Friday 28th

Everything over the last couple of weeks has gone totally wrong. Companies have fucked up, IÕve fucked up, more companies have fucked up. ItÕs all slowly being sorted, but itÕs been extremely frustrating and I lost it a bit a few days ago. ThereÕd been this kind of cascade effect where one thing had just died after another, and I didnÕt deal with it very well.

However, as a great philosopher once said "Life has a funny way of helping you out when you think everythingÕs gone wrong and everything blows up in your face". IsnÕt THAT ironic?

Well, no. But everything thatÕs gone wrong has lead to something eventually going slightly better than they would otherwise have. Well, almost everything. One thing may well end up in court yet.

One of the problems that tipped me over the edge that day was particularly annoying. There was an error with the album. They were delivered on Wednesday afternoon and I was extremely excited to see them looking just as beautiful as I hoped they would. IÕd been so worried that there would be a problem with the artwork, but it all printed beautifully. YouÕll love it. So I popped the cd in the player and totally panicked when I discovered a glitch on the audio. The company is sorting it out, but itÕll delay the CD arrival by another couple of weeks. For those of you whoÕve preordered, IÕm really sorry about this. ThereÕs not a lot I can do, and I wonÕt send out something which is less than the perfect little piece of me IÕve spent months and months designing. Sit tight, folks.

First Proper Gig Post-Album Completion is tomorrow, and it seems that everyone IÕve ever met here, plus a good few people IÕve never met but have heard of me somehow, are turning up. IÕm SLIGHTLY nervous, but IÕve been practicing solidly for a while now and IÕm fairly certain I can pull this off. Wish me luck.

Monday 24th

Leniland is knee deep in cables, immersed in full on practice. Have been for a while now, prepping for playing this rag-tag bunch live. Have hit a few serious logistical issues so far, the biggest and most common of which is me forgetting how to play some of the parts. In the case of some of these tracks, I havenÕt played certainly some of the parts since I wrote them. Thank goodness for I can play things by ear, and have the ability to solo parts of the original multitracks.

YouÕre going to have to forgive me for using some playback at the shows folks. IÕm playing as many instruments as I physically can but there is a limit. I still want you guys to hear the full tracks as they stand. But I swear, IÕm not just standing behind a laptop singing, pressing play and playing pacman. I accidentally wiped something really important this evening, which I am still kicking myself about. Going to have to redo the entire thing tomorrow, and it took me a long time to get right originally.

I have, as yet, been totally unable to work out a feasible way to play My Heart live. It is significantly harder than I expected. ItÕd be possible if I brought the mbira along, but I recently discovered that it literally takes up the entire boot of my car, and I need that for all my other stuff. So My Heart may be taking a hiatus for the foreseeable future, which is a shame because I LOVE it. The possible tracklisting will contain everything else though, hopefully, by the end of tomorrow. Still formulating a plan for Burn, which is a complicated bitch of an arrangement.

I wound down a good ten hours of practice this evening with my first hot bath since October (the boiler canÕt do heating and hot water, so itÕs been electric showers for me for months) and am now watching Justin Timberlake videos for reasons best known to someone else. I think my brain may be on strike.

Oh, and a tip, donÕt spend that much time on a cheap drum stool. Your ass will not forgive you.

Monday 17th

Patrick Hadley, the man who built my array mbira, asked if IÕd send him a couple of shots of me with it for the website. The mbira is currently in my live room (though it is going back in its flight case for a trip tomorrow morning. ItÕs very excited), so I thought IÕd post a couple so you curious kiddies could know what my live room looks like. (The answer is: gorgeous.)

I am spending the rest of the afternoon clearing all the junk off my laptop in the hope that IÕll have more than 8Gb of memory left by the end of it. Went all the way down to 5Gb yesterday. The Big Secret Thing is happening tomorrow, and I am both nervous and excited. AND annoyed because something I needed still hasnÕt arrived.

Saturday 15th

ItÕs amazing the things I canÕt do with my left hand. Pain is drifting into a pleasing kind of numbness, so I reckon itÕll be fine in a few days.

