Countdown's Rachel Riley has said that the romantic side of her relationship with her husband Pasha Kovalev is "on hold" at the moment.
Former Strictly Come Dancing star Rachel first met her other half when they were paired together for the BBC show back in 2013 before going on to tie the knot in 2019 and having two kids in quick succession shortly after.
Feeling the mounting pressures of parenthood and having two young kids under four, Rachel said their young tots are the priority just now and the pair won't be going on romantic dates together until she stops breastfeeding their youngest daughter Noa, who is 18 months old.
During the interview with the Mirror, Rachel said: “All the romance and dates… we just kind of put a pin in it. “We’re both quite patient and we know that once Noa is off the boob, we’ll get there again.”
Meanwhile the star is also looking forward to letting her hair down for a big bash to mark her 40th birthday.
She continued: “I’m looking forward to celebrating one of my friends turning 40 at the end of the year. She’s the one stepping into the unknown but with all my school friends, in a few years it will be 40, 40, 40… I’m looking forward to the parties.
"We were all saving up ahead of our 30ths to go to Vegas. Everyone put it in their diaries – then everyone got pregnant, so we couldn’t go."
“But by 40, the kids are going to be a bit bigger. Maybe we can all get a house together, chuck the kids in the middle and leave the boys to look after them," she added.
"But I’m not thinking about 40 in terms of, ‘Oh, that’s a big number’. I’m just thinking of how we’re going to party."
It's not just the freedom of getting the couple's romance back on track and letting her hair down which has got Rachel excited for the kids to grow up.
She shared snaps of a 2017 holiday to the Galapagos Islands, and wrote: “Before kids, we’d book off three weeks and go somewhere amazing and away from it all. Galapagos was one of those trips, it was just out of this world.”
Rachel and Pasha, 43, welcomed first daughter Maven in 2019, followed by Noa in 2021. They became a household of eight last year after welcoming a Ukrainian family into their home and Rachel insists they will not be adding to their brood.
She said: “We’re done in terms of kids. You can fit four in a hotel room or a car. So now when the girls grow out of clothes, they go to the charity shop. I’m not keeping them just in case."
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