Mike Tindall has given a rare glimpse into the bedtime routine at his family home, describing evenings with wife Zara and their three children as “chaos”.
The former England rugby union star revealed that it gets very competitive with Mia, 12, Lena, eight, and Lucas, five. The family live at Aston Farm, a property on Princess Anne’s Gatcombe Park estate in Gloucestershire.
A competitive race upstairs
Speaking at the Henley Literature Festival, according to the Daily Mail, Mike said: “Even if it's just a race upstairs to bed, there will be ankle taps.
“It might lead to a broken leg one day, but they will learn. Hopefully, the children will turn out like us. And if they are as competitive as their mother, then we are all f*****!”
Both Mike and Zara are experienced athletes, with Mike being a Rugby World Cup winner and Zara an Olympic medal-winning equestrian.
First meeting in Sydney
The couple first crossed paths in 2003 in Australia, when Princess Anne's daughter was on her gap year with friends and Mike was in Sydney for the 2003 Rugby World Cup.
The ex-rugby star spoke about their first meeting at the Manly Wharf Bar to Manish Bhasin for The Gambling Zone. He said he wasn't in good spirits that day because he had been dropped from his squad for the semi-final.
He revealed: “When we met, I basically only said hello. I didn't really even talk to her because I was, as I said, I was still quite down.”
Friends first, then marriage
Mike has previously spoken about how the pair were friends before they started dating. During his time in the I'm a Celebrity jungle, he told fellow campmate Owen Warner: “We were friends first and then William and Harry were massive England fans at the time, so we’d met them numerous times.
“Met more of the family than you'd normally meet of the woman you start dating.”
The ex-rugby star proposed to Zara in December 2010, and the couple married in Edinburgh in July 2011.
