Back In The Saddle... Big Time!!!!!!

Sooooo all three of last weekend's gigs at Jongleurs in Birmingham were amazing. I loved being onstage, I loved the vibe in the dressing room hanging with the other comics and I loved the crowd.

I spent the start of the week running round like the proverbial blue-assed fly, getting flu jabs which knocked me for six, getting my hair done which perked me right up and made me feel more like me (especially when Patrick told me he reckoned my hair is really growing back. Gawd bless Lesley and her tip for taking Sea Kelp.

I also did a very speedy catch up round Oxford Street's shops...got some fab pvc leggings in TopShop and a couple of gorgeous dresses in H&M - very 80's!

I spent a good few hours sleeping off my jet lag - 16 hours in one stretch at one point! - saw my GP to get my wounds checked over and was told the scars were beautiful. I was sent off with more dressings, anti-biotics and some magic steroid tape that will make the keloids disappear under my arms.

I've also managed somehow to work every single night since Wednesday! Each one has been such fun. Some I've MC'd and some I've done sets and each one has been a chance to catch up with my comedy chums and witness some great comedy. I even saw a new comic - well new to me - last night at Up The Creek who was incredible! His name is Robert White and he just was a fabulous revelation to me. He's gonna be huge! Trust me.

So tonight it's The Lights Theatre in Andover...I've never been to the town/city before let alone the gig but its a fantastic bill yet again so I know its gonna be fun.

Onstage Again!!!!!!!!

Wow! I can't begin to express how much I'm enjoying my gigs at Birmingham Jongleurs this weekend!

After a month off I was more than a little nervous as the familiar strains of Robbie's Let Me Entertain You blasted out on Thursday night. I hadn't a clue what I'd talk about, and couldn't really remember what it is I did up there!

By the time my hand grabbed the mic I was away! The gags flowing thick and fast, the audience laughing up a storm, my cheekiness quotient upped by about a gazillion since the last time I did a gig almost five weeks ago.

Apart from my time onstage which was sheer bliss for me - and hopefully the crowd - there was the opportunity to watch the other comedians. Thursday's bill was Trevor Crook, Dougie Dunlop and Brian Higgins, three guys who never fail to crack me up. As I sat at the back of the room watching them, I realised just how lucky I am to have found this life.

Friday saw me hanging out with the divine Alastair from the Glee and 'Tricky' Dave Johns who from here on in shall be known as 'Pissy Dave'. We had lunch at the noodle bar in the basement at the marvellous Selfridges here in Brum (the building never fails to inspire me), with me plumping for a Thai Green Curry that was delicious - they also had Nasi Gorgeng on the menu, but I've had enough of that over the last four weeks!

Then the three of us did a circuit of the shop itself and I somehow found myself purchasing a fur coat from the Joseph concession! The PETA people out there can put the paint cans down, this is basically a lambskin coat - reversable - and was made by the skins left over from lamb chops. I never eat them, so I figure I can wear the coat with impunity. Its not like they killed those lambs for me!

The best laugh came as I realised I'd left my "big" credit card back in London - on purpose! - and so we tried to barter the salesgirl down with a Tesco Reward Card and two first class stamps! Eventually I did manage to sort out the funds and left with a huge carrier bag and an even huger smile on my face!

There was another cracking show last night at the club. With a totally different bill. We had Josh Howie, Daliso Chaponda and Colin Cole. It was fantastic to see all of them both in the dressing room and onstage, and I enjoyed regaling them with my surgery horror stories. I even ended up doing stuff onstage about it! Gawd I love this game!!!

Back In One Piece!!!!!!!!

Sooooooo after a month away, here I am sitting back in my Maida Vale penthouse gazing out at the rapidly baring trees. They were full of green leaves before I left!

It actually does feel good to be home. I wasn't desperate to get back, and finances and other commitments permitting would've happily stayed in SE Asia for the rest of my life, but now that I am here there's something to be said for the comfort of your own abode.

