The Russians invaded Georgia in 2008 and my mum got stuck and had to be airlifted back to the capital by the UN because she'd left her passport at my grandparents. It was absolutely terrifying and it's why I always carry my passport in my handbag now.

Katie Melua

I'm the worst customer for a credit card company because I always pay my balance off every month.

I don't cook very often but when I do I try and make Georgian food. I made a hinkali recently, which is like ravioli but is the size of your palm, with meat in the middle and thicker dough.

Katie Melua

Food Your You

After 'Nine Million Bicycles', I was sent bikes from all over the world. I got about 10.

Katie Melua

World T Sent

I do tend to drape my real feelings with pretty words and different layers and stuff.

Katie Melua

Words Word Wit

I love winter. It's a beautiful time, but also a melancholic time, a reflective time, and I'd come to a point in my life where I felt I had to make certain decisions about my career.

Katie Melua

Time Love Life

Queen were the first western band I got hooked on. I got a bootleg - there was hardly any legal buying of CDs in Georgia.

Katie Melua

Legal Yin Western

Children are resilient - they can always find a way to play.

Katie Melua

Ways Way T

Granddad was deported to a Siberian prison camp at the age of 15.

Katie Melua

Age Ted T

When I had a mental breakdown I was 26 and the most important thing before that was my work. And I still adore it. But it was all that mattered and everything else was secondary: my relationship, my family, my own health.

Katie Melua

Work Relationship Men

I grew up in Georgia where my parents, little brother Zurab and I shared a flat with my paternal grandparents and two uncles in the capital, Tbilisi. Times were hard and the country was racked by civil war.

Katie Melua

War Time Wit

And I did feel there was an album to be made about winter that can make you feel the way Sinatra and Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline make me feel - warm, nostalgic and comforted.

Katie Melua

War You Winter

Maybe when you're 18, 19, 20, you could have a bit of a wobble if you're going on live TV and playing guitar. But in your thirties you've got to just grow up about it.

Katie Melua

Your You Yin

I've always been very open and unspecific about what kind of music I want to make.

Katie Melua

Music Ways Way

I'm enjoying doing research, to get better at the guitar, to get better at rhyming. That's an essential skill.

Katie Melua

Yin T Skill

My father longed for a better life for us, and when I was nine he got a job as a heart surgeon in Belfast. It was very bittersweet when we said goodbye to our relatives, and I remember crying my eyes out at the airport.

Katie Melua

Life Good Art

I don't get to do that very often so to just have a completely free evening where your mind is relaxed enough to read a book is exquisite.

Katie Melua

Your You Where

Throughout my 20s it was all about achieving and working as hard as possible. To the point that you don't think twice about working in a music studio with no windows from 11 to 11. And you don't bat an eyelid if you fly four times a week and do promo in a different city each time.

Katie Melua

Work Time Music

Ever since I left the Brit school I've been so protected. I had a woman to do my hair and makeup every day throughout my 20s.

Katie Melua

Woman Very Up

I'd also like to explore more of Georgia, my home country, because one day I really want to make an album that is written in the Georgian language.

Katie Melua

Home Age Written

I used to think being in the West would be incredible and then when I was nine my parents moved us to Belfast. I was initially amazed by little things - in toyshops you could actually play with the toys, the schools were more colourful and there were so many magazines everywhere.

Katie Melua

You Would Wit

The first dramatic experience I had of music was when I was five. The electricity had gone out in Georgia, and my mum played the 'Moonlight Sonata' on the piano.

Katie Melua

I may be developing aerophobia as I get older, or maybe I'm just becoming middle aged, because I find flying an increasingly unpleasant way of travelling. I would much rather drive than fly.

Katie Melua

I did go through a phase of reading a lot of poetry and getting heavily into philosophy and ended up writing things that weren't really in a musical format, which I put to some very electronic-based backing.

Katie Melua

When I'm working, I'll often be upgraded to a suite though I don't ask for preferential treatment. I'll be there with a tour manager, my band and various promotions people and the hotel will offer to upgrade one of us; luckily, it's usually me.

