8191/21111
Took a bit of a backward step with this difficult-to-shift lurgy and was full of snot and tiredness all day. I'd woken up about 4.30am in my weird student digs, which didn't help, though did manage to snooze a bit between 7 and 9.
At breakfast I was asked for my room number and sat down to drink my coffee. When I returned to the buffet the waitress challenged me and said I needed to go to reception to pay, but I knew I'd paid already. I told her that breakfast was included and that I was staying in a different building over the road. She told me that I should have told her that. But I think she should have asked. I don't know how their room numbering works. This must happen all the time. Or maybe they just put us in a different building because we weren't proper conference people. Anyway I didn't have to pay twice for my watery scrambled eggs.
The NHS based conference was in full swing and we had nowhere to go after the unusually early kick-out time of 10am (thanks Bollings - you got us again) so I just worked in the foyer as people drank coffee and visited little stalls with free pens and mugs on them. I wished I'd stolen an ID from the table last night, as they were all laid out unguarded, or just had the ball to go up and pretend to be one of the people whose clearly visible name badges were still on display. I could have had free coffee and probably lunch and a couple of weird branded mugs. I might have ended up being so convincing that I ended up working for the NHS. Missed opportunity.
But I had to go to Lincoln for the worst attended gig of this year's tour (aside from the preview in Luton). Lincoln is another place I used to play a lot 15 years ago, but don't visit so much these days. I might have cracked 100 sales.
With the hacking cough and running nose and spaced out (not on drugs, they just weren't sitting in one group) audience it was a tougher gig and hard to get momentum going. I felt quite poorly throughout but fought to get a reaction and afterwards people seemed to have enjoyed it. Unusually I have actively enjoyed pretty much every Ball Back gig, and the ones on the 2025 leg have been some of the best I've ever done. It was harder to enjoy tonight, but the show must go on and feeling a little bit poorly is not enough to break that mantra.
In the afternoon I'd walked up and down the waterfront looking for something to eat, but not feeling like having anything, before finally settling on a plain pizza (bread and cheese and cereal are all I can face at the moment for some reason, even though I've officially given up pizza).
He had been a glorious afternoon, but I wanted to skulk in the dark, though didn't quite manage to sleep which is what I really need right now.
After the gig I was still in just my shirt and as we left the venue it started to piss down with rain with lightning flashing in the distance in all directions. It was an 8 minute walk back to the hotel, but we had to take cover under a footbridge. Then a train came through and the barriers shut meaning we couldn't progress anyway. We waited out the rain and when we got back to the hotel I went straight to bed, hoping this curse might be lifted.
In ten years I may look back on this entry and I suspect I won't remember a thing about any of this. Hello 67 year old Richard (if you make it that far). How could you forget sheltering under a footbridge from a sudden downpour? I guess that's what the blog is for. It has to be for something.
