All in one

What do I have in common with Lady Gaga you might ask.  We're both ladies, allegedly, although she has to put Lady in front of her name as confirmation (I'm not as needy).  We also both have a weakness for clothes that make ordinary, everyday activity a bit of a challenge.   I've been a vegetarian since I was 16 so there's no pork chop frocks for me but I was reminded of Lady G at last night's gig as I tried to extricate myself from my jumpsuit on a pre-performance visit to the ladies/gents.

Yesterday's gig was at the intriguingly named Horse Hospital, easily one of London's most interesting and unusual venues.  Round the corner from Russell Square tube, on a mews,  is a rather uninspiring building upon which is painted the words Horse Hospital.  The sign is very necessary as nothing about it would tell you that it is either an arts venue or an equine emergency facility.

And it really was once a hospital for poorly horses.  When you enter the porch you can go up or down via cobbled slopes, designed for horse hooves.  The main rooms are also cobbled and there are runnels in the floor, presumably to divert any horse wee to the drains.    The whole place has the feel of a Dickensian hide out, the air on a December night is decidedly nippy and very little natural light enters the rooms.   I'm sure the horses warmed it up though with their hot bodies and so did our audience last night.

Once the room had warmed up a little, I bravely removed my clothes and put on my stage outfit; an all in one jumpsuit which I always wear with a black turban.  Someone once thought my outfit was vintage Biba, rather than contemporary Luton market, so I always give myself a little pat on the back when I wear it.  

Never the most practical outfit, it took on a whole new level of inconvenience in a place where there was only one loo and an outside one at that!  In the corridor which lead to the cubicle, was a queue of audience members who kindly allowed me to go first owing to the fact I was about to perform.   Queue jumping is something Lady Gaga and I also share; she's always jumping the queue for the bogs at her gigs.  

Once in the loo, I had to undo the jumpsuit and strip right down to my knickers and bra, while the icy cold wind whipped round my nether regions.  Why oh why had  I worn an all in one?  Vintage Biba, my freezing cold arse.