Well, I should rename my website The Airport Diaries, because I’m back at my little local airport today and I finally have time to be able to jot down some words about last weekend and my time at the Logies! Why am I at the airport you may ask? Or you may not have asked, but I’ll tell you anyway. I’m off to Sydney to hand back everything I borrowed for the big event. Would you believe it’s actually cheaper for me to fly down to Sydney and hand deliver my dress, the clutch and the jewellery rather than courier them back to their individual owners. You may not have realised that most of the things are borrowed for the evening? I didn’t have a clue until last year. And I can tell you that with a clutch bag worth over TEN THOUSAND dollars in my hands, I am looking forward to handing these expensive things back to their rightful owners!

So how am I feeling after such a big night? Well firstly, I’m exhausted. And secondly I feel deflated. It’s strange as I feel differently now to how I felt last year. Last year, attending the Logies was just so thrilling and a night to be fully enjoyed. When Family Feud won Best Entertainment very early on in the night, it certainly changed the atmosphere for us! The night turned into a huge celebration! And we shared every minute of the glory with all the wonderfully talented people who make up the Family Feud team! This year was very different. Well, for me at least. I can’t speak on Grant’s behalf as I haven’t seen Grant since the morning after the Logies when I left him in Melbourne to come home. He had to stay down to get ready to film Family Feud this week.

Now, I’m not saying it wasn’t nice to get all frocked up and enjoy some child-free adult time in a very salubrious environment. It was definitely enjoyable and it was lovely to see some old friends who I’ve missed out on seeing for a while. But I think the difference this year was my constant concern about Grant’s pain levels, sitting on a chair for longer than he has been able to manage for the past month. Grant’s fractured sacrum has been very painful and up until the Logies (a month exactly since his accident) he hadn’t been able to sit in the same spot without his blow-up ring and heavy medication and even then only for half an hour at a time. So my worry for Grant was always the focus of my evening. Even more so than checking my boobs didn’t pop out of my incredibly revealing dress! But, I love my husband to pieces as you may have already guessed and it was a fine balancing act of ensuring he was ok and trying to enjoy the evening after the week long preparations to get there!

The morning of the Logies is really strange, for me, as the partner of someone up for an award that evening. You want to sleep in. You don’t want puffy eyes that night on the red carpet where you stand next to some of the most primped and preened faces and bodies you’ve ever seen! I tried really, really hard to sleep but I couldn’t. I felt a little anxious or a pit of excitement or nerves that wouldn’t let me sleep properly. So I had an idea to order some breakfast. Yeah, that’ll make me feel better. It didn’t. I couldn’t eat very much. It tasted bland, and it wasn’t the food, it was just the nerves bubbling up from my tummy. My beautiful makeup extraordinaire Melinda Wain was arriving at midday at the hotel to start work on me. So I just watched a bit of TV, looked at the clock, helped Grant do his exercises for a bit, talked on the phone to my best girlfriend, looked at the clock, replied to a few messages, looked again at the clock. Then we had to pack up all our stuff to change hotels for the night. This was a good little distraction! Although we had three big bags and Grant is injured so we had to call in Titus Day, our good friend and Manager to help us change hotels. As we walked over to the Crown Promenade it all started to get quite real! I’m a HUGE fan of Wentworth and I could see a few of the actresses checking in at the same time. I don’t know them but I love the show! I stared away at them excitedly smiling and waving at any of them who sent a glance my way! “Hi Frankie!” I called out, shyly. “Hi Maxine!” Thinking back now they would have been concerned I was a crazy lady! I was yet to wash my tan off from my spray the night before so I looked quite the Oompa Loompa under Grant’s hat carrying quite uncoordinatedly too many bags and dropping my purse, then ID, then phone in between smiling! Ha!

