Last Wednesday was a little off the cuff. It’s been a while since I’ve been awake for almost 24 hours.  Back in the day, this would happen on New Year’s Eve to New Year’s Day but with age, and common sense, and to keep my youthful looks (lol!) I avoid long stretches.  However, last Wednesday I was up at 5.30 am to drop my daughter to the train station.  The plan for my day was to do a little admin, gig prep, take a cat nap later in the morning to stock pile energy for a day run to London…but that didn’t happen.

As part of my re-branding journey I have been organising my paperwork in my filing cabinets by throwing out the old and making space for the new. Anchoring those bits of papers that get left for ‘tomorrow’, you know, they have great info but sadly get dumped in the draw ‘to-be-filed-another-day’.  (This makes me sound disorganised, but trust me I’m not. I just know how to relegate the not so urgent 😉 )

Ordinarily, on a gig day I’m focused on prep for the occasion but I desperately needed a couple of phone numbers which had been plaguing me for a couple of days. I had placed them on one sheet of paper.  I knew I had them but they were not in the place I thought I left them.  I’d been doing this quick blitz search to find it but no joy.  It was bugging me. So that morning I thought, ‘I’m up early.  I can do this!’ So diligently I organised, stacked, threw out, read, hummed and filed and eventually found it! Glee! Filed in a pink folder with the business cards…why I did that I’m not sure but I guess I must have done a quick gather up of work and shoved it in there thinking I’d get back to it. But I didn’t.  I forgot (Oh ageing what a thing!)

By now it was lunch time.  I felt sleepy but it was too late to sleep. I needed lunch, do hair, makeup, pack and go by 3.00 pm!  I told myself, ‘I have a driver so I can cat nap for a few minutes on the journey down’. Yeah right! Instead I got locked into an audio book with a very gripping story.

We got to ‘Off the Cuff’ around 7pm.  Quick set up, line check and get ready to perform. I had a great time. The ‘Artistes Togetherness’ night was to highlight and raise financial support for the hurricane relief in Barbuda.  I shared the stage with Queen of Lover Rock legend Paulette Tajah; World music artiste and composer Katie Rose; BEFFTA nominee Kelvin Aromana, and up and coming artistes Queen Ameen, Kieran Martin and Gracey Lloyd. The crowd was great.  They know how to enjoy themselves and get their groove on.  I also met Patrick Mckenzie, Actor and Voiceover Artiste. Excellent sound engineering, thanks Dave; and lighting, thanks Lighting guy! Big thank you to Bilal of Getfamilyar Inc Ent Ltd and Tom of The School of Hardknocks for the invitation. I look forward to next time.

What I particularly enjoyed was jamming on ‘So What’ and ‘The Chicken’ with Roger Humble and his band ‘Heads Up Jazz Ensemble’. Impromptu and fun! Brilliant! I love working with a live band and exploring the energy it brings.

We left the Show around 11.00pm, got some Chinese and then headed home.  I was flagging.  We broke the journey part way to stretch legs and get air.  All told I got home around 3.30am.  A couple hours shy of being a full day.

The following day, Thursday, I was shattered.  My plans went out the window.  I vegged out; eat, sleep and TV.  By the afternoon I thought ‘I should do something’.  I decided to un-wrap the avocados which were bought in this unnecessary plastic case which a particular shop thinks is a great way to display them!!! I’m not sure how, but all I know is I was pulling the plastic apart and the avocados fell on the floor.  ‘Time to go sit down’ I thought, and that’s (after dealing with them) what I did for the rest of the day, nothing much.  Yes, there was this nagging feeling of ‘I should be doing something’ but it weren’t happening.  It was an off the cuff day.  Yes, the next day, Friday, there was a pile of emails and messages to reply to and apologies to make for not getting back sooner but hey, girls got to do what girls got to do. I needed rest. It did make me think about our medical teams and the long hours they put in.  Don’t know how they do it.  Chapeau!

Speak soon!