LAST year, former Girls Aloud star Nadine Coyle finally moved her young family back across the Atlantic 'for work purposes'.
Derry-born Nadine (32) said she "missed hearing the rain on the window" while living in sun-baked LA with her partner Jason Bell (39) and their daughter Anaiya (4).
However, when we call to discuss her new solo EP and upcoming tour dates – her first since 2010's Insatiable LP – Nadine admits to missing the more reliably temperate climes of California.
"It's absolutely freezing here," says the now London-based singer. "It's just been like winter has been going on forever."
Laughing, she adds: "You do start to question things, like 'Hmm, I wonder what's happening over in LA?' But sure it's not going anywhere; I can always go back."
Happily, things are currently hotting up for Nadine career wise: released at a steady drip of one track every two weeks over the past month, her new EP's tunes Girls on Fire, Go To Work, Gossip and September Song were all recorded with former Girls Aloud producer Brian 'Xenomania' Higgins as part of a new record deal with Virgin/EMI.
"I kind of said 'Why don't we put out a song every two weeks' as a joke, just because we had so many," says Nadine of her first new music in almost 10 years. I was thinking that they would just laugh me out of the room, but they were like – 'That's a great idea – let's do it!'
"Everything is just uploaded to the internet now. Because you're not having to go though that process of actually having to make CDs, you can put out loads of different songs really quickly."
A lot has changed since the long-gone days of 2002, when Popstars: The Rivals contenders Girls Aloud claimed victory by selling shed-loads of their debut CD single Sound of The Underground to claim the Christmas number one – the first of four chart-toppers scored during the quintet's impressive run of 20 consecutive top 10 singles.
The group went on hiatus in 2009 before briefly reuniting for a 10th anniversary tour two years later and announcing their split via Twitter.
However, one through-line from then to now in Nadine's life is producer Brian Higgins. Based in Brighton, he's now just a short trip down the road for the singer, who says the pair have been working on new songs as well as reworking the Girls Aloud favourites she'll be performing on the upcoming tour.
"The beauty of working with Brian is that you can go in so many different directions; pop with a rock edge or a soul edge or a bit of jazz, dance, drum 'n' bass or whatever," says Nadine, who will be strutting her stuff alongside a team of dancers for the solo shows.
"It's great to have such a huge collection of songs that I can draw upon at any time."
On taking sole control of the Girls Aloud numbers for the first time, she adds: "They don't sound that different, but there's a few of Sarah's bits where her voice is quite distinctive – and with me singing it definitely sounds different.
"We've also gone back to the original versions of some of the songs which have parts that weren't in the released versions. So it's all very interesting."
As evidenced by her new EP, Nadine's distinctive singing voice is still as powerful as ever – perhaps even more so than in her Girls Aloud days. Interestingly, it seems daughter Anaiya may be the reason for this.
"My voice has definitely gotten better and I realised that right after I had Anaiya," explains Nadine. "I didn't sing at all when was pregnant. I was just like 'I'm not going to do it' because you have to conjure up different emotions and things and I thought 'No, I'm not going to do that, it's not fair on her'.
"I don't know if it was the break from singing, but my voice has definitely matured: my range is bigger is and my voice broader. Thankfully it's getting better and not worse!"
Anaiya is currently getting to grips with what mummy does when she 'goes to work' and is also showing some signs that she may follow her into showbiz one day.
"She came to one of the breakfast TV shows where I was performing Go To Work with my dancers," reveals Nadine.
"That was really funny. She was standing right behind the camera and she was looking at me like: 'What are you doing?! Stop all that dancing around and come over here and play with something!'
"She loves to sing, but I think what she really likes to do is act. Everything is a stage for her and there's always something going on in her imagination, like a whole wee 'world'."
At the ripe old age of 32, Nadine has already experienced the dizzy heights of top pop success. These days, however, she's much more concious about the need to maintain a healthier work-life balance.
"I can't work at the same pace as what I did when I was 17, when we had maybe two hours sleep a night," admits Nadine. "It was so unhealthy! But that was the best time to do it, definitely. We used to sometimes do three gigs in the one night with university shows and club gigs.
"Thank goodness I don't have to do all that now. These days, I can kind of have things a bit more realistic."
The Derry star tells me she loves to swim to help maintain her fitness and that she loves "any kind of 'bootcamp'".
"I really like a quick blast of exercise where you do something 30 seconds on and 20 seconds off," says Nadine.
"But it has to be like a relaxed bootcamp, not someone screaming in my face, because it does not work out. I'm not into these 'motivator' types where they're like 'GO! GO! GO!'.
"That is not a good way to motivate me. Very quickly I can find myself falling out with them. I'm like, 'NO! YOU GO!' "
Indeed, at this point, Nadine definitely seems happiest when it's her who gets to 'call the shots':
"I love the job that I have and I feel really fortunate that 15 years on I'm still able to do it," she enthuses.
"And it's great that now I can kind of do things at my own pace. For me, it's about making great music that I'm really proud of and doing projects that I'm really excited about."
And, although Girls Aloud's 20th anniversary may be fast approaching, anything not related to the 'here and now' of her solo career is not really on Nadine's radar at the moment.
"Ach, sure that's ages away," she chuckles, when the prospect of a 2022 reunion is put to her. "Sure I could be retired by then!"
Nadine Coyle, May 19, Olympia Theatre, Dublin, May 20, The Limelight, Belfast. Tickets on sale via Ticketmaster outlets.