So then up to the room we go. We open our bags and Grant lies on the bed and watches the V8’s on TV. Melinda arrives and sets up. That pit in my tummy is now gurgling. I’m starting to feel really nervous. So in true Chezzi style I order some more food! Without thinking I call for nasi goreng with no shrimp, a pizza, some eggs and some orange juice and oh, maybe some Coca Cola to try get rid of this acidic feeling in my gut! I realise when the food comes that I have totally over ordered on a day when I’m about to wear an incredibly tight-fitting dress. Also, poor Mel has completed my hair but can’t start my makeup until I’ve finished my garlic-infused mega meal and actually cleaned my teeth! Oops, again!

Fast forward and it’s now half past two. Melinda has just done the finishing touches on my makeup and I check it. Wow! I’m so impressed by this woman’s work. She has used this spray gun machine to paint my foundation on and I feel a million dollars! When you’re up for an award or two, like Grant was, you’re assigned a publicist to help streamline the red carpet interviews for you. We were lucky enough to have the effervescent Lauren Bockholt for the evening! I cannot sing her praises enough! She’s just brilliant and made everything so much easier! Lauren arrived at the room to take Grant’s little blow-up pillow across to the Palladium for us and put on his seat for the evening! His blue blow-up pillow is often used by people after childbirth or after having piles removed I think, so no one thought it would be a good idea for me to carry it down the red carpet for him!

When Lauren returned it was time to get dressed. I put on my Valentino pumps first. It was an awesome feeling, I must admit, to put on a pair of shoes you literally had to sell your first born child to afford. (Don’t worry, I didn’t, Sailor still belongs to us!). I chose the kitten heel height as I wanted comfort this year above anything else. Last year I couldn’t walk for a few days after I took the shoes off. My feet were so swollen and numb. I had to wear Grant’s runners home too! (But, don’t tell anyone).

Then, I put the dress on. Aargh! That dress! Talk about a dreamy sea of yellow! There’s no doubt about it – Mary Ionnaidis is THE Master when it comes to creating stunning frocks. She told me to trust her about revealing so much flesh and I did and she was spot on! Grant had already seen me try on the dress but his jaw dropped when I put it on this time with my makeup and hair done and shoes on. He kept his mouth open for far too long and I started to get a little embarrassed. He put himself in charge of boob watch or as he called it “keeping the puppies in the kennel”. I felt like a true princess in that dress. I loved everything about it and it was a huge hit on the red carpet. I said “custom made gown by Mary Ionnaidis” over and over as I was constantly asked who had created my vision of a frock. The earrings and ring from Cerrone sparkled and matched in perfectly. Grant looked super handsome in his custom-made Brent Wilson suit! Everything felt right. I carefully put a few things in my Bvlgari clutch (the price of this gorgeous clutch made me incredibly nervous) then all of a sudden it was time to head downstairs to get ready to head across to the red carpet. When we got in the lift I felt so nervous I needed to pee. At this point I was just so worried. No time to pee. Just time to swing by wardrobe on level one and get a boob check. Hahahah! No seriously, wardrobe had to put some more tape inside my dress to ensure I didn’t have a nip slip. And let me tell you I DID NOT want one of my nipples to pop out and say hello! After breastfeeding two kids, a nip slip wouldn’t be met with some wolf whistles and woot woos. My areolas resemble crumbly ANZAC biscuits. People would have passed out or dropped their jaws in horror. That was NOT the red carpet entrance I wanted for the evening!

Before you trot over to the red carpet, you get photographed against the Channel Ten board. When we walked up to the board I ran into my gorgeous Studio 10 friends, Rob McKnight, Ita Buttrose, Joe Hildebrand, Denise Drysdale, Jessica Rowe – the sweetest person on Television to date and the sensationally dressed yummy mummy Sarah Harris! I was hanging out to see these people and David Robinson who we briefly saw later on the red carpet! We had such a blast last year filming in the lead-up to the Logies. We had a very quick hug and chat before Grant and I were whisked in for the photo, and then we were off! We had to walk across the road over to the red carpet. I confessed to Lauren and Grant at this point that I was shaking. Grant was really nervous too.

