Edwina Bartholomew has spent the past few hours on Sunrise, reporting live to viewers across Australia on the whereabouts of Taylor Swift’s boyfriend, footballer Travis Kelce. Now, she’s off air – and coughing.
“Sorry, my son started daycare three weeks ago and we’ve been sick ever since,” she apologises to TV WEEK. “He went for one day, got sick, and I feel like we’ve had a cold now for about three weeks.”
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But the news presenter and mum-of-two isn’t going to let a cold stop her from doing anything she has planned – and she has plenty. With daughter Molly now four and son Tom having just turned two, Edwina is feeling a shift in her life.
“They’re old enough now where you can focus a bit more time back on yourself – you can exercise and have more time to eat properly,” she says. “It makes such a difference, because it’s pretty full-on for those first couple of years. So it does feel like a year where I’ve found myself again.”
Edwina – Eddy to her friends – is feeling the shift at work too.
“Last week. I got the call-up for Melbourne [following the severe storm there in February]. I got the call at 6pm to say, ‘Can you be on an 8pm flight?’ and because the kids are that little bit older now, I can say yes.
“For a long time, I couldn’t do those things and there was almost a kind of ache to fulfil those responsibilities and have those opportunities, because it’s a rare privilege to be able to report live on these major news events.”
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It’s been almost 20 years since Edwina, then in her final year of a journalism degree, won a competition to become an intern on Sunrise.
“It was a very weird start in this industry, but probably the best kind, because it meant that I started from the very, very bottom – making coffees, printing scripts,” she remembers.
Now, she finds herself interviewing superstars such as Pink.
“We got to go backstage as she was rehearsing so we were sitting there with her family, with her crew, eating with them before going in and chatting to her,” Edwina says. “I was so impressed by her. She’s tiny too. I’m pretty short and she’s even shorter.”
Edwina’s own personal life became the focus of media attention last year when she announced that her husband, Neil Varcoe, would be living apart from her and the kids during the week.
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He’d be dividing his time between the couple’s farm in the Capertee Valley near Lithgow, 130km west of Sydney, and the historic hotel they’re renovating in the small town of Carcoar, 250km west of Sydney. The couple spend every weekend together, either in Sydney or the country.
“Strangely, it works,” Edwina says. “We were never ‘date night’ people, but now we’re apart, we go to that extra effort when we’re together to go out for dinner, lunch or to a movie.”
A big part of why Neil moved to the country was so he could recover from chronic fatigue syndrome, which he’s been battling for six years.
“I think he’s the best he’s been for a number of years just by virtue of having that space to recover – eating healthily, exercising, having a really regimented routine,” Edwina says.
“He’s actually really good, which is fantastic, because for a while he definitely wasn’t and it was challenging for both of us. As a wife, it’s hard to see your husband go through that, and hard for him to miss out on things because he can’t physically be there.”
Now, when they’re together, Neil is “fully focused” on quality time with Edwina and the kids.
“You want to run around with them and keep up with them and he can do that now,” she says.
During the week, Edwina has a nanny living in to look after Molly and Tom when she leaves for work at 4am. She says she and the kids are all good sleepers.
“Molly will still wander in in the middle of the night and Tom wakes up occasionally, but generally, they go back to bed pretty quickly. Sleep-wise, we only have space for team players in our household!”
The kids are used to driving to the Capertee Valley or Carcoar at weekends, and particularly love spending time on the farm, “with the cows and the tractor and all those farmy things”.
As for Edwina, she can’t wait to get stuck into renovating the hotel.
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“I hope to get out the sledgehammer and hoe into some walls!” she declares.
When it comes to her TV career, Edwina is open to opportunities. But, having co-hosted Dancing With The Stars, she knows she doesn’t want to compete on it (“I have absolutely no rhythm in that environment!”) and would prefer to put herself through SAS Australia.
“Is that crazy that I’d rather be taken to a desert in the Middle East than sign up for Dancing With The Stars?” she asks with a laugh. “I’m more likely to moonlight on Better Homes And Gardens – I think that’s more my style.”
So could she ever see herself living full-time in the country?
“I think I’d miss the adrenaline of all the back-and-forth, and the excitement,” she admits. “But sure, one day, it would be lovely to be able to have a family life that’s based in the country – in the distant future.”
Sunrise airs Monday to Friday, 5am, on Channel 7 and 7Plus.
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