On boys in cars

I've always had a weakness for shiny metal capable of thrusting me forward at silly speeds. Its one of the things that my husband and I share. I grew up in Johannesburg, a city where your car is your second skin, your armour, your designer gear, and I drove a procession of flash little numbers; the nimble Renault Sport 2l Clio, the sexy MX5 convertible and even, though expressly forbidden not to, the modified BMW M3... But now we live in a world where it is possible to cycle everywhere (provided you stay away from lorries and those fatal blind spots). Gradually the car has turned from a refuge and a friend into a confinement and a slightly awkward acquaintance. I still love to scorch along country lanes, and there's nothing like the bubble of a car for shouting raucously along to the radio. But I see them differently now. My world can turn without them. I marvel at their engineering, but at times even that is overbearing, and we're building machines that cosset us, and try to soften reality. And I laughed yesterday when, from the saddle of my bicycle, I whizzed past a gold-plated Ferrari, burbling angrily in traffic on Brompton Road. It had Saudi number plates. The amount of glint it generated was damaging to the retinas of the ogling bystanders. Pity it was going nowhere slowly. Although today, on my way to a very thorough ballet class which the heavenly Amber introduced me to in Fulham, I passed two impossibly handsome Mediterraneans on the back of a flatbed. I was on the verge of smirking at the thought that their shiny Jag had broken down, when I realised they were being filmed, and, mid-take, they were smirking at me.

On loneliness

Loneliness is an awful beast. I'm not shy of being alone; give me a long, empty road to run or a cosy corner and a massive book - these are some of the greatest things life can offer me. But being alone and being lonely are two different countries. Since moving to England, I've lived longer in the latter than I care to remember. And this despite being happily married to a wonderful, supportive man. No, loneliness is an odd disease that strikes anyone, anywhere and without warning. It forces you so deep into your own skin that no-one can penetrate and though you might rail and try to tear yourself out, you are simply standing in a crowded room, screaming at the top of your lungs in mute. As if you have relinquished your own power to some unseen hand that stops your mouth and presses on your chest. And so, cycling home from Soho after a dance class and an evening at the theatre last night, I was amazed to realise that the weight is gone. I don't know why it went, or when, but its no longer there. I can breathe again, and speak myself to the world. I only wish I knew how I threw it off, because I know that this malaise is far more common than is given credence in our society. All I know is that it feels wonderful to be so light again.

On the power of Mum

I am amazed at the power a mother can wield. Mummy has made me wildly happy by promising to come over from South Africa in September to see me create the role of a histrionic Russian dominatrix (typecasting again...) in a new musical. It will be two years since we've seen each other. Two years that have been the most challenging, awful, exhilarating times of my life. I have new clothes, new opinions and an entirely different outlook on the world. My face has changed, in reflection of this. My hands are older, hardened by the fact that I am no longer a pampered Johannesburg princess with her own maid. And I can't wait to see her. I have so much to tell her, so many great places to take her to and so many things to share. She has changed too, no doubt, and I can't wait for the moment she steps out of Heathrow and we can get to know each other again. She is the loveliest, sweetest, kindest, gentlest, most humble, beautiful, sensitive woman I know. So why is it that the prospect of having her in my house sees me scrubbing the bathroom tiles on a Sunday evening...two months before she arrives?

On the common sneeze

I sneezed myself awake last night and spent the rest of a dark hour worrying that I have come down with the dreaded lurgie. I spent two hours on London double deckers getting across town yesterday, shuddering at every hard surface I had to touch and glancing in horror at each fellow passenger that happened to cough. But I refuse to add to the situation by worrying about it, although perhaps it may be a good thing to have swine flu while it is still a relatively mild strain... Ah, the power of fear!

On the Alpine climb

The Zen master says, at the beginning of the journey, you know that mountains are mountains. But then you look closer, and begin to doubt. And you doubt harder when you start to climb them, and the ground under your feet is no longer flat and you cannot see the sky for trees. Once you've crossed them, and you have achieved Zen, says the master, mountains are mountains again. And I know its true, for I used to be certain that I could open my mouth and sing something worth listening to. But then I looked closer at my voice. The perfectionist inside didn't like what she heard. Since then, singing has been like walking the highwire. And I'm unable to resist the temptation to look down. No wonder I keep falling off; too many auditions now have seen me sail through the acting and dancing rounds, only to plummet from the dizzy heights of my own fear in the singing audition. And being keenly aware that I am the ringleader of this little circus, and have the power to unleash my own voice at any time I choose helps me not at all. Why does a person choose the stonier path inside herself and make life harder than it needs to be? All I know is that I needed to, but for the life of me I can't figure out why. And I long for the moment I see clear sky again.

On coming up short

Don't you hate that thing that happens when you're sailing along, flowing and moving and feeling at one with the winds of the universe. . .and then you just hit a lull? Come up against a stagnant pocket of air, for no reason at all? Its so dull. I feel like a gray Tuesday afternoon, and I am not especially fond of Tuesdays. I prefer Saturday nights, when the city is a shiny blur, or Sunday mornings that radiate lazily like circles on a still pond. And it all comes down to the cold realisation that next week my happy little tour is a memory and I am a 'resting' actress again, with no idea of how to put food on the table between now and the start of my next job, a month away. I choose this life over any other; doubt may be an unpleasant condition but certainty is an absurd one. But that doesn't stop me waking in the night with knitted brow and having to remind myself to have faith.

On kickstarting Saturday

Sloane Square, Battersea Park, Albert Bridge over the Thames, Chelsea Physic Gardens. These are all places I know from postcards, but they look best under a Saturday sky already ablaze at seven in the morning, with not a tourist or a taxi to mar the picture. The majesty of London's monuments soar into an untroubled sky and her manicured gardens lie replete with hot flowers. My ipod was on shuffle and God put his finger on Springsteen's Born in the USA, an excellent choice which served to remind me that it was indeed the 4th July, and that even when running through the streets of London, you are never alone. It looked like being another beautiful day. I paused in Duke of York Square, just off the Kings road, and beside the Saatchi Gallery, where a solitary Polish waitress was laying out cutlery at Patisserie Valerie in the square beneath the trees. The coffee she brought me was strong enough to strip the paint from my nails, and I lingered over it, watching the shopgirls, groomed like champion racehorses, throwing back lattes and girding their loins before unlocking the doors of their glass cages, preparing for another day of sweet-talk and sneer. I used to be one of them. As I ran back along the glinting Thames, I was thinking of a girl I saw in a dance class at Pineapple this week. Its a difficult class; unlike the nurturing, gentle encouragement of other classes, this teacher fosters an atmosphere of competition and adrenalin. Its a class you need attitude to survive, and girls wear bikinis and hot pants and more make up than on an average Saturday night. But this girl stood out from the crowd not because she was beautiful or scantily clad, but because she danced like it was the last day on earth. Every movement was a word, and her dance became a language that any other human being could understand. I saw the floor on fire. I saw her soul pouring into the air. It was a defining moment in my understanding of what it is that I'm striving for. And I felt burned by the shame of knowing that I have wasted so much time being doubtful, half-hearted, afraid. This was a very powerful lesson, and I'm still reeling from it. I know I have no more time to waste. As the early risers of Chelsea and Battersea began to emerge, they may have noticed a girl who kept breaking off from her run to dance snatches of a routine to an invisible audience. Luckily, I didn't notice them! And then I went home and pulled my husband out of bed for a breakfast picnic on Clapham Common...