Feeling hot hot hot

Boy o boy, this touring malarky is harder than I thought. Every second seems to be allocated to one of the following activities:

1. Lugging stuff

2. Playing

3. Sleeping

4. Washing

I have finally managed to grab half an hour at my mates place in Liverpool to catch up on blogging...so where have we been....hmm..right, after Kelveldon we played in the lovely lovely manningtree, super fun show where two monumentous things happened, firstly we were mobbed by adoring fans:

and two, Liddi and I finally bonded:

Manningtree is a fabulous gig, we had a wonderful Georgian house all to ourselves and Myrtel makes the best cooked breakfast, thanks so much to all the gang for having us.

Next up we headed over to the wonderful Hitchin folk club to support Boo Hewerdine. The hotel was great and it was fantastic to finally have somewhere to rest our heads for more than one night. To celebrate I unpacked a bag and bought mountains of sweets from the awesome sweet shop in town. They even pipe Willy Wonka film tunes through the store!

Home sweet home at the Sun Hotel.

What heaven looks like.

Liddi and I are particuarly impressed with our sweet consumption thus far and are now heading into our retro phase of army and navy, cola cubes and banana split. Yes, yes, we are doing well.

We've played Laundan town and the mondaymonday folk club with some great support from Matt Munro and Raven. We've also played the lovely Hoy at the Anchor folk club in Leigh on Sea which is right by the sea and reminded us of home.

There is some fantastic talent in Leigh on Sea and the singer spots before us were really lovely. So from Leigh on Sea we headed north to Otley to stay with the lovely lovely Patsy Matheson and her family for a couple of nights. We played at the cross keys folk club which to be honest has probably been my favourite show so far. Only because Clive finished his support with Jools Holland then headed over to catch the end of my set and joined in for the last 4 numbers, lovely.

I had a BBC interview with BBC Lancashire interview yesterday and tonight we will be playing at a house concert in Preston. Tomorrow, we cross the border to Scotland.

So how are we doing? To be honest I am completely knackered, unsure of what day it is and just a touch homesick but Liddi and I are both super looking forward to seeing the highlands tomorrow. Also, it is too hot, too too hot, I'm melting. I didn't bring any summer clothes and am therefore staying in my nightwear for as long as possible before having to drag my jeans on. They said it was cold up north, they lied.