What is she on about now?

HOW CAN IT BE THAT TIME AGAIN ALREADY???

I start booking festivals from the moment I get back in September. That process drags on until the day I leave in May and even into the season itself because there is no standard timing for the process of applying, let alone for getting any response at all, but before I digress into the needs of festival traders and what is wrong with the whole attitude of many festival organisers, let's just say that this becomes a priority once the new year arrives and gathers momentum in the next few months. So the whole rollercoaster gathers speed as departure day approaches. Not to mention the practical side of preparations which accelerate to leave me exhausted and managing about 4 hours sleep at worst.

Hence yesterday I did indeed finally close the doors on the back of the van (without having to lean on them, but only just) wondering how I ever had room for taking anyone else's stuff back since I have even now left a few bits and pieces behind and the van is definitely full. Although I do tell people when it is REALLY full  you couldn't get a toothbrush in and this time you could fit enough for a decent donation to Los Angeles Malaguenos de la Noche (for those who don't know I organise fund raising to provide essentials in quantity for the homeless and needy in Malaga).

Once the journey commences, there is nothing more I can do to sort, pack, process, put away, throw away, give away or simply move around and anyone who has witnessed the lead up will understand exactly how much sorting, packing, tidying, throwing, giving and moving that involves. The bubbling excitement at the prospect of 13 festivals worth of live music and the good vibes at the kind of festivals I favour re-emerges and being firmly ignored in recent weeks at a potential distraction to the activity required. On the down side what also has been suppressed for a while and cannot be ignored any longer is the deep sadness of leaving my furry family. It's not about whether someone else can look after them adequately, I believe they will. It's about being around each other and all the usual stuff about families, and they are mine and I HATE leaving them. Every year something happens to someone, a death or a disappearance, or even just a character change for the worse - why doesn't Squeak love me any more? we were inseparable until I went away last summer and I am so scared that Mischief, the small grey furry pest, will not fare well without me, he looks so puzzled and lost at times and I am his stability in life, he's too young to have done this before and know it will all be ok when I come back.........

so why am I doing this? Yes, I love the festivals but not more than my cats.............so let's kick off this year's UK tour (oh the pretension) with a bit of introspection since day 1 was fairly uneventful and can be summed up in one short paragraph.

I'm doing this because I can't find any other way to make my work and the need to earn happen and believe me I have tried. I'd want to go home to see family and friends, of course, and every year I hate leaving them when it is time to come back, but my two lives are almost incompatible and I have come to feel my real self in both, in different ways. Basically I have to do something to earn, and selling books and cds is what I've been doing for the last erm 25 years?, in Spain I subsist and top up with the best I can but the real stock needs to come from the UK and cannot be mail ordered let alone delivered at reasonable cost, so I have to be there to do the buying and for that I need some spending money which I don't earn in Spain, just enough to get by and sometimes by a small margin indeed. To be there costs a lot for a round trip and I have to stay there long enough to earn the money to do the buying to make the round trip and all the while paying for markets stalls I am not using and earning from and a house which I am not living in but the cats are and which contains all my worldly goods (except what I have crammed in the van of course). Festivals allow me to do the earning in concentrated form whilst providing an agreeable way of doing so, my twin passions of music and books catered for. But again because of the costs to be covered it means doing as many as possible in as short a time as possible and fist weekend in June till last weekend in August does tick those boxes. Basically I stay in business to stay in business and as long as my weary aging self can cope I guess I will carry on especially as the caring government have decreed another 6 years hard labour and I am already too depressed to find out for sure that a single pension wouldn't keep me let alone the cats.

So that's why. I come alive at festivals, I only trade at ones where I will like the music for a start - the whole ethos excites me and being with likeminded people is energising, the UK is beautiful but the way the country is being run or should I say run down for ordinary folk annoys the hell out of me.

You thought I'd forgotten about the journey report, didn't you? Not at all. But it was largely uneventful which is much to my preference but a little boring for those of you who rate the entertainment derived from the more exciting or disasterous trips I'e had and doubtless will again. The worst thing which happened was the satnav went strangely silent and then switched itself off just as I was getting into Madrid and since that is the only part of the journey I REALLY REALLY need it, that was less than ideal but amazing what you can do when you have to, the connection is bent ( I may have trodden on the lead or otherwise squashed it in the van last year so it's a bit iffy) and must have got worse when it fell off the window yesterday (nowhere to attach on the dashboard). Main hardship was it was very hot even with the window down all day and I arrived with hair like Worzel Gummidge from being blown about by the (still warm) breeze coming in. Biggest disappointment - the one and only bar in the village is now shut pending new owners and I had really looked forward to a return visit. Hey ho. Same small hotel, same room actually and just about to partake of same or should I say similar breakfast.

And then set off for day 2 with fingers crossed the cats are accepting my absence and the second leg of the journey will be equally uneventful.