Katie Melua

We Georgians are really into food and drink. We would never have finger food at a party or a wedding - celebrations are always one long meal, on one long table, with endless toasts.

Katie Melua

I think singing is such an important and incredible art form and it is quite undervalued at times.

Katie Melua

I love fruit. One of my earliest memories is climbing trees for figs, and I once got stuck in one when I was six. I could see the biggest, juiciest fig and I climbed up and got it and ate it right there, sitting on a branch. Then I realised I couldn't get down.

Katie Melua

I love a classic, white silk shirt with dark trousers or jeans or a dark, knee-length skirt: timeless clothes that are not too fussy always work.

Katie Melua

And I've teamed up with a choir from home. They're called the Gori Women's Choir. They're a 23-piece all-female choir, and they've been going since the '70s.

Katie Melua

There are all these tests that are done on young kids and they all say they want to be famous but I just always felt that for my generation being famous was kind of corny and cheesy. Maybe because fame isn't something that proves you're good at something.

Katie Melua

When I do my own makeup, I limit my options: I have one Mac eye colour, a neutral shade with a bit of shimmer, plus eyeliner and subtle mascara. I wear a little foundation and put Laura Mercier concealer around my nose, underneath my eyes and on any dark spots.

Katie Melua

I spend eight to nine months working abroad and cram in a holiday when I have the odd week off.

Katie Melua

The Russians invaded Georgia in 2008 and my mum got stuck and had to be airlifted back to the capital by the UN because she'd left her passport at my grandparents. It was absolutely terrifying and it's why I always carry my passport in my handbag now.

Katie Melua

I grew up eating quite well, even though the idea has got around that my family were terribly poor in Communist Georgia. I think it's partly because we had different standards then - it was tough, but we never truly struggled for food.

Katie Melua

To be healthy is, for me, linked in with feeling happy about yourself.

Katie Melua

I've started making my wardrobe a uniform: I find that the fewer options I have, the better my state of mind.

Katie Melua

I know I've been lucky, but I'm not very materialistic - I don't believe in collecting many unnecessary things and I'm not into girlie shopping.

Katie Melua

When the lights did come on in Georgia and the electricity did come on - you know, 'cause they did for about one hour during the day - we would watch Hollywood films and we'd listen to music from America and the West.

Katie Melua

I would advise everyone to have a travel drawer. Mine contains adaptors, ear plugs, blow-up pillows for the plane, travel health books, disposable cameras, a first aid kit and torches.

Katie Melua

But I do think I'm quite a selfish performer in the sense that I'm not one of those that's like 'Hey, come on everybody lets sing along' you know that kind of thing.

Katie Melua

When I wasn't touring I'd be really down, then suddenly after a few weeks of crazy travelling - America, a double headline with Ray Davies in Denmark, TV shows here and just partying... Suddenly I had an acute psychotic breakdown.

Katie Melua

I mean Georgia, and also Belfast, aren't the most stable places, politically, in the world. But the thing is, in both places, the people were just so kind and so warm and in Belfast so welcoming.

Katie Melua

The thing about doing gigs is you make music, and then it is gone and that is being watched by thousands of people.

Katie Melua

What I've picked up from working with the women in the Gori choir is that they don't have egos. All that matters is the music.

Katie Melua

At 15, I did a ouija board with my best friend. I pretended I was possessed by a ghost, and she believed it.

Katie Melua

I am not saying everything's perfect, but I embrace anything bad because that makes me appreciate all the good.

Katie Melua

Because of things like 'The X Factor' and 'Autotune', the real art of communicating a song is not treasured any more. But singing other people's songs can be an intensely personal experience. I want the songs to be vessels that people fill with their own imagination, the same way that I fill it with my thoughts and feelings.

Katie Melua

Well, I couldn't speak English before I went to Belfast. So I learned English with a Northern Irish accent.

Katie Melua

I started writing and recording, at a very basic level, just in my own bedroom.

Katie Melua

I used to watch 'Aliens', and I just found Sigourney Weaver's character so empowering.

Katie Melua