AND The parcel I got this morning contained some Utterly Vital things what I needed and was worried I wouldnÕt get in time for my deadline. They is beautiful. But they is also part of the Big Secret, so I shall show them to you soon. Ish.

Saturday 15th

Now, the postman always wakes me up. No matter when he comes. Even if heÕs late on his rounds, he is only so on the days that IÕve been up til 4 trying to sort out the latest musical conundrum. So, he knows me as the slightly dishevelled girl who sleep all the time, but still manages to be friendl whilst staring myopically at the paper she needs to sign despite ALWAYS having left her glasses upstairs in all the panic.

OK, I can understand why heÕd occasionally think me a bum, given the times this has happened at 10:30am or so. HOWEVER, I think itÕs PERFECTLY reasonable that I be asleep at 6:55am on a Saturday. Unfortunately, he wasnÕt. I leapt out of bed in a characteristically uncoordinated manner, groped around for some jeans and pulled them on as hurriedly as I could - trying to maintain that balance between getting to the door quickly so he doesnÕt leave and not greeting him semi-nude is the hardest part of our relationship. I think he secretly enjoys it.

However, this morning in my blind panic (IÕd been woken from a dream in which I was being viciously attacked by 6 foot tall swans) I managed to detach my thumb nail from its rightful resting place as I struggled into my jeans. I screamed. A lot. Still got to the door on time, which I count as a kind of triumph, but am now stuck with a heavily bruised thumb which causes excruciating pain is I use it. At all. Which is going to make work interesting today. Turns out i use my right thumb for a lot.

For those of you who are now worried - the nail didnÕt come off completely. Half of it bent 90 degrees backwards, which I hurriedly pushed back down into place. That half has turned a lovely colour of purple with streaks of white and the rest of the tip of my thumb is now yellow. Basically, IÕm the kind of colour-clash now that only a punk could love.

Thursday 13th

I went to Birmingham with my official stylist (otherwise known as Best Friend) to eat sushi and lemon meringue pie and buy me new things. Mmm. I am tired as, but happy.

Rehearsals for the live show start tomorrow, running right up until the first gig on the 29th. IÕm nervous, but IÕm sure all issues can and will be overcome. Hopefully.

Wednesday 12th

Tom Robinson played my track ("My Heart") on his "BBC Introducing" show in the early hours of Sunday morning, which I am so thrilled about. You can vote for me as best track of the night by clicking here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/shows/tom_robinsons_introducing/

And clicking "Vote!". While you're there, you really should listen to the whole show. It is well good. And nifty. And a little unnerving, whilst remaining totally awesome.

I've been doing Lots Of Things today, all of which are fun and exciting, and none of which I can tell you about for now, for they are Secret. Yes, with a capital 'S'. That's how secret they are. I'll tell you about them soon, though, I promise.

Monday 10th

You know that point where you're so sleep deprived that you just can't take it any more and everything becomes bad and you hide in the ladies at lunch instead of talking to your fellow business folks and bawl your eyes out? Yeah. Leni needs to stop overdoing it so much.

I had a good long (nine whole hours!) sleep last night and my brain feels like it's resetting. Lots of Important Stuff to do tomorrow, but I've taken it a bit easier today - 120 packs of art cards cut and assembled, and one Boyfriend has new trousers that fit - and am calling it a night now, a good three hours earlier than usual. I'm eating peanut butter straight from the jar and watching some tv and then going to bed. And I shall be whinge free tomorrow.

Friday 7th

The art cards arrived about ten minutes ago, 5 days ahead of schedule, which was a nice surprise. They look gorgeous. You're going to love them. I already do.

Lots of work to do today. The pressing plant rang me at 8:20am (urgh) to tell me about the problems they have with the artwork (sigh) so I've been up and fixing that since then on 6 hours' sleep. Never mind. Sleep isn't nearly as interesting as all this.

Friday 7th

There is a gnome that lives in my studio and hides things. I'm absolutely certain of it.

Thursday 6th

Retroactive blogging

Laptopless and alone in the big city, I kept a Proper Old Fashioned Diary so i could remember what to keep you guys informed about. Aren't I nice? So, here is the London trip, followed by a bit of an update about the last couple of days back at Big Top Studios.

