Hi Everyone. How does the time go so quickly? I used to have lots of spare time to be totally focussed on singing, but life is giving me so many more things now too. I’ve been growing my own food at an allotment and then we’ve been given stuff by other people too so it’s been all systems go in the kitchen making stuff. Food is my other passion. I go less and less to supermarkets now and am choosing to stay local and see what I can get near to me instead. I have to be healthy and my food matters. I don’t do processed quick food. I’ve just got some sourdough bread in the oven baking as I write this. Check out my baps below.

My blog is not about food though. It’s about me and my singing thingy. I can honestly say at the moment, I feel like I’m not in the struggle. I’m not contacting people and pushing myself forward for things. I just feel like I can’t do that anymore. It’s mentally draining to be constantly trying to create work and be ok, and I feel that I’ve put enough in over the years to be able to reap the benefits of my name now being spread word of mouth, and me not having to shout to people ‘hello, I can sing for you’. RELIEF!!! Now, if I wanted a bigger house and a fancier car and a life with all the trimmings, then I’m nowhere near there, but I don’t, so I have everything I need. It’s not that I feel like ‘this is it’ or anything, but I just feel like I can sit back a bit and let things come to me. I chatted to a lady last week who contacted me who manages a group and wanted to chat about the possibility of me and her working together (she contacted me) so we had a good chat and she’s gone on holiday and we both have time to think. For me, it’s a yes, but we would have to really sit down and chat and see how we could do things together.

I could certainly do with some help to open up some bigger doors, and I liked her and feel we could work well together. I’m playing the waiting game until she gets back from her hols to see what her thoughts are and whether she is interested in working with me too, once she’s had time to think, but I mentioned a few months back how I wanted a manager. I just want someone to help me and be another person fighting my corner so it’s not all on my shoulders. A new set of ideas from someone.

I do feel ready though to move forward a bit. To get some help and to open some bigger doors. I did the Yorkshire Proms at The Piece Hall. Apart from the weather being utterly rubbish for the audience, I loved every minute of it.

From the moment I arrived and met Shona, the other singer in my dressing room, to getting up on the stage to rehearse with the orchestra, to being up there in the performance, I was in heaven. I have been ‘Miss karaoke opera backing tracks’ girl for a long time now, so to have real life players accompanying me and a big fat orchestra behind me was like seventh heaven. An absolute luxury, but one I intend to do more often. I hope people don’t mind me using my backing tracks, but one day I won’t need them anymore and I’ll be doing more ‘live’ stuff with people. Me and Maria, my pianist are doing more together and I am chatting to others about working together. Let’s see what happens.

I’m just back from a lunchtime concert in Rochdale for Toad Lane concerts. They run a weekly Wednesday lunchtime concert series at the church I got married in years ago (all over a year later, and have stayed unmarried since).

There isn’t a time where I cruise it and just think ‘I’ve got this’ on stage. I can feel new technical things coming in and I have to change things slightly when I sing, and sometimes it works and sometimes I revert to old ways and I am aware of it and it’s never ‘sorted’. Ever. I don’t think my head will ever get big. I have to stay humble and keep working on things so I can carry on doing what I do to the best that I can.

Let’s talk about Crete. Maleme, in Crete. Woohoo!!! Let’s live that life for a bit. Yes!! Getting flown out and put up in a hotel for 4 nights, and collected from the airport and looked after by Anastasia and Eleftheria (two sisters) was truly memorable.

The food too (LOVE Greek food. I could eat their food for the rest of my life). Me and Jon had such a great time. it was simple. Not lots of running around trying to see things because I wanted to be good for when I sang, and it was piping hot, so it was pool time, good food, sea time, sunsets, singing and connecting with people. The reality hit on the day of the concert that I was about to perform for people to whom I couldn’t tell my story to. I usually connect with people through that, so I felt out of my comfort zone knowing I didn’t have that as a crux to lean on, and then I thought ‘what if they don’t understand the song menu and don’t know some of the songs on it?’ I think these were pretty valid worries to have. Jon felt out of his comfort zone too doing the sound and lighting, and I’ve never started singing so late and in such heat (9.30pm), but I’m definitely not moaning. It was brill. The Cretans showed me so much love, and I got them to write comments in my ‘Opera for the People’ book and they were things like ‘thank you for sharing your emotions with us and your soul’. It’s good to step out of your comfort zone. Life should be about not staying in comfort but challenging yourself and getting out there a bit. It’s how I’ve learnt and grown.

I’m going to Belgium next weekend. I had been asked by a group of people in Knokke who I sang for a lot when I lived in Belgium. They had said they would pay my expenses and to sing for them too, so I also arranged to sing for another group of people I used to sing for (a good idea if I am over there). I booked all my travel, told the first set of people about it and then they said they hadn’t confirmed me to sing. Definitely not being honest there, seen as the words ‘book the date’ were mentioned when asking me to sing. A bit lousy really to do that, but I’m going out to sing for the second set of people and making a weekend of it. Seeing some friends I used to pal around with and having a few Belgian beers. Jon is coming too. Then it’s back to it, focus and get my head down for the work I have and lots more singing for people. I was a bit gutted because I since got asked to sing for a dinner here on that date that was cancelled so I actually missed out on some other work because they messed me around.

I’m glad I’m not ‘in the profession’ anymore. I’m glad I’m doing ‘me’. It’s so easy to settle and not truly follow your heart, but it’s one thing I have never compromised on. When my heart was saying ‘leave your job in Belgium and go home’ I listened, even though that was going home to busk in London wondering what the hell I was doing, but my heart knows. My deep intuition knows. I could no longer face the profession and what it was doing to me on the inside, so I had to get out and find the freedom to be me. It’s been worth it. Now it’s time to rise, and my intuition knows that too.

I’m going to be putting my dates on the website and Facebook for events coming up in the next few months once September comes and people are a bit more ‘not on holiday’ mentality, so keep your eye out and do support me if you can at some point. I’ve got ‘Opera for the People’ and ‘A Spoonful of Julie’ to look forward to. I need to sort them out in my own head and on paper to get them down myself and I’ve been in ‘holiday’ mode too. My website is http://www.iamnicolamills.com and my facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/iamnicolamills