I never wanted to be a celebrity.
— Katie Melua
I think my biggest achievement is still going out on the road and wanting to make music on the road. It doesn't matter to me that I am still travelling around because I just love everything about it, I love the lifestyle, and I love being on stage.
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.
My mother is caring and selfless, and really looks after me. When I'm touring, she still picks me up from the airport, no matter what time it is.
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.
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.
Well, I couldn't speak English before I went to Belfast. So I learned English with a Northern Irish accent.
Granddad was deported to a Siberian prison camp at the age of 15.
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.
I've always been very open and unspecific about what kind of music I want to make.
At 15, I did a ouija board with my best friend. I pretended I was possessed by a ghost, and she believed it.
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.
I personally stream or download from iTunes because I love the quick access that I have to music; I don't have to write down a list of songs that I like and then go to the shop.
Well, I always write when I am inspired, and I am not a constant song-writer.
But I'll never forget my trip to Las Vegas. I'm a huge rollercoaster fan and we did the one at the Stratosphere, which curls around the hotel, and there's one that dips out from the roof then comes back in. That was intense.
My father has been an inspiration - he instilled his work ethic without ever having to hammer it home. He was also very encouraging.
When the Soviet Union broke down, Georgia suffered a huge deal. Pretty much the whole of the 90's was known as 'the black decade... because we had a lot of electricity blackouts.
I started writing and recording, at a very basic level, just in my own bedroom.
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.
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.
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.
After 'Nine Million Bicycles', I was sent bikes from all over the world. I got about 10.
I'm enjoying doing research, to get better at the guitar, to get better at rhyming. That's an essential skill.
The thing about doing gigs is you make music, and then it is gone and that is being watched by thousands of people.
I'd love to do a food tour of Italy but the next break I'll be having is skiing with my dad in Georgia. He's 58 and only just started skiing, so I'm looking forward to joining him on the slopes.
Most people in Georgia have a place in the hills for when it gets too hot in the city. We have good friends who own a place by a beautiful little river and the houses are full of hammocks.
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.
I used to watch 'Aliens', and I just found Sigourney Weaver's character so empowering.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I am not saying everything's perfect, but I embrace anything bad because that makes me appreciate all the good.
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.