London Blog 1: 3/3/08 2:10pm, Room 13, Juan Munoz exhibit, Tate Modern

Arrived in London an hour and a half ago and, as is my tendency whenever I come to London, I headed straight to Tate Modern. After the Baltic in NewcastleGatesheadBrandingExercise , my favourite gallery. I have never before paid to go into an exhibition here - none of them have ever seemed worthwhile (I'm not thrilled by Lichtenstein, I don't get Kahlo).

Today, walking up to the side entrance from the now-extremely-stable-unswaying bridge, I saw the exhibition banners and got very very excited. Tate Modern is currently hosting a full retrospective of the work of Juan Munoz whom, alongside Izima Kaoru and Martin Creed, is one of the only artists whose work I've ever wanted to own. There is a "Blotter Figure" in the permanent collection at the Manchester Gallery (which they have sadly not lent to the Tate's retrospective) & I fell in love with it on a visit 6 months ago (just after writing Blank Space). I didn't know this retrospective existed. I also didn't know he was dead, which made me sad. 1953-2001. Not very long.

But I instantly and excitedly handed over my £8 entrance fee and went straight up. This man had so many great ideas that even the incredibly irritating "I'm young and hip and down with the kids" art teacher & his barrage of annoying young adults isn't ruining it for me. I do find it odd that they're spending their time here copying his chalk drawings, which I don't particularly like, whilst totally ignoring the man's people-statues. Which are awesome.

I really don't think I can express effectively how much I love these concrete people. They're slightly smaller than real life - maybe two thirds the size of a normal person? - and the proportions are all slightly off and the guy really couldnt do hands, but they feel so totally alive. That particularly is what struck me about the Mancunian item - even though it's wrapped in "corrugated" concrete and has no face it could have stepped down from the podium at any minute. And his themes fascinate me - balconies, drums, scissors, the stage, deformity, alientation. All turned on their heads. I've just been sitting here churning out ideas and basking.

I don't think I'm going to make it to the Rothko room today. I'm still pretty on edge about tomorrow. Spoke to Boyfriend last night in an attempt to calm my nerves enough to sleep & he said it'll be fun and not to worry. I still worry, though I'm genuinely not concerned about this man's abilities - anyone who can master The Eraser is fine by me. It's just a huge step, metaphorically speaking. In a way, being here, a hundred miles from home & staying in a 3 star hotel (albeit for 1/3 of the list price) and going into a real studio with a real engineer tomorrow feels like an apt ritual. A sense of "here endeth the recording process, here beginneth chapter 2 of the story".

I've been trying to write the story so far down accurately and succinctly for press purposes, but it's hard to know where to start. How do you begin a letter which says "Here is a year of my life, here is everything I have been for months and everything I have thought and all the resources I have. Here it is. It might look like a silver disc to you, but it's everything I am. Please listen. Please be kind."

London Blog 2: 3/3/08 9:45pm - Room 117, Bayswater Inn, Bayswater

I am so tired. Met up with a friend this afternoon after I left the Tate - barely had enough time to check in and dump one of my two extremely heavy bags before running off to meet her in the tube station. We walked around Notting Hill and Kensington and had dinner in an awful American style diner and then dropped her back to her train. Was good to see her. She's easy to talk to about the things that really bother me.

I appear to be staying in the Greek District. There's a lot of souvlaki and a Greek Orthodox temple down the road. The hotel's a big old terrace 5 storey white washed thing, with a marble foyer complete with winged horse statue. I felt a little out of place.

This room is enormous. I booked a single and they've put me in a triple. The en suite is about the size of the hotel rooms I'm used to. I cracked the window in there when I got here and was confronted by a psychotic pigeon. All ruffed feathers, soot and a crazed gleam in its yellow eyes. It didn't back down - it just fixed me with a stare that said "I'll remember your face, puny mortal" until I shut the window and ran away in fear. I'm running a hot bath to ease my tired bones (I think I've walked about 8 miles today, and as walking to work in the morning involves an epic three metre journey I'm not used to it) and watching the end of Stephen Hawking's thing on TV. There is nothing on. But I don't really care.

Still nervous about tomorrow, but going to go to bed early and just get on with it.

