Snoozy swans on far bank
HELLO THERE!
As I write two swans are snoozing on the river bank opposite. They will be nesting soon.
A tree surgeon arrives tomorrow to carve a storm fallen tree into a squid, so it looks like it’s about to dive into the Mill pond.
The building is pretty sound, there’s plenty of woodwork to address and varnishing too, the building is south facing, which means no paintwork lasts more than three years in the direct sunlight. I am looking into creating an eco-hydro using the two Mill streams that run under the building and become self-sufficient. My plan is to renovate and secure the land which suffers from rain erosion.
Theres enough space here for food to be grown year round but time wise I need the days to be twice as long because there is a lot going on over the next two years…….. it’s going to be flat out……….I will get there. The great news is I am in meetings with a production company who want to follow the renovations at the Mill.
Next week I start writing sessions with Simon Toulson-Clarke of Red Box. This is a completely new event for both of us. In the past four months I’ve written some great lyrics, that said we both want to start the process from scratch and see what happens.
Also I am planning to work with Nick Graham, who wrote WE ARE MACHINES and we wrote MESMERISED AND DEADLY AS A WOMAN together in 1987. We went on to record a cover BECAUSE THE NIGHT for the FRENCH AND SAUNDERS series, and we’ve stayed in touch all this time.
The past two years have been stressful and I have gone to lengths to try and lessen the stress in my life.
One of the biggest challenges was working with the T&R set up and dealing with EVERYTHING, from unconscious bias, preconceptions through to deliberate sabotage on occasions. Thankfully the band, members of the team, audiences, festivals and promoters were stunning.
All our shows were stunning, I was sensational and I know it…. which helps.
That said it’s odd how stress creeps in and in most cases it just takes one person to create mischief. But so far 2025 is proving stress is part of life, it finds you no matter how you try to eradicate it.
Four weeks ago I was writing at the Mill when I spotted a man watching from a patch of land opposite the Mill stream, this land was very overgrown. He was looking at an open window in the basement area and vaping. He suddenly moved forward at a pace, trampled over undergrowth and over a fence, breaking it and was in my garden making for the window. I ran out, camera in hand and not so politely asked what he thought he was doing. Let’s say he realised I know how to handle myself and after a heated altercation he made his way back the way he came.
What he wouldn’t have known is for the past four months I’ve been in a legal battle with two councils who have told me “married women do not own their own homes.”
AND I AM LIVID AND OVER PROTECTIVE OF WHAT I HAVE WORKED FOR ALL MY LIFE.
Therefore, my work addresses are to them “furnished holiday homes” and my husband runs my everyday life. What the intruder didn’t know is I am so enraged that protecting my home has given me a whole new superpower. I had hoped that by the time I make 67yrs old life would be less stressful. So far 2025 is top of the league for stress.
Before you read below you need to know I have no problem paying tax, I certainly don’t mind a council tax increase, I mind being made an example of.
I truly feel how I have been treated in the past four months is because I am a pensioner who has invested and saved. Last year I planned my financial budget for the rest of my life. Calculating what I needed so I could make my life less stressful.
I am financially self-sufficient from Robert, we don’t even share a bank account and never have in 39yrs of marriage. During Strictly I lived mainly at my London address and at The Old Mill. London is a vital address for my work because some productions won’t employ you unless you have a home in London. I’ve owned a home in London since I was 24yrs old. Ealing council contacted me in March to say they were increasing my council tax by 100% because it’s a “furnished holiday home”.
The fallen tree about to be carved into Squid tree 🌳 🦑
My lawyer pointed out its a high security address for high profile people, people who have to have a level of protection and we sent them a day by day, six month account of proof that I lived there for the whole of the summer/ autumn of 2024 until Dec 21st. The letter came back…..”Married women don’t own their own home, they live with their husbands, this is a furnished holiday home.”
It doesn’t end there:
Wychavon Council wrote to me, a letter that arrived on the 22nd Dec, the day we had finished the TOYAH AND ROBERT CHRISTMAS TOUR and said they werecharging me a 200% increase in council tax for The Old Mill, because it is a “furnished holiday home” and…..”married women don’t own their own homes”. They also moved the Mill up a band to the most expensive of properties.
On responding that for privacy and security during Strictly I bought and I lived at the Old Mill from the 22nd July (as well as London) an automated letter came in the post around end of January with an added human typed line “how convenient it’s become your main address since we sent you the letter on the 22nd Dec 2024”.
My lawyer had to point out I have lived at The Mill officially since I bought it on the 22nd July 2024 and I registered The Mill as my electoral registered address the week after the 22nd July 2024.
Wychavons first letter, on the 22nd Dec gave me 12 days to contest the 200% charge. Thats the 12 days of Christmas……so on the 5th day of Christmas Robert and I went to the council offices and were told it was closed until the 13th day of Christmas, at that point my lawyer was appointed. This timing by the council was deliberate. I celebrate Christmas especially after touring all year, doing Strictly and then going on the road again right up to Christmas week.
My total council tax is just under £18,000.
My state pension is under £9000.
And worst of all this has affected the people I employ because there is no available income.
ARE WE WALKING BACKWARDS INTO THE MIDDLE AGES?
HAS THE GLASS CEILING SLOWLY BEEN LOWERED?
I’ve worked since I was 16yrs old. Became the family breadwinner by the time I was 18. I owned the family home so Mum and Dad could continue to live there, then bought them a retirement home. I believe I’ve been a responsible person and an exemplary person.
I am lucky enough to be able to work every available hour 7 days a week, some people can’t and I know I am not alone in how this is affecting my age group. It is as if no one has thought this through and has generalised everyone with a different address to their spouse is on holiday…… or as Wychavon Council asked in one letter “are you and Robert splitting up?”
Life has been eventful and almost comical: In the past two weeks I fell out of a ground floor window, while holding beautiful bunny Fripp. My co-ordination, my judgment, my timing completely off-kilter. Never did it occur to me that there was a clue to this…… the lack of taste when eating, I burned my arm on the oven and didn’t feel it and every joint in my body felt like it had been hit by a bus for a few days……….. I had Covid!
Covid, which I think I’ve had about three times in all, affects my sight more than anything and it has been confirmed I was on the end days of the virus, thus TOTALLY DOOLALLY!
The incident of the window happened because I believed I was only two foot up from the ground outside and it was the quickest way to get Bunny Fripp outside for a run. As I swung over the window sill, bunny in my arms, my feet didn’t connect to where I thought the ground was. I was four feet up and somersaulted, being a trained fighter/stunt worker my mind was quick enough to turn to my left side to take the fall, minimising bunny hitting the ground and me landing on him.
Yikes. My left side is a mess, grazed and swollen. The biggest blessing is I have been alone all week writing. But this incident has kind of summed up 2025 so far.
There are some amazing things happening this year and I am hugely grateful.
>>> We are in the very beginnings of a possible TV series about the Old Mill.
>>> In May there’s to be an announcement of a body of work I am so proud of.
>>> We are announcing three tours that take me right up to June 2026.
Fripp and Eno the bunnies are a pure joy and are settling down and becoming calm. They have cost us a fortune in replacement chargers and light fittings because they nibble anything that looks like a cable. BUT THEY ARE LOVED.
IF YOU ARE FINDING LIFE TOUGH REMEMBER BE PROUD, BE LOUD, BE HEARD!
THE ASTROLOGERS SAY FROm 27 MAY EVERYTHING WILL CHANGE FOR THE BETTER.
BIG LOVE
TOYAH
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