Control Freak......

I'm a dog, and dogs are by their very nature fairly easy going creatures. We are more than happy to just go with the flow and take life as it comes and we don't feel the need to control much at all - except when it comes to reminding our people to put food in the bowl at certain times of the day, or remind them that a walk in the canyon might be nice, but we're not really sticklers for schedules and don't get stressed out if we're running late or worry about who's going to be in the dog park today. We just turn up and see.
Humans are quite different. And Clare has suddenly realised after all these years, only just realised after all these years, that she's a little bit (hmmmmmm) of a control freak. Shock horror. It's pretty funny actually, well possibly not for the people closest to her who are always been coralled into the car so we're not late, which more often than not results in us being early!!! She gets a little hysterical if everything isn't according to plan, her plan, and she winds herself right up if it doesn't. It's mostly amusing to Paul. He's the most laid back easy going man in the world and his approach to it is to laugh a lot and tell her to keep her hair on which is always funny.
Of course some control is good. After all she gets a LOT done but she has realised recently that she would like to relax a little more and not have to be in charge of every single little detail of every single event that occurs for fear of it not going well. It is all fear based but remember “Do the thing you fear to do and keep on doing it... that is the quickest and surest way ever yet discovered to conquer fear.”So Games Night was a good example. Clare was very keen for the evening to flow smoothly so she threw herself into distributing paper and pens, explaining the rules, choosing the teams, timing the rounds, until she was utterly exhausted. SO she just stopped trying to control it all and we had the most brilliant time playing Celebrity with Team Captains Stephen Fry and Alex Hardcastle battling it out with the help of Sophie WInkleman and Lord Freddie, super agents Billy Lazarus and Kate Buckley, actors Dave Walton, Sean Maguire and Matthew Rhys and the gorgeous girls Sadie, Suz and Mezhgan. I think the trick is to make certain arrange ments and then hand the rest of the evening over to God to sort out. He is really really good at that and funnily enough if you stop controlling everything, usually everything turns out just fine anyway. You just have to trust, to let go and let God, to hand it over, to pry your fingers off the controls and let somebody else drive for a while and have faith that the journey will be just as beautiful. So that's Clare's project for the week.....to let go. I hope she does ok.....it is her birthday on Wednesday and who knows what that will bring. Had a fabulous lunch yesterday with a ton of brits at the palihouse. The gorgeous JJ Feild is in town for a while, and Leona Lewis came, and Matthew Rhys (again, but we can never got enough of him) and Kate and Sadie and Mezhgan......all of our absolutely favourite people. And Clare didn't feel the need to control a thing.....hands off and how much more fun was it as a result. Heavenly.....

Oh and also I would love it if you have a moment to vote for Nick Hoult as best new actor in BAFTA by going to http://bafta.orange.co.uk/OrangeRisingStarAward/ or text Hoult to 82058 if you're in the UK......we so appreciate it.....he's a very good actor :) and it would mean a lot