A quick word with Hayley Westenra

Hayley Westenra

Back home for a brief visit before jetting around the world to promote her new album, Odyssey.

How are you?

Not very well, actually. I've got a really sore throat. I went to Dunedin last week to visit my friends and stayed in one of the halls at uni and everyone's sick so right now I'm in bed in Christchurch.

Sounds like you've been taking advantage of the fact that you're now 18.

I haven't really exploited it yet. It's been good but I've only been to two bars in London and a couple in Dunedin.

Your parents have always been heavily involved in your career - will that change now you're older?

I spent the past month in London without them. At first they were like, "But you can't cook Hayley, how are you going to cope?" And I was like, "I'll be fine". . I'm 18 so they don't need to be there every second of the day.

So what do you cook?

Very healthy food, actually. I did this really good lentil stew the other day.

What's your flat in London like?

It's really spacious, quite quaint. It came furnished so I just came in and plonked all my stuff in there and tried to mess it up a little bit. I like things to be cosy. I like wooden furniture. I do like things quite modern. Because generally that means the walls are white and if it's patterned wallpaper it's going to look really messy.

You've co-written a romantic ballad on the new album called What You Never Know Won't Hurt You. What sort of relationships have you had lately?

Not many, if any. It's hard because you may meet someone but then again you won't see them for like, another year.

You realise your version of Ave Maria is likely to be played at funerals?

I didn't think about that, did I? Quite a few of my songs have been played at funerals. They get played at weddings as well. I take it as a big honour that someone would play my music for such a personal moment.

The cover art is nice but it must be hard looking so wistful when you're standing on a beach in clothes that aren't exactly designed for the outdoors.

It was freezing. We shot that in Portugal. You don't want to be rugged up, do you? So there I was, shivering away on the rocks, trying to look like I was enjoying myself.

What's this rumour that you were seeing Daniel Bedingfield?

That was completely untrue. My friends were like, "So is it true Hayley?" I'm like "Come on, guys. Do you think I would've kept that from you?'

What have you splashed out on?

Good food. There's a health food store just around the corner in London and if you convert the prices back to dollars it's pretty expensive. I love New Zealand Royal Gala apples. You'd pay 30p which is about 80 cents each. A mango would be 99p which is $2.80 but I don't buy too many mangoes.

And here we were thinking cars, clothes, jewellery ...

My dresses for my performances are pretty expensive but they're a working cost. I haven't really gone and bought a really expensive pair of shoes or anything like that.

What sort of work have you been doing as a Unicef ambassador lately?

I went on my first field trip to Ghana for five days. We went around these communities and saw the shocking poverty and it was just heart-wrenching. I won't forget the images I saw or the people I met over there. I'm trying to raise enough money with the public's help to provide 5000 bicycles for the children.

Did you get a chance to bring this up when you sang for George W. Bush?

No. It was like, "Oh nice to meet you, great performance, blah blah blah blah blah" and then he's gone.