I had a good sleep in, before heading down to the hotel gym for a mild work out, that maybe accounted for 7 of the chips I ate yesterday and then Usually Reliable Pete headed out into Middlesbrough town centre to see if we could kill four hours before we headed off to Darlington.
Middlesbrough is a town that I spent a fair deal of time in as a youngster, as we came up a few times a year to visit our grandparents - only 100 year old Doris remains alive alas (it was her birthday last Thursday, today my mum told me Doris had wept at the sentiments in the card I had sent even though she didn't know who I was- I had told her I loved her more than she would ever know, which was certainly true on both counts. She had to be reminded that she was 100 every time she opened a card and expressed disbelief every time apparently. She is chipper and healthy though and still looks set on course to outlive me) - but even though Middlesbrough remains resolutely 70s in some aspects, there was much that hadn't been there when I was a regular visitor.
I sat in Starbucks (the 70s Boro residents would never have countenanced such a thing in their town - my Grandad nearly had a heart attack when it cost him 50p for 5 teas at a service station back then, so what would he make of me paying nearly £3 for a pretentious milky coffee?) and wrote my blog, using their conveniently free internet (if you have a Starbucks card) and then streamed a film from Lovefilm, which again would have blown the mind of the 1970s me (I have to say even the 2011 me was quite surprised that that worked). I watched fittingly 1970s film, "Harold and Maude" which I have never seen before, though have heard people talk about it in both eulogistic and derogatory terms. But I realised that as I began viewing it that I didn't even know what it was about. I have to say I rather enjoyed it. It was quirky and funny and it's hard to imagine that a mainstream Hollywood film would touch the subject matter - the friendship and romance between a boyish and death obsessed 20 year old man and a anti-establishment, car-jacking 80 year old Holocaust survivor. Well worth a look if you haven't seen it, especially if you can stream if for free on to your computer like you are from the future (which apparently I am). It's lucky no one in Middlesbrough saw what I was doing or I would have been burnt as a witch. And that would be for drinking a latte or probably even just for having skimmed milk in it. I don't think there was a man, woman or child in this town who could have understood how the magical pixies were cavorting inside my mystical box. They probably couldn't even see it if they'd looked.
Later in the hotel cafe I was recognised by some of the people having a Mother's Day coffee and they came over to get an autograph. Unfortunately for us all I had just done a fart at that point, thinking I was alone and safe and they walked right into it. They were too polite to say anything, so hopefully they didn't notice. But apologies to them if they did. And yes it was me and not the baby that you were carrying in your arms who I was going to conveniently blame if anyone said anything. Such are the perils of mild fame. If I was properly famous I would never fart just in case I was recognised, but it's still so unusual for me that I feel safe to let one drop without this kind of thing happening.
Pete and me were in a giddy mood as we made our way to Darlington, aware that we were just one show and then a four hour drive away from our own beds. Show 11 and 12 of a 13 night run can be quite hard, but the 13th one is such a relief that I enjoyed doing it more than I have for a little while.
We packed up quickly afterwards and got in the car, though headed off in the wrong direction to begin with thanks to Reliable Pete's entirely Unreliable Sat-Nav (which takes about 20 minutes to boot up, thus making it largely useless in a tour situation where only the first and last 20 minutes of the journey require such a machine). I think I know what I will be getting him for his tour present though. Don't let on. He doesn't read this blog as he has better things to be doing with his time.
We made incredible time on the roads (so Pete must know a short cut) and were home before 2am. Which seemed simply impossible and almost surreal. I can only get through these long runs away by hardly thinking about home and so sometimes it doesn't quite seem real when I get here.
People are saying it'll all be over by Easter and this is as true for me as it is for Jesus, because I will have done most of the hard work by then, will get a three day lie-in. But then will rise again to do the last part of my ministry, before ascending to Heaven in May. In fact that date of my last gig in Folkestone has been heralded by some people as the end of the world. That can't just be a coincidence. So if you want to see the end of the world then do come to Folkestone. It's the only place you can see it from.