I got lucky with the flight home, sadly Dr J's letter did bugger all as apparently you're meant to go into great detail and take it to the Head Office of the Airline before you fly. I also got stung for almost £200 worth of excess baggage as I'd crammed my case with just about everything cos I was feeling a tad too fragile to be schlepping stuff in my hand luggage. My tale of woe carried no clout with the stone-faced witch at check in tho.

Where the letter did come in handy was once I'd boarded the plane, some eight hours later, I showed it to the stewardess who was a princess. She got me a whole row of four seats all to myself! The last time that happened was when I flew to Abu Dhabi on New Year's Day a few years back to do gigs. What this meant was that once I'd had a bit of dinner, I was able to take a hardcore painkiller and two Diazepam and knock myself out. I stretched out, covered myself up with blankets and the next thing I knew I was being woken for breakfast with just two hours of the 13 hour flight left to go. Awesome!

After a bit of omelette and a coffee (not a patch on my Shangri-La breakfast feasts!) I felt a bit sleepy again, so nodded off right until the seat belt sign came on. One of the best flights ever!

As I disembarked, I took at look at the 'flat beds' in First Class and they were way more cramped than my huge plane bed, so for once not getting an up-grade was an enormous blessing.

To add to the joy, when I arrived at Passport Control I remembered that I'd registered for the Iris scan thing on the way - seems like soooooo long ago! - and thus I avoided the massive queue to get back into the country. Do yourselves a favour folks, register! A huge thanks to Mark Walker for telling me about it too.

I got home to a mountain of post, 98% of it junk mail, the other 2% bills. The bliss of coming home! Mind you the tax bill was the right side of not being a nightmare so there's some good news there too.

I somehow managed to carry my hugely overweight case upstairs without ripping anymore stitches, and within three hours I'd unpacked, done two loads of washing, showered and caught up on phone calls to friends and family. Suddenly the last month seemed like a distant memory!

A trip to the bank and the nail parlour was followed by a very quick dip into M&S for milk and some dinner, and the bus home. I was knackered again, so I hit the sack at 4pm and woke at 1am! I got up and cleaned my teeth, took another dose of Diazepam and slept again till 6am!

I've been writing cheques, making appointments and catching up on the minutae of my life since then, but now I am gonna get my stuff together so I can catch a train to Birmingham. I'm there the whole weekend at Jongleurs, and there's a cracking bill, not to mention a couple of good mates at the Glee, so it should be quite a sociable weekend.

Whatever your plans people, have fun!

And Now The End Is Near...

My extended trip to Malaysia appears to be coming to an end. I've checked out of the hotel, settled my bill which was far less than I anticipated, and collected an assortment of painkillers, sleeping pills and medical letters for everyone from my insurance company, to my GP, to the check in desk at Malaysia Airlines.

The latter is the most optimistic in my opinion. Its one from Dr J asking for a medical upgrade. I hope it works cos between you and me the thoughts of sitting in a cramped economy seat - even with the extra room now that I am smaller than I was - for 14 hours is pretty scary. If I sit for more than 30 minutes my legs start to hurt, so gawd knows what a flight to London will do for em!

Other than that, I had my final consulation with Dr Jalil last night - at 10pm! - and he reckons that it will all heal up, its just gonna take time. Yet more lessons in patience eh?

I managed to get everything I accumulated over the month here into my fabulous new case, but my god it weighs a ton! I'm going to the airport early in the vain hope that I can check it in without having to pay excess baggage! I've barely begun to think about how the hell I am gonna get it up the stairs to my flat at 7am tomorrow morning!

I would like to use this space to give props to people like Endang, Noor, Fera, Stella and Jasmine, along with the other GG staff for taking such good care of me and making what's been a 'trying' experience fairly bearable. Cheers girls x

The Home Stretch

So I keep seeing on CNN and BBC World how dreadful the weather is back in London. It was 0 degrees there at the same time as it was 30 degrees here... I have to say, given unlimited finances I'd be staying here till next June at least!

Luckily for me I bought an A Bathing Ape sweatshirt a couple of weeks ago, something tells me I'd better put that in my hand luggage. It's gonna be such a shock when I get home!

