people for a barbecue. Richard will do the meat and fish, and I'll do loads of salads and potatoes. My pomegranate and pistachio couscous and roasted peppers with anchovies went down really well.
3pm
As a musician there's no hard and fast 'no work at the weekend' rule, so I might do a little. Richard and I do multiple projects together, so we might prepare for our Monday podcast, or I might rehearse in our home studio. We've also recently invested in a little business called Four Leaf Coffee in a local garden centre and take it in turns to go over there. We try to keep to the creative side rather than the boring admin stuff.
5pm
I love an early-evening aperitif and my go-to is a Tia Maria espresso Martini. If I'm performing, I'll wait till later and have it as a post-gig celebration. It's been a wild 18 months since Murder on the Dancefloor featured in the film Saltburn. It's opened up a whole new American market – including me performing in Times Square. It's put so much wind behind me making the new record.
8pm
We'll have been grazing on lunch all afternoon so supper tends to be lighter, maybe pasta, then as it's not a school night I'll let the kids stay up later. If I'm doing a gig, I'll grab something twinkly to put on, do my own hair and make-up and whisk off into the night with my sparkly shoes on.
11pm
If I'm performing, I might get back any time between 11pm and 1am. When I was younger the distance between my everyday existence and me on stage was wider, but now there's not so much of an on/off switch to the process, so I don't feel the need to burn off the energy after a show.
Midnight
I like to have a chat with all the kids before they go to sleep, starting off with the youngest ones. I've been in the parenting zone for so long now I can survive on only five hours of sleep a night.
12.30am
I've got a ton of books on my bedside table that I've started but not finished. I know people say don't do it, but before I close my eyes I bloody love spending a bit of time mindlessly looking at my phone, and I might have a final look at eBay before calling it a night.
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