Most toddlers have a favourite teddy bear, but 20-month-old Lula Noble-Lewis has Simba, a miniature Shetland pony.
‘She probably thinks that every house she goes to is going to have a Shetland,’ her mum, Tamsin, jokes.
The 31-year-old moved onto a 5.7 acre farm in the New Forest countryside with her husband, Jamie, in August 2024. Lula arrived at the end of the year.
But the move to country life was not an obvious one for Tamsin, who had built her career in the corporate world, only visiting the countryside to see her grandparents. Jamie, 34, on the other hand, grew up around animals.
‘I hadn’t been around horses until I met Jamie,’ she says. ‘I remember calling him one time, saying, “Oh my god, the horse is running around with half a rug undone, and I don’t know what to do”.’
Now, they take care of two pigs, four horses, a mini Shetland pony, and their family dog, Misty.
But Jamie and Tamsin aren’t your average farmers.
While Jamie runs his own contracting company, Tamsin works in tech sales and commutes to her office two to three times a week.
Unsurprisingly, it makes for a hectic schedule.
On a typical weekday, the alarm goes off at 5am.
‘If we’re both in the office, then it’s up to do the animals, come back in, get Lula ready, get her breakfast and get ourselves ready,’ Tamsin tells Metro.
Then it’s the nursery run at 7.30am before Tamsin and Jamie head to work. When the 9 to 5 is over, they’re back on the farm.
‘It’s quite full on,’ Tamsin continues. ‘I’m not sure entirely when I’ll ever get a lay-in again. Sleep is something of the past.’
The couple bought Scatterbrook because they wanted a home where they could build a different kind of life — one where their future children could grow up surrounded by animals and the outdoors.
‘We were really looking at somewhere we could have the ponies and instead of having a separate yard,’ Tamsin explains. ‘We’re really lucky to have the ponies at home.’
One day Tamsin is dressed for meetings in London, discussing tech and sales targets; the next she is back at Scatterbrook in muddy boots, feeding animals and checking fences.
‘I do feel like I’ve got two very different lives, but I love that.’
Her colleagues are often surprised by her life outside work.
‘People at work find it quite funny because they see me in a completely different environment. I think some of them were quite shocked,’ she says. ‘More so because we’ve got pigs now as well; that kind of adds a bit of, “Oh my god, you’ve got pigs.”‘
But she says she has found other working parents who also balance busy careers with family life.
‘There are other people living that life and still being able to run a corporate career,’ she says. ‘So that’s really nice to know.’
When Lula arrived at the end of 2024, the couple had to figure out how to balance life with a newborn alongside the horses and their growing list of responsibilities. They relied on each other to make it work.
‘We go week by week, we see where we are, and then one picks up the slack when the other’s really busy,’ Tamsin explains.
Turns out buying your 1-year-old a pony is exactly as wholesome and chaotic as you’d imagine 🐴🤍 Lula is already living her best little country life. #countrylife #ponykid #countrychildhood #toddlermoments #rurallife
That teamwork became even more important when Tamsin returned to her corporate career when Lula was almost one.
‘When you go back to work full time as a mum, you can’t be everywhere, you can’t do everything,’ she says. ‘So it’s really about teamwork.’
Tamsin says that Lula has loved animals since she was a baby.
‘Lula calls all the animals by name. They come up to her and nuzzle, and she gives them kisses,’ says Tamsin.
The toddler can get in cahoots with her furry siblings, though. On one occasion, she worked out how to set free the two pigs, Timone and Pumbaa.
‘They were running around everywhere, so we had to catch them; pigs are very fast,’ says Tamsin.
‘They’re getting heavy, so carrying them is not easy, and they scream when you pick them up.’
Simba in particular likes to make a break for it.
‘If I’ve turned my back for two seconds, Lula’s opened the gate, and he’s gone.
‘So not only do we have to animal-proof it now, but we have to Lula-proof it,’ Tamsin laughs.
When Lula turned one in December last year, Tamsin wanted to gift her daughter something unusual — a Shetland pony called Simba.
‘I’d rather buy her an animal and something that she’s gonna treasure forever,’ Tamsin explains.
‘They live until they’re 30, so she’ll probably leave the house and leave us with Simba!’ she jokes.
Tamsin says the bond between Lula and Simba is strong.
‘Often if we’re having dinner, he’ll just pop his head in through the window. Though quite often I’ve turned around and he’s stolen food.
‘She’s so happy when Simba comes in. When she’s having breakfast with him in the house, it keeps her entertained for half an hour.’
Now that Lula is walking, the greeting is even more enthusiastic.
‘She’s straight out the door and running down the garden to him,’ adds Tamsin.
Simba has even been known to sleep in the house.
During this summer’s heatwave, they woke up to find him in the living room.
‘Our door was open a crack, and he had nuzzled his way in. He’s an absolute escape artist.’
But despite the chaos, Tamsin describes Scatterbrook as their ‘little bubble’.
‘You forget about everything else for a minute, and it’s really nice to switch off,’ she says.
‘I can open the door, close my laptop, and go outside.
‘I love still going into the city, but then being able to get on the train home and coming back to what I’ve got at home.’
Now, the family is set to expand their brood, as they’re set to get some chickens.
‘I can imagine when we’ve got the chickens, Lula’s probably going to steal them and bring them into the house,’ she laughs.
And they’ll be documenting it all on Instagram and TikTok, where they share the goings-on at Scatterbrook with their almost 10k followers since creating the accounts in March this year.
‘It wasn’t that we created a life for Instagram; it was more that we were already living this life,’ Tamsin explains.
She says the response has surprised her, with people enjoying seeing Lula grow up around the animals. She has even connected with other parents through sharing their life online.
‘I’ve actually met someone nearby who’s another mum; she’s got a little girl the same age as Lula, and she also has horses,’ she says.
‘It’s bringing joy to people, and I think that’s just lovely.’
And while their days might be long and tiring, Tamsin wouldn’t swap it for anything.
‘I’ve got the best of both worlds,’ she adds.
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