A word of warning: if Ali Pearse, lunchtime DJ at Dublin's Spin FM, offers to look after your garden, smile politely and run the other way.
“I turned our grass yellow,” she admits. “Jack (Kincade, her partner and radio co-host) has green fingers, but one time there were loads of weeds around the place so I thought I’d kill them all with weed killer. Unfortunately it went into the grass and killed the lawn. So that was the end of my gardening phase.”
Pearse lives in Sandyford, Dublin with Jack and three-year-old daughter Zana Zee. The three-bedroom house (plus what’s left of the garden) is the first she has owned. Previously, she has rented all around Dublin.
“We’re like nomads. We’ve lived all around here: Ranelagh, Terenure, North Circular Road, Rathgar Donnybrook,” she recalls. “I don’t actually mind moving, and Jack’s the same as me. I’ve been living with him for five years, and he’s fine about upping and moving.”
How is it living and working with Jack?
“It’s actually fine,” she insists. “The only thing is that I’m a terrible passenger in a car. If we drive to work together, I’m always on at him about whether he saw that car there, or to watch out for that person. So he cycles or takes the car in, and I walk or get the Luas. Our house is really convenient for that.”
Another positive aspect is the neighbours. On one side of her lives a kind person who gave Jack a bike after hearing that his own one had been stolen. On the other side is a neighbour who helps her reverse out of her narrow driveway. But that’s not to say she’s been a perfect neighbour herself.
“Sometimes, when Jack’s doing stand-up and I’m working on my own, I get a little nervous. One night I was in on my own and, because I have an amazing imagination at two o clock in the morning, I heard someone in the house. I swore I heard them coming up the stairs. So I rang 999 on my mobile. Three cops arrived, parked outside my house, and saw my next-door neighbour who was heading down to the shops to get cigarettes. So they started questioning him, and brought him to me asking whether I knew him. I was mortified, I had to really apologise. My poor neighbour.”
Despite living here for a year, she hasn’t launched headfirst into interior design magazines to orchestrate a particular look for her abode.
“Home improvement isn’t my thing,” she shrugs. “It is my sister’s though. She painted our bedroom in a gorgeous deep red colour. But apart from that, it’s just like how we bought it. I prefer the old look in houses. My ideal house would have that real rustic look, with wooden beams, that kind of thing.”
Ali and Jack’s talk show keeps her occupied for most of the day. In the evenings she loves to be social – though that shouldn’t imply that hors d’oervures are whipped up regularly.
“We don’t do dinner parties,” she states. “I’m a terrible cook. Plus Jack’s stand-up is generally in town, and our friends live everywhere across Dublin, so it just makes more sense to meet there.”
Her less-than-perfect kitchen abilities are only matched by her partner’s.
“Jack’s a brutal cook,” she laughs. “We give our daughter juices and smoothies. She gets her five fruit and veg portions a day that way. We cook really simple things, like pasta. I couldn’t do things like marinate meat for two or three hours or soak beans overnight. Our friends know this and they’re great at making things, so we do knock on their doors instead!”
Thankfully Ali has a way to reciprocate: “I’m queen of cocktail-making. We would have people back as a five-o-clock-in-the-morning job and I’d make some for everyone. That particular skill comes from working in a bar in Aya Napa. In fact, my most favourite possessions are my corkscrew and my cocktail shaker.”
So would she save them first in a fire?
“Oh god no! My most treasured possession is arriving soon. Jack proposed to me on Christmas day, so the thing I’d save first is being picked up from the jeweller’s next week. It’s a family heirloom from his grandmother, so it’s fairly important,” she says with a wry smile.
Looking around her house, the thing that strikes you about it (aside from her cleanliness – she admits that Jack calls her Monica-from-Friends sometimes) is the size of their book collection.
“Our collection is just huge. At the moment I’m reading Monkey Man by Stephen Price. Most of the books are in boxes. But we keep the recently-bought ones and reference books out on our shelves. They’re particularly useful for the show, so we need them all the time.”
Any plans to unpack those boxes?
“No, we’ve actually started to think about moving again!”
So buying a house hasn’t encouraged them to settle down?
“It’s something we might consider down the line,” she grins.
Pics: Cathal Dawson