Sponateous combustion - fire at the Ritz. I am glad I had fled Paris the day before!

Karl with his Godson, Hudson - Brad (Dad) smiling in the background.

Karl with his Burmese kitten, Choupette - back from the vet with an Elizabethan collar.

Karl and Carine's extraordinary new book!

Lyonel working hard in Paris.

Last time in my room in the Ritz. They are closing the Cambon side. Only now, as I am about to leave, do I feel sad.

Paris. Karl's extreme and delicate bouquet.

Think I'm going to write a play called 'The story of sleep' about a woman who disintegrates without it/him and reassembles after one night in Paris when he comes - unasked, no sleeping pill cry, just comes. I can't believe it. I'm sitting at the desk listening to the sparrows in the slice of tree line below my window, a clock ticks, somewhere in the bowels of the Ritz a bath is being run, but otherwise it is a familiar unquiet.

The man in black! Self possessed - poised - ready to send his collection out on a galuchat set with Michel's dark landscape of a soundtrack. The collection is sensuous and richly resolved in texture and volume. The balance of colour has such authority - it has all the wildness and truth of Siberia.

Showtime!! Karl surveys the backstage with his video glasses.

Day before the show. Another nuit blanche. Another 4.30am digital depression. I want to drop the hotel electronic clock down the loo. Collection on schedule and gathering strength as it begins to get worked into - mixed, layered, ordered into sequence. Michel Goubert is his visionary self and gives us his seal of approval. Stephen is here in spirit and we feel his smile. Karl is on glittering form and enjoying his 007 video glasses that nobody knows about. I spotted the strange tool box that Sebastian was carrying to his hotel room last night.

Day 3. Couldn't sleep. Every time I closed my eyes it was as though I was looking at my hair underwater or strands of seaweed. Then the mutating faces which morph and stretch and mouth but soundlessly - a sort of Dickensian cast of characters. Karl arrives tonight. It will be a long day.

Day 2. The loneliness of the hotel. Had a fitting in the hills outside Rome last night. Strange to think that within four days we will have done the show. Wanted to wander around the cobbled streets of Casperia in the rain but headed back to Rome with Charlotte to try and hunt down sleep. Leaving for Milan today. Regretting the size of my suitcase - too many books and papers. And no camera.

Off to Rome. I thought the snow at dawn might save me from hours in taxis, trains,planes. Cracking on with the edit for my novel with the fires burning and the dogs checking up on me has been calm, steadying with dreams not nightmares. I had been so crushed by the Chinese water dragon entering the year - I lost everything that week - but slowly, slowly I am seeing again and setting things down. Dominic Jones made the long journey North to see me. We told stories of metal and stone. There's a different note to the birdsong - the first scribbles just before dawn sound like ice melting.

The pagan egg is being collected. I am sad as I've got attached to primavera egg with its Miss Havisham ripped lace and the crown of wildflowers woven for her when she was still full of hope. I'm not sure what it all means but I love the blood red thread hanging from it. I've wrapped it in cling film. No idea if it will survive the journey. Strange gnostic egg.