And the very first thing we saw as we approached the red carpet was a group of beautiful people hanging over the fences around the red carpet, with “Grant for Gold” posters and “I love Grant” signs. They started chanting Grant’s name. I cannot begin to explain how I felt at this point. It just set the tone so well for what was to come. It also helped relieve some nerves and for that I’m truly thankful to each and every one of those people who stood there probably all day just to get a glimpse of Grant and maybe a photo. Grant signed some autographs and had lots of selfies taken until we were told we had to move on as we were due to be interviewed by Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson. But before we even got to them, we ran into Edwina Bartholomew. She and I were really great friends when I worked at Sunrise and Grant and I couldn’t be happier to see her success. She is such a genuinely sweet and lovely girl. She’s very natural on television and it’s easy to see why she’s so popular because she is just beautiful inside as she is on the outside. There aren’t too many people like that who work in TV unfortunately. We quickly hug her and give her a big kiss of congratulations for her recent engagement to long time partner Neil Varcoe! And then Lauren moves us down to Karl and Lisa.

The best thing about Karl and Lisa is they’re really lovely people. What you see on air is what you get in real life. From all my years of working in TV, I know that this is actually quite rare and hence I want to celebrate the ones who are like this. Lisa is a strong woman and she is inspirational. I worked with her on Weekend Sunrise many moons ago and it was nice to see her radiant smile again in person. And Karl is hilarious in real life! It’s just so refreshing to talk with “real” people like them! We cracked a few jokes. I felt much less nervous after chatting to them.

Next interview was with my favourite, Angela Bishop for Studio 10! Wow, did she look amazing! Ange is all class. Being interviewed by her is like chatting to a good friend. She’s got a sensational knack for making you feel comfortable and she’s super talented with an envious list of people she’s met and interviewed over the years. Oh you know… just like THE biggest names in Hollywood and showbiz! It was seriously lovely seeing her again. We joked about me borrowing her tape to hold my boobies in! Again, my nerves seemed to calm just a little after talking with her.

I got a little squeeze on the bum and spun around to see it was my fave gal pals with a podcast, The Thinkergirls, Stacey and Kristie! Last year, when I was so nervous to go to the Logies, we met at the airport and since then it feels like we’ve been friends for years! I even spoke about my vagina on-air on their podcast a few months back … I gave them both hugs. It was so nice to see them all glammed up! And, I mean total babe city, the pair of them! Sizzling!

And then we had interview after interview after photo after interview after interview. For at least an hour, Grant and I spoke to various outlets about his accident, his recovery, his nomination. And then I was asked to discuss The Chezzi Diaries by a few journos. I nearly passed out! Wow, what a proud moment. Especially when they recited stories I had written back to me and asked me about them. I was genuinely shocked that I was being questioned about my stuff; it was really nice actually. A tad scary as I never write with that type of exposure in mind. I just dribble onto the page. The fact they had genuinely read my stuff about my cows, my kids … er, um, peeing myself on my trampoline. It was CRAZY! And I forgot to be nervous for just a tick!

I spotted my good friend Bec Maddern from afar and we kinda moved through the sea of people to hug. I’m so proud of his girl! Again, she is the real deal! She deserves everything she achieves! She’s worked so hard in her career and it’s so heart-warming to see her in such a happy spot on the AFL Footy Show and finally recognised for the superstar she is! And she looked a million dollars! It was so nice to quickly catch up even though she towered above me with her sexy heels! Ha!

We do a few more interviews and photos, and I have to say at this point I had really relaxed quite a bit. I could see though that Grant was getting quite exhausted and so could Lauren,so after he met with some more fans up in the galley and signed some more autographs and had some more photos, we head on into the main photo board to smile our mouths off for the hundreds of cameras snapping as you walk along! Totally my natural environment … Not!