A day in the life of… Kim Wilde

I don’t have a set time that I get up, lt’s anytime. When I have to, basically. I need a lot ot rest, so I don’t feel guilty if I sleep past twelve. I don’t like getting up particularly. I’ve got this alarm clock you can shout at and then it stops so I have a little argument with that every morning. I don’t get up straight away – invariably I go to bed with all good intentions thinking, Right! 1’11 be up an hour and a half before I leave and get myself together. But what always happens is 1’11 stay in bed until eventually I’m left with about 20 minutes to get my act together. I manage to do it. Sometimes, if I’m verygood, I’1l get what I’m going to wear worked out in my head the night before, just to help me in the morning. I don’t have wardrobes in my flat and my clothes are in different suitcases or hanging up all over the place. I haven’t got a wardrobe, basically because 1 haven’t found one I like and so I’d rather not have one at all.
It looks a bit messy but I know where everything is. I put on as much make-up as I need to look alright – some mornings I need more than others. Naturally I brush my teeth in the morning, with an ordinary toothbrush, not an electric one – I don’t like those. I’m not a gizmo person though my family are. I seem to have gone the opposite way – I prefer things you do yourself. I’ve got a washing machine in my flat but then I think that’s like a tin opener – it’s an essential.
Sometimes I might have breakfast. If I’ve been really good and gone to the shop and bought some things I might have some natural yogurt and some fresh fruit put in the blender, or some muesli, I insist on eating well in my own home even if I can’t elsewhere. Or I might just have tea if I haven’t got enough time. But those things are a bit of luxury and I normally end up running out of the house without anything.
Where I live (in North London) I get on well with the residents. I bump into them in the morning and spent time chatting to them. They’re mostly old. When I walk out some of them will say, “Oooh. I saw you on such and such the other day, Oooh, you looked lovely.” That’s very nice They wish me luck and they’re very lovely to me. I don’t leave the house at any set time. If I’m recording we normally get our act together at about 11 o’clock at the studio, but I don’t like to do vocals until later on in the day when I’ve warmed up a bit. In fact I often get asked to talk about my day and it’s the bane of my life because there’s no regularity in my life.
Recently I’ve been doing a lot of travelling. Yesterday I went to my record company and I sat in an office all day being interviewed in a tiny room. I don’t mind being interviewed. It can be fun. I don’t like stopping anywhere for lunch – that’s a waste of time in my opinion. I normally end up getting a tuna sandwich and a coffee. In the afternoons I just carry on doing whatever I’m doing. Yesterday I finished at five and I feit like a regular nine to five person. Very often work will carry on to the early evening, for various reasons like if I’m doing a photo-session. I don’t especially like them though it depends on who’s doing the photos and how I feel. If I feel physically able to be looked at it’s great but if I don’t then it’s very difficult. But you have to help yourself. I know it sounds corny but smoking and drinking hampered me greatly. It’s a recent thing, giving them up, but I’m gaining benefits already. My body was saying, look, drinking and smoking isn’t happening, it’s making more problems for you and I was ignoring it for a long time. The thought of stopping was worse than the actual doing of it.
When I come in at the end ofthe day I listen to my answermachine messages and see who’s called me. I must say I do get a bit disappointed if I don’t see the light bleeping. I think Oooh, no-one was thinking about me today. Especially if I’m waiting for a special call, and you’d be surprised, sometimes I am. But mostly it is bleeping. Then I might answer those calls or I might go into my music room and fiddle about with my equipment or do some writing.
I hate coming into an untidy flat. Well, dirty I hate more than untidy. My flat’s only tidy when my cleaner comes in and after that it gets very untidy.1 think I’m quite messy – on a scale of one to ten I’m at the messy end.
To relax I might have a bath, but I don’t have one every day as I don’t like taking the natural oils out of my body. If I do it’s always in the evening. I usually put a CD on when I lie down in the bath. I like mellow music of an evening: not easy listening, but just something that’s not too much of an assault on the ears. One I like to relax to is by Jackson Brown called “The Pretender.” Or Prince, maybe, if I feel a bit more perky.
Then 1’11 put on something loose-fitting, like a cotton, japanese robe, go barefoot and read to relax. At the moment I’m reading a book by Mary Wilson about her life as a Supreme. Prior to that it was a book about Motown Records. I like reading about the music industry because it’s my hobby as weil as my career so I like to be as informed about it as possible.
Mostly in the evening I arrange to see someone and we go out to dinner. I go to a little Italian in Soho. It’s really just a cafe but it’s very good Italian food and very cheap. 1 go there with my mates and we sit and gossip. But sometimes alll want to do is go home, catch up with paying the bills, send off the cheques and water the plants – well, I’ve only got two – I’m not a planty person. I never go to bed before one. In bed 1 wear …um, mostly nothing. But my Chanel Number Five. Actually it’s true, Marilyn Monroe always used to say that and I thought, well anything that’s good enough for her is good enough for me. It’s such a beautiful smell – an evening smell – so 1 have it by my bed and I just put it on. Last night I was out for the count but some nights 1 have dreadful sleepless nights, fretting or just getting excited. 1 have lots of vivid dreams. The worst one recently was about my brother. We’d lost him or he’d died and I had a dreadful dream about that. I had to phone him up the next morning. It’s horrible when you dream things like that.