Inside Adele's Life Now: She's 'In the Best Place Ever'

Adele has rarely been spotted in public since giving birth to her son Angelo in 2012. But just because she wasn't spotted, doesn't mean she's been cooped up at home.

"I'm not a recluse," the singer, who graces the cover of the latest issue of PEOPLE, told The Guardian earlier this month. "Can we clear that up? I didn't stop going to shops. To parks. To museums. I just wasn't photographed doing it."

The "Hello" singer – who was born Adele Laurie Blue Adkins to 18-year-old single mom Penny in the working-class north London neighborhood of Tottenham – is currently busy promoting her third studio album, 25, but the recording artist admits she much prefers life at home in the English countryside with her three-year-old son and her partner, charity executive Simon Konecki, 41.

"You don't understand what a major thing it is to have a child until you do it," the recent Saturday Night Live performer told iHeartRadio's Elvis Duran at an intimate album-release show on Nov. 20. "My life is all about him now, when before it was all about me. I never fell so in love, so much."

But there's also a professional benefit to staying away from the glitz and glamor of fame.

"I want to have a real life so I can write records," she recently told Britain's I-D magazine. "No one wants to listen to a record from someone that's lost touch with reality. So I live a low-key life for my fans."

Whatever she's doing, it's working.

Total CD and digital sales as well as downloads for the album are expected to reach more than 3 million in the first week, Billboard reports. Amazon pre-orders for the album surpassed 100,000 for both digital downloads and CDs.

But none of that is as important to the Academy Award-winner as the success she's found at home.

"I'm madly in love and I've got a kid," she told Duran. "I'm in the best place ever.