OK, it's been a while, I admit, but getting back to normal after three nights under canvas when I'd sworn I'd never do such a thing ever again has taken some doing. I know I'm supposed to be some sort of cowgirl rancher chick, and you might think that as such I'd be up for kipping under the stars at the drop of my very expensive leather hat, but I invented this particular variety of cowgirl, and so I can say with some authority that British cowgirl rancher chicks don't do tents. Full stop. Period. Yeehah.

Anyway, forgetting the tent business and the strange weather and the fact that for a while we (M and I, that is) thought we had no means of boiling water and therefore no means of making tea, the festival was a great success from the performance side of things. Randy Moods went down a storm, new friends were made (including two lovely women who provided us with cups of tea at the time we thought we had no means of making our own, and who thus became known to us as The Tea Ladies, and who then came along to my performance), and CDs were sold. We did, however, pack up and head out on the Sunday evening, when another rain-soaked night under canvas seemed a night too much. Call us wimps if you must - though I prefer 'Ladies Who Like Their Creature Comforts'.

Moving on... yesterday I had occasion to chat to Ian Joules of Joules clothing and Joules Yard, a very funky cafe and live music venue behind the Joules boutique in Market Harborough. We talked of dogs and of music, and I really liked the laid-back, rather American feel of the place, so I shall be taking Joleen (my beloved guitar) along with me to the open mic there a week on Thursday (15 August).

There's another gig in the offing too - a fundraiser for the Hillingdon Women's Centre, somewhere I've driven past soooo many times on my way from London back to Oxford, but only ventured into last month when, following an audition for The Voice (that's a story in itself...), I found myself walking from Hillingdon tube station to the Oxford Tube bus stop. I got chatting to the centre manager, and as a result of that chat we've decided to set up a music night on either 21 or 28 September, with me and one or maybe two other female singer-songwriters. The details have yet to be worked out, but it will definitely be happening - so watch this space!

One other thing - I won something!! The Melange Factor singing competition to be precise. More precise than that I can't be as I don't really know any more than that. But it's nice to have won something - something where people had to vote on videos of our performances posted on You Tube. Winning may change my life... but there again, it may not. To find out if it does, once again, watch this space... ;)

Me and Calamity Jane, we’re like that. Not the Doris Day glamorous tomboy, more the grimy, gun-totin’ don’t-give-a-damn dirt-smeared gal from Deadwood  – she’s the one who resonates with me. But after spending yesterday agonising over whether tassels on my sleeves would get tangled up with my guitar strings and what colour hat would best set off my bespoke blue boots, I’m sadly realising that perhaps I do in fact have more in common with Doris Day…

Speaking of days, mine was spent hunched over the laptop (Ah! An idea for a new Randy Moods song: The Laptop from Laramie…) after brainstorming with Felix over what Randy Moods, my musically comedic country alter-ego, would wear on stage. A fringed leather jacket and a gorgeous cowgirl hat was where we agreed she would start. It sounded so simple – as indeed it must have been for the real Calamity Jane, in the days when you made your clothes out of a buck you’d just skinned. But in the end, simple it most definitely was not.

On top of the fringe-in-the-guitar-strings problem and the clash-of-colours dilemma, there was the fact, as I soon realised, that shipping authentic stuff over from the States would cost more than the National Debt, especially once import VAT, customs duty and the mysteriously vague ‘handling charge’ were slapped on at this end.

The result was a call to a line-dancing supplier in Dudley, West Midlands… I know, I know… but at least there was a West in the location… By the time I called them I could bandy cowboy hat names around like I had a PhD in the subject. But it turned out that they’d been stitched up by some bad-guy supplier – the one in the black hat – and no longer, it seemed, had anything to sell but really crap headgear. And that simply isn’t where Randy Moods is at.

I was on the point of giving up, but took one more look on eBay – and there, suddenly, inexplicably, all the way from the li’l town of Katy, Texas, was my hat, the one Randy would feel reeeeal comfortable wearin’ on stage, and at a dirt-cheap price! So without further ado, I snapped her up.

As for the fringed jacket, I fell in love with a chamois-coloured number made by Scully – as you must surely know, one of the premier cowgirl jacket manufacturers ‑ and duly convinced myself that a tassel or two entwined in the guitar strings could be good for the comedy. Very pricey it was, though – until, after scouring the Net for so long that my shoulder seized up, I came across a site selling that very jacket, in my size, at HALF PRICE, with only three left… So another snap purchase was made, and Randy Moods is now kitted out for her summer gigs!

So all is well… apart from the shoulder, that’s still seized up. Still, I reckon Calamity must’ve suffered a seized-up shoulder or two in her time as well. Yep, guns and laptops, they have a whole lot in common ‑ as much as – well, as much as me and the gal from Deadwood!