Hi everyone,

So I have just returned from a day at the GLORIOUS Carapan Spa in New York, given to me by my Lord and Master (aka. Mr D. Hayes). I've just arrived back indoors and slipped into a terry towelling robe so that I could write and brag to you guys about the experience (the robe is currently being worn for purely narrative reasons. It has also helped get me fully back into 'spa' mood). Aromatherapy massage is definitely one of life's guilty pleasures (ok.. I don't feel A BIT guilty). Actually, I have a great idea.. why don't we all get a petition together to have a law passed which makes them a regular part of the working day! What do you think?? Whatever you think.... it was blissful and has certainly been a highlight of my WEEK OFF!!!

Yes.. we are all having a little holiday.. Daniel is at home in Brisbane, and Darren is at home in San Francisco... and I decided to stay in New York, New York and hang out with ALL of my chick friends (well.. the one chick friend that I have in America.. poor Nina.. I think she is becoming quite drained with my early morning phone calls and my 'what are we going to do today?' questions) Regardless.. it has been a chick fest.....chick flicks ('Anywhere But Here'), chick plays, ('The Vagina Monologues'), chick drinks, (where we sit in dark bars and smile flirtatiously at the bar tender.. or any other stray man who happens to glance in our direction), and best of all chick SHOPPING!!!! Nobody can shop like we women can.... we have it down to a fine art and, well, let's face it, if we have one religion that unifies us all.. it HAS to be SHOPPING!! Okay.. I'm getting a little carried away with the whole 'chick' thing.. but I'm always surrounded by men (okay... so they are FAMOUS, and CUTE and one SING'S REALLY WELL and the other plays the GUITAR REALLY WELL), but they are still MEN, who like to do MEN things and there really is NOTHING like hanging with a girlfriend and telling her ALL your problems, no matter how pathetic they are! I'm sure you all agree with me.

The only less than fabulous thing about my week off in New York is the weather. It is FREEZING! I remember once before, on a previous update, complaining about the heat in this town! All I can say now is, BRING IT ON!!! Not only is it FREEZING, but I'm staying in the apartment of a friend of mine who owns a cat. I'm COMPLETELY allergic to cats, so I had it banished from the apartment for the week I was here (please don't try and tell me you are surprised that I wield this sort of power?) But, did he or did he NOT leave his HAIR every where!! I have vaccuumed and washed and dusted every inch of this place, and I'm still in a constant sneezing frenzy. This has all lead to me having a permanently blocked nose, which is so uncool, especially in dark bars when I'm trying to impress new men. The other disadvantage to my newly acquired blocked nose is that it has also turned the size and shape of a large ripe tomato. Every time I happen to glance at it in the mirror, it scares the living daylights out of me. All I can hope is that it will shrink back to it's regular size by the time I leave here on Saturday.

Oh.. if you haven't noticed by now, this weeks update is all about me... ME ME ME ME FABULOUS ME!!!! Ha HA!! The power has gone to my head!!! Should I give you a little bit of Darren and Daniel??? Or should I just continue to go on and on and on about myself!??? Hmmmm..... let me see......

Am I mistaken, or did I just hear the sound of a gazillion computers being turned off???
Okay... you win, it doesn't have to just be about ME!! I'll talk about Darren and Daniel and EVERYTHING to do with Savage Garden. I know.. I know.. it's THEIR website.. not MINE!! Wow... I was off in some sort of 'Leonie Twilight Zone' for a second there. Thank God you brought me back down to Earth!!

So, where were we last time?

Oh... how could I forget... we were still in the middle of the horrific, 'two city a day for five days' trip. Please don't get me wrong when I use the word 'horrific', this merely has to do with the constant plane / car travel.. it has NOTHING to do with the fans that Darren and I met on the way. He had such a great time meeting you all, and he really felt very happy that everyone was so sweet. This week I have got some pics for you from the listening parties.. no doubt you'll recognize a couple of people (gis19 - Lori from Philadelphia) and Amanda from Boston. I think Amanda's nick is savagefan.. but I could be wrong.. so Amanda.. if you are out there.. I APOLOGIZE!!

There are also a couple of VERY silly mini movies. Darren and I had to sit in the car for about an hour in Boston waiting to go into the listening party. We really didn't have anything exciting to talk about with each other (which is very unusual for us, as generally we are INCREDIBLY interesting), so he decided that we should film ourselves and he thought you might all be very very interested in hearing some of the words I pepper my vocabulary with. Okay.. this IS an in joke with us, and I told him not to put it up as I didn't want to bore the pants off you.. but.. as I said, HE IS MY LORD AND MASTER and I was ordered to put them up here. I think he just fancied his handy work as a cinematographer and wanted to show it off to you all.

My favourite mini movie for this week is the one that I took when he thought I was taking his photograph (... we are still in the car in Boston at this point). He doesn't know I'm putting this one up.. but I am. Ha ha...

We were travelling with the VP of Pop Radio Promotions at Columbia - Lee Leipsner - and it is no WONDER Savage Garden do so well on the radio in this country! This guy is a machine. BUT.. let me tell you, after a week of him constantly being on his cell phone, Darren banned him to another car when we were travelling. It was literally super glued to his ear. Being the intrepid journalist that I am, with my digital camera ever at the ready, I managed to get a snippet of him on the phone, he was trying to ignore me at the time, as I was commanding him to hang up (it's that power wielding thing I have going).

The last party was held in Philadelphia and afterwards we got into a stretch limo (which we never use because Darren and Daniel think they are pretentious. Personally.. I LOVE THEM.. but who ever listens to me??), to drive us to New York. We took a stretch because by this stage, exhaustion had well and truly set in and it was the most comfortable way to travel. I managed to take one last photo of Darren in the car for you before I had to put the digital camera to bed for the night. We met up with Daniel and the rest of the band in New York.

