Pippa Middleton leads the kind of life most of us can only dream about. Even though she’s not a royal like her sister, Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, she’s offered the best seats at Wimbledon, attends high society weddings and was just last week with her family on the Caribbean island of St Barts, enjoying a relaxing holiday. But as wonderful as her jet-setting life might seem, Pippa wants more. She’s just turned 32 and is feeling increasingly clucky. Aware that her biological clock is ticking, she’s ready to have a baby.
Becoming an aunt to Prince George (2) and his little sister Princess Charlotte (4 months) has convinced her she wants children sooner rather than later. She adores her nephew and niece, and spends as much time with them as she can. She is even believed to have a picture of Kate and George as the screensaver on her phone. She first started becoming broody two-and-a-half years ago when Kate was pregnant with George, and even seeing her sister suffer with horrendous morning sickness throughout the pregnancy didn’t put her off.
“Kate’s pregnancy changed Pippa’s whole outlook,” says a friend. “In the past, she hadn’t really thought about having children, but now it is playing on her mind.”
Luckily, her boyfriend Nico Jackson is also keen to have a family. When he joined the Middleton family on their annual holiday to the Caribbean island of Mustique while Kate was pregnant with George, he had a long chat with the mum-to-be about children.
“Nico told Kate how he feels about wanting a big family,” says the source. “He said he wanted to be a dad sooner rather than later.”
However, the spanner in the works is that stockbroker Nico (37) is currently living in Geneva, where he is employed by an investment firm. Since moving to Switzerland last year, he and London-based Pippa have only been able to see each other sporadically, and that has been frustrating for the couple, says another insider.
“Long distance has been tough on them. It is difficult to find time for each other and Nico seems to be getting fed up with it.”
There was no sign of Nico when Pippa jetted to St Barts with her mother Carole, her brother James and his girlfriend, TV presenter Donna Air, for a tropical holiday last week. The family stayed at Eden Rock, a resort owned by the family of Pippa’s ex-boyfriend, investment banker James Matthews. Pippa spent her days swimming and paddleboarding with her brother, showing off an athletic physique that’s a testament to her passion for exercise.
She recently said, “Exercise is a massive part of my life – it’s so important for both the body and the mind.”
Family ties: Pippa recently stood in for Kate as William’s guest at the wedding of his friend Bear Maclean.
Pippa regularly works out at the gym, jogs through central London, plays tennis and goes cycling in the countryside when she visits her parents at their Berkshire home. She has taken part in long-distance cycling events, including a 4500km trek across the United States. A keen skier, she has also competed in cross-country skiing races.
If she does have a baby, her extreme exercise regime may become less of a priority. Becoming a mum could also help Pippa to move on from some of the less than successful career moves she has tried in the last four years. Bombarded with offers of work after her stunning appearance at William and Kate’s wedding, she has tried her hand at several ventures. Her food and entertaining book, Celebrate, sold far fewer copies than her publishers had hoped, and her columns for Vanity Fair and The Spectator were widely panned. Pippa was also in talks to take on a $900,000-a-year job for US TV network NBC, but they fell through after she was deemed not “breezy enough” at her screen trial.
In the meantime, she has been doing a course in nutrition, using her skills to come up with organic foods for when her niece Charlotte is ready for solids. Excellent preparation then for when the time does come for Pippa to have a child of her own.