I'm still not fully healed but the reality is, I got work to do and bills to pay and as brilliant as it here here in KL unless I find that oligarch before Tuesday evening, I gotta get my ass back to reality.

I saw Dr J again yesterday and gawd bless him he delivered another nine shots of Botox to my face. This was the first time I'd had it concious, and while it hurt a bit, it hurt nowhere near as much as I expected! This is worrying cos it means that in six months' time I'll be looking for someone in the UK to shoot me up. It takes a few days to really kick in but already I'd say I look incredibly refreshed.

There's two tiny holes in the right inner thigh still, the damn stitches just won't hold no matter how little I do, but they're not like they were last time it opened, I can't see any bits you're not meant to see. I guess there will just be a bit of a nasty scar there, still only my gynocologist is gonna see it!

I had a fabulous lunch yesterday with a load of the GG clients, it was great fun and delicious Malaysian food. One thing I did notice as I was holding court and making all the girls with facelifts laugh more than they're meant to, is that there's a huge part of me that misses performing. I'm in Birmingham at Jongleurs next weekend from Thursday onwards and I am really, really looking forward to it!

Even More Monkeys!!!!!!!!!

Even though my wounds aren't entirely healed, I am on the mend and decided to celebrate this fact by getting out of the city centre on Friday. I went on a trip to Kuala Selangor to see the "famous" fireflies.

There were three other GG girls on the trip and our driver Meo was cool even tho we denied him any extra commission by refusing to visit his friends' leather factory and craft shops. The only thing we were interested in was the next part of the trip where we got to go out into the bush and feed some silver leaf monkeys.

I had no idea what this was gonna be like but my inner Dr Doolittle was practically bursting with excitement at the prospect of getting close to some primates. As we pulled up to the feeding area there were thousands of these little critters in the trees, running by the sides of the road and just being completely adorable.

We purchased our 1 Ringitt bundles of what looked like french beans, and suddenly we were the most popular girls in town! These little buggers swarmed all over us! The babies leaping from walls and cars onto our shoulders, the older ones tugging at our clothing to get our attention, all for a stick of this crunchy green stuff.



We weren't the only people there, there were lots of families who seemed to get as much of a kick out of watching us Westerners going ga ga over these animals as they did from the monkeys themselves!

We must have spent about an hour there ( and several Ringitts) and I can honesty say it was the best part of the whole month out here! They all had different personalities, most of them were kinda desperate for the food, grabbing handfuls of it, trying to get into my handbag where I'd stored the stash, one even grabbed me so hard on the arm he broke the skin! I've probably got Monkey Rabies now! Then there were the other ones, the less pushy ones who stood back and when you did feed them, they took it sooooo gently it made your heart melt! These were my favourites of course, but then I always did fall for the runt of the litter!

There were mums with their little ginger babies who were just so adorable and have so many human characteristics that you do realise we are only a couple of genes away from being full brothers and sisters.



There was one who even after the food had run out was quite happy to be stroked and endlessly fascinated with my red nails, examining me intently. He then seemed to decide that my thumbnail was some kind of juicy berry and started pulling it towards his adorable little mouth filled with very sharp teeth. Luckily I pulled my hand away in time or it would've take me a lot longer to type this post!

When Meo came to collect us we were sad to leave but all incredibly glad we'd come. He then drove us along this river as dusk was falling to what looked like a rather grotty little shack on the water's edge. It turned out to be one of the best seafood restaurants I've ever eaten in. The view was pretty spectacular too as you can see.



When the time came to go on the fireflies bit of the trip I was scuppered cos the seat in the boat was so low down I was terrified I might rip my stitches again, and as its only four days till I'm due to fly home I realised it would be a really stupid thing to do. I wasn't the only one to bottle it, so while one brave Aussie girl went out into the Mangrove swamps, myself and the other two sat on the dock and teased the boys. Much more fun!

By the time I was dropped back at the Shangri La at 10pm I felt amazing. Tired, but really really happy!