London Blog 3: 4/3/08 1:45pm - Table in a cafe, Ravenscourt Park

We're about halfway through and we've taken a break for sustenance and sanity. Listening this hard for long periods of time is utterly exhausting and makes brain turn mushy. I am therefore having the tuna. It are brain food. Trying to answer all my phone messages, now that I've switched it back on.

I was woken by other people getting up half an hour before my alarm was due to go off, so I woke up pleasantly slowly. Watched Will and Grace (I'd forgotten the joys of early morning Channel 4) and headed down to a surprisingly packed breakfast room. Poppy seed buns and jam later, I was back in the room, packed and ready to go. Checked out, got seriously lost on the district line (who designs it so that you get off to change trains and then just stick around on the same platform? I was briefly mightily confused), and eventually made it to Ravenscourt Park. Not a place I'd been before. It's interesting. Just about found the mastering place (found the basic building, couldnt find the entrance. I am nothing if not half-capable). It's like NASA in here. I've never seen midfield monitors in person before. Oh my. Oh my, I say. You could store so many bodies in those things. Though I'd imagine that wouldnt be great for the acoustics.

Nick, the other engineer, is working on a collection for The Doors. Tim has the new British Sea Power album propped up against his bin. My files are stored right above Lily Allen's (in an unforeseen alphabetical twist of fate). It's all a bit surreal. One thing is certain though - lathes are totally awesome. As are blank vinyl discs. Super cool.

London Blog 4: 4/3/08 8:15pm - On the train home

Pancras has been finished since I was last here and is now ridiculously shiny. I swear it has more shops than the mall in Derby. Odd. But you can't argue with a place that offers such a wide range of food-to-go and other travel-based items that it has a crepery next door to a branch of Hamley's. This is where I'd go for pancakes and toys. Not quite as weird as Paddington having its own sushi bar, but close.

We finished much earlier than I expected (only took 7 and a half hours in the end) and I am now the proud carrier of two master discs and a listening copy to rip and have my way with later. I'm scared shitless about losing them. Currently too tired to feel weird about all this. I'm sure it'll come. Probably while I'm typing this up [not wrong there...]. I was booked on to the 22:25 train home, on the basis that I didn't know how late the session would run. I really didn't want to wait three and a half hours, so I paid an extortionate amount of money for a single home earlier. And here I am. Almost finished reading The Penelopiad which I started in the bath last night, not doing any work, just sitting and letting everything wash over me. Ipod died yesterday just as I got to London, so I can't load my brain with noise. Boyfriend's gonna walk me to the bus stop when I get in, and then I have a lot of stuff to do to prep for conference upon conference tomorrow. So now is me time.

I shall return to my book.

Since then, many things have happened, which is weird because it was only two days ago. And I've only been at home for about 12 hours of that, most of which was spent sleeping. I intend to do a good dose more of that tonight. My to do list is looking fat and healthy, and I have come back home with a whole host of new ideas for a variety of things. The conferences yesterday were a waste of time, which annoyed me greatly, but I shall move on.

Burn is sticking with me a lot lately. Every time I see it written somewhere, it comes back to me, and it's not an uncommon word. I wandered through the rest of the Tate briefly after leaving the Munoz exhibition, though it was hard to concentrate on things which just give me that sense of awe, and I saw this amongst Jenny Holzer's "Inflammatory Essays":

"It all has to burn, it's going to blaze. It is filthy and it can't be saved."

Please listen. Please be kind.

Tuesday 4th

Hey folks,

I've just got back from London. Today Tim Debney (Thom Yorke, Lily Allen, British Sea Power) mastered the album. It sounds good. And thus ends my journey through the writing of this thing. Now on to getting you people to hear it!

I am totally shattered - I must have walked about 15 miles over the last two days - so I'm not blogging about the whole thing now, but I did write paper blogs while I was there and will be typing them up asap (aren't I good to you?).

Wish me luck, kittens.

Saturday 1st

Ten hour seminar. 7:30am start on a Saturday. Much much much free food and good company. Much relief from sticky situation which was handled with a great deal of grace and professionalism, for which I am truly grateful. Much much work to do in the morning and preparation for the Great Mastering Session of 2008. Can't blog. Must sleep.