We spent the week in rain soaked France. It was glorious. Walking along the stormy coastline watching the fishing boats battling the surprisingly large waves, the largest waves I’ve seen in Menton bay.
Robert and I adore sitting in cafes watching the world go by while reading books we love to discuss and having ideas for the future.
Our Birthdays coincide with the Cannes Film Festival, which makes flying and arriving very interesting. Lots of incognito stars on the plane with the customary baseball caps pulled over their eyes. On landing the press running around the arrivals hall trying to find whom they are expecting. Then in Menton itself, the French locals nonchalantly ignoring it all. As always you could spot the A-listers who were hiding from the furore of Cannes. Beautifully manicured, slim, shy and failing to look ordinary. Add to this that the Grand Prix was only a week away and every café was filled with petrol heads commuting to Monaco, the place was excellent for people watching.
Returning to the UK, in the business lounge at Nice, hubby ran to his favourite desk and unloaded his computers then popped to the gents. A tall man in a baseball cap started to go through hubby’s things and I started to interject when i released it was Robert Pattinson, my hubby had ensconced himself in Mr. Pattinson’s place and he needed to retrieve his phone from under hubby’s pile of computers……so embarrassing.
It’s two hours before I leave for Bali.
I am a master at packing. Only being there for three nights I have allowed for two stage costumes, three dresses, one swimming costume, three pairs of shoes and one stage necklace, all in one carry on bag!
In my handbag is my office computer because I will be dealing with the next 18 months of work as soon as I am on land, a book about the history of Angels and 2 snack bars….. I am scared of being hungry in Dubai for all of the one and half hours I am there connecting to the Bali flight.
I am feeling nervous about being so pale and pasty in Bali. Especially with fellow performers around me, who only ever see me covered from head to toe in stage costumes. There are many things that most people do that I don’t bother with and spray tanning is top of the list. I have touring pallor and with only two days on the Island I will be coming back with equal pallor. But what I am really looking forward to is that e-mail and the phone can’t reach me on the plane AND a change of scenery.
The past 4 weeks have been crazy as usual. WORK, WORK, WORK keeps coming in for this year and next year and my head is divided between now and the next 18 months.
Next year is looking very interesting. I am trying to focus all the performance work between April and September as I need to write a few projects and this requires me to make space in the diary.
Bill Rieflin and I are planning a duets album…something we have talked about for years and fingers crossed he might be able to do it in one concentrated time span later in the summer, if not, then in the New Year. We do the first track in three weeks, He and Don Gunn have already sent the song over for me to add vocals and build loops and I am very excited. I am sworn to secrecy about what the track actually is.
Frippy is now away on his tour for most of 5 months.
I have the house to myself. My own routine is uninterrupted. Our routines differ a lot. Fripp likes his mornings reading and drinking coffee, then lunch, which I thank the heavens for because he cooks it, then a cup of tea across the road and on to 4 hours guitar practice. Robert is starting to simply ignore his average 100 e-mails a day, a lesson I need to learn……my routine? Up at 4am, e-mails for 6 hours, then 2 hours of press, then a much needed lunch with Fripp, then back to e-mails till 6pm and then travel to my next show.
While hubby is away I can eat when, where and how I want….. people still get freaked at the sight of a women alone in a restaurant, they immediately think something is wrong, but I love it. Eating has an individual pace and mine is quite fast, faster than my hubbies.
I will see Mr. Fripp at the Albert hall, which is going to be a fantastic event. Yet people around me say “are you sad you are not going with him on tour?”
Where do I start?
“Nope.” I say. “Apart from being on tour myself, working every single day this year till the 15th December, I am off to Bali, Belgium, Dublin and a lot of the UK doing TOYAH concerts, which is a wonderful challenging adventure in itself, which takes a lot of talent and skill to keep the engine rolling, I don’t have time to sit around and persuade myself something is wrong with my life just to satisfy you.”
“Awe.” They say, completely not hearing and seeing me, “but he will be home for Christmas.”
F— me, the evidence of my success surrounds me and still I am perceived as the victim wife. If they could read my mind….GROW UP, WAKE UP AND SEE YOURSELVES, NOW EXCUSE ME WHILE I GET ON WITH MY INDEPENDENCE.
Rant over.
I have had a lot of response to the BALL pictures. Strangers have come up to me and ask how BALL is. This has tickled us both.
Image for me is stronger than language and I love setting up these gentle concepts. There are some fab ones planned for when Fripp and I are together in August. We keep laughing about what we are planning. For me these work because Robert and I are both complete opposites, chalk and cheese and I love putting him in situations that his fans would never associate him with.
The next theme is very off the wall and using an iconic image with the most mundane everyday item…… get guessing!
Last week I worked with Stephen Mangan. we where competing against each other for our charities. When being interviewed i said how surprised i was at how well Stephen was doing, genuinely meaning he had a talent for the task, but he thought i meant because he was stupid. i was mortified, still am. There are preconceptions i have to fight all the time and i don’t want to make anyone feel they are seen in a preconceived light. he is a brilliant man.
This week I met up with my sister and 15 childhood friends I haven’t seen in 50 years! The amazing thing about the day is none of us had changed. Our group dynamic and spirit was exactly the same. It was very moving.
I am feeling nervous about being so pale and pasty in Bali. Especially with fellow performers around me, who only ever see me covered from head to toe in stage costumes. There are many things that most people do that I don’t bother with and spray tanning is top of the list. I have touring pallor and with only two days on the Island I will be coming back with equal pallor. But what I am really looking forward to is that e-mail and the phone can’t reach me on the plane AND a change of scenery.
I am feeling nervous about being so pale and pasty in Bali. Especially with fellow performers around me, who only ever see me covered from head to toe in stage costumes. There are many things that most people do that I don’t bother with and spray tanning is top of the list. I have touring pallor and with only two days on the Island I will be coming back with equal pallor. But what I am really looking forward to is that e-mail and the phone can’t reach me on the plane AND a change of scenery.