The first promo thing the guys did in New York was a radio show for Z100 at the Sony Music studios... I know that some of you were there, because (A), We met you and (B) We told Carla to give away ten passes to the bulletin board. For those of you that weren't there, I'm hoping that you listened via the net. It was a truly great performance (okay.. you are probably NEVER going to hear me say otherwise here, but.. well.. IT'S TRUE!!!). I tried to get you some photos and mini movies, and I was sitting down the front of the crowd FOREVER trying to get a decent shot of Darren, but he refused to pose for me. When we were backstage afterwards, I asked him if he even for a SECOND.. NOTICED me STRAINING to photograph him and he said, "Oh.. yeah I did see you .. you looked like an idiot". Fine. I looked like an idiot.. but WHY DIDN'T YOU POSE FOR ME!! and he just gave me one of those "Oh wake up to yourself Leonie, I'm not performing to pander to your digital camera", faces. So.. I am dreadfully sorry.. but the photos are not as good as I would have hoped. I guess I just can't expect him to wave at my camera every single time I point it at him.

Daniel.. on the other hand.. is a COMPLETELY different story!! It doesn't matter where we are, or where he is.. he manages to wave and smile at my camera. Generally it is the video camera he does this with, and eventually I will be editing a 'GREAT WAVING MOMENTS FROM DANIEL' video together that you will be able to purchase at your local grocery store. This will, of course, complement Darren's star turn in the award winning... 'MY HAIRSTYLES AND ME... A STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE'. As you can see by the photo of Daniel that I have included from the Z100 performance, he saw me and gave me a look.. allright.. it's not exactly the typical 'Daniel' smile.. but he DOES look very cute and sexy.. and I'm sure you will all agree with me there!

They performed on the Rosie O'Donnell show on the Tuesday, but alas I was not allowed to take any photographs of the band on the set, so in it's place, I have taken a photo of Darren and Daniel, backstage for you. Darren was very relaxed when he was talking to Rosie after the performance, as you would have noted if you'd seen the show. I think it is because they have done her show so many times, he feels as though they are old friends. We were sitting in the dressing room and when Rosie was asking him about his audition for Daniel when they first met, we all nearly died when he agreed to sing the tune from LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS that he sang for the audition. Daniel was sitting with me watching the monitor during the interview and he said.. 'Watch this.. it is great'. I'd never heard Darren do ANY musical numbers before, and I was highly impressed that he would perform his show tune debut on a highly rating national tv show.

The next night they did and acoustic performance of five songs at SIR Studios, for PLJ radio that was broadcast live on the station, with I KNEW I LOVED YOU (and an interview) going to air on CNN...

Lastly (but not leastly), my favourite performance was for THE VIEW. And don't think I didn't notice how fantastic the whole band looked! It just made me want to go running to the studio to jump in front of the camera as I know the lens MUST have been sporting a very special filter that made anyone who stood in front of it look drop dead gorgeous!.

I wasn't at the studio on this day.. as it was the day we were all leaving the hotel for our respective 'holiday' destinations and part of my job (and I know you are going to find this INCREDIBLY hard to believe) is to pack Darren's clothes. I quite enjoy doing this actually, as he ALWAYS makes it such a pleasurable task for me. You know.. some people just unpack neatly, or don't unpack at all ... they merely move their clothes carefully from side to side and snap up the suitcase at the end of the trip, with less than a t shirt out of place. (tip: Daniel is one of these people). Darren.. God bless his soul.. is SO much more creative than this. He knows what a low threshold I have for boredom, so to counteract that, he ALWAYS makes sure that he has strewn his clothes into every conceivable corner of the room... ensuring that it always turns into a fun and exciting little game for me. I mean... you have to love him for the consideration he shows... don't you?

Okay.. you had no idea this happened.. but I just left for a few days. I love the way word processing documents have no perception of time.

I'm now in Toronto in Canada and we are going to Much Music tomorrow. It is 3.00am and Darren and I have just spent the last 6 hours talking non stop, because.. a lot has happened over the last week. Believe me!!

Not LEAST of all being the Top 10 debuts all over the world. Everywhere we look there is another incredible debut. Darren and Daniel know that you guys have so much to do with the success that AFFIRMATION has received so far.. and believe me, they are so appreciative of all your efforts and of how loyal you are.

I just wanted to mention one last thing before I sign off. I was on the bbs tonight.. yes, I do regularly have a look at it, as you know.. (how else can we keep up with what you guys want?).. and I saw Carla's post with regards to people leaving the board. Believe me, it is so sweet that some of you are so protective of 'gossip' and 'innuendo' about Darren and Daniel.. but, they honestly do not mind if you have some fun and just joke around about silly things (eg. Naked Hayes Feet). This is what your community is all about.. and the last thing that they'd like to see happen is this sense of fun removed from it. So.. if it's not malicious or derogatory.. just go for it and have a good time.

And very lastly (I promise).. I know that Carla receives a ton of private messages a day. As you all know, she is a mother of two and she is spending far too much time moderating this board. It has actually gotten to the point that Darren has asked her to back off from it a bit. As she won't do this.. I just wanted to ask you if you could possibly hold back from private messaging her about everything. Unless it is really important (and needs to be private), could you please just try and include it on the public board. That would be really great.. thank you.

Okay.. until next time... you'll be hearing from me in another remote part of Europe, where we will no doubt be required to fly around a lot on little planes, just to upset me!!

Take care!
Leonie