Another National Express bus ride, but only 3 hours this time and we had been spoiled by the insane but hilarious nature of our previous driver Davie so it made this ride seem entirely uneventful and totally hot. Despite the fact that the temp outside was in the 70's somewhere the bus had the internal heat on so it was a bit like a sauna and I really wanted to strip down to my underwear.I probably would have been knocked off the bus though. It made me realize that between the busses, the tubes and the plane rides that we had spent nearly the same amount of time travelling as we had just being somewhere. For example - we got up in Trowbridge and had Johnny drive us to the bus depot in Bath at about 10 am. By the time the bus pulled into Victoria station in London and we had navigated the 3 tube stops to get to where Chris (Rocket Records) met us and then crushed everything into a cab to his house and; it was nearly 6pm. That was the whole day basically.
We did go to a pub and I finally had a chance to charge the laptop and the phone which were both dead and had been for a couple days while we sat in the pub. Pembury Tavern was where Chris took us, after a moment to drop our cadre of guitars and bags; and it literally felt like I could fly down the street by the difference. So amazing. Anthea was there to meet us with about a half dozen other people that we were introduced to. Chris recommended the cider from the tap, and I really am not a big cider guy but this was really really good. Did you know that a pint glass in the UK is actually 22 oz? Yep. Not a measly 16. I later learned that the cider was also 7.5 % as well. Commercial beer in the US is usually about 3.5% in case you didn't know. I am prefacing this next part by saying all this and adding that we had been going on 4 hours sleep per night average and I put 2 of the Queen's pints away before we got back to Chris and Anthea's flat in Hackney Bourough. There was lots of recap about the shows - the Big Sur Dave/Grill fight and Me and the folding chairs debacle - Show Cave Police riots in silverlake - kick ass krautrock and giant space madness at the Knockout and Retox SF respectively - Buffalo Bar amp blowouts - Monorail instore (and aquarius) - Stereo in glasgow and then the wonderful community of heads and space lovers uniting in Trowbridge. A bootle of wine was produced out of the vapours of nite somehow and we polished it off. Lots of music talk, rock shop, label doings and upcoming shows - as weel as a brief recap of Anthea and Chris' holiday in Spain and suddenly there were shots of hot pepper laced vodka going around. Well it was just a good old time and then I suddenly had a hot mug of tea and rum in my hand, I have never tried it before but it was great! So then comes the getting to bed part, and I really don't have a firm recollection except for the laughing into my pillow. Preceeding that, I apparently fell down the stairs in my sleeping bag, crawled back up, lay on my mat on the floor laughing for a quarter hour and then packing z's like a piker. I only found out the next morning over coffee after being told by Dave and Lynnea.
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