
After months of punishing promo schedules, live appearances and interviews, Susan Boyle is back home in Scotland, as queen of the charts.
The 48-year-old singing sensation's on course to beat the likes of Lady GaGa and Kings of Leon to take the best-selling album of the year crown with sales of 1.4million.
And despite being one of the biggest stars on the planet, SuBo's spending the festive season in familiar surroundings: at home in rural Scotland, with the paparazzi on her doorstep.
To make light of the situation, the Britain's Got Talent runner-up decided to pelt a few cameramen who were camped outside her modest semi in West Lothian.
SuBo's album, I Dreamed A Dream, sold more than 410,000 copies in the UK in its first week, according to the Official Charts Company.
It trounces the two most recent record-holders for the fastest-selling debut album: Leona Lewis's 2007 release, Spirit, which sold about 376,000 copies; and Arctic Monkeys' Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not, which sold about 364,000 in 2006.
Industry experts are hailing it a phenomenal success for someone who, until April of this year, was a virtual unknown.
Susan admits she's become more accustomed to the press intrusion and the long lenses now, although it was a little unnerving at first.
She says: 'It got to the stage where I couldn't even go outside because the media – American television crews too – surrounded the house.
'I had to draw my blinds and, even after that, they started hammering on my door. I was quite frightened. I felt very vulnerable, because I was living on my own.'

source: dailymail