The Adventure continues…

The next day we packed up our bags and took the train to Liverpool, a train I knew very well.

We arrived in the afternoon, and as we pulled into the station I felt a strong sense of familiarity and warmness come over me as I glimpsed the Liverpool skyline for the first time in nearly two years.

As soon as we stepped off the train it felt like I had never left. Stef’s girlfriend Sara picked us up from Lime Street and whisked us to their apartment in the city.

We dropped our bags and the three of us went for a little walk around the docks. This was Nadia’s first time in Liverpool so there was much on which to catch her up.

That evening Stef arrived home from work for what was a joyous reunion – although it had only been 8 months since he was in New Zealand at Christmas time.

We went to an authentic pizzeria around the corner and had a lovely evening. The next day we went over to Manchester to catch up with Nadia’s management. Another city that is very familiar to me.

The next week passed as if we were locals. I took Nadia to my old haunts and up to Huskisson Street and caught up with my old chums. Notably Alex and Paul, my more than old colleagues at Studio 2.

We joined a gym, took a trip to Chester and caught up with the Huskies. Nadia went to Norway for a show and I stayed behind and helped Sonia with her house construction project.

On our last weekend in Liverpool, we took a trip with the Huskie gang to the Peak District where we camped in a lovely camping ground for two nights. During the middle day, we went for a massive hike around a series of dams, one of which was constructed at the turn of the 20th century and used to train the dam busters.

We went back to Liverpool (via a flat tire on the motorway) and back down to London for a few days. Nadia signed her record deal, which is a very exciting career step for her. James and Miriam took us our for dinner to celebrate.

The next day we flew to Tenerife, where Nadia was playing the second of her three shows. This gig was a long time coming in the organization for me as the organizers had been very vague and difficult to get any information out of for the three months I had been talking to them. In fact, they booked the flights two days before we left.

In the end, it all came together and the organizers were lovely people. We were fortunate enough to have three nights in Santa Cruz, a city in the north of the island. Our flight over was one of my worst I’ve ever been on, with several parties of drunk English people all over the cabin, running up and down the isles, buying too much booze and fighting. There seemed to be no one in control of the situation.

We made it out alive and took at 45-minute taxi ride to the north. We found our hotel and met Javier. This day was the hotels opening day, and we were the only guest. It was a little eerie – but the hotel was lovely and there was a lot of space.

The following day I want for a morning walk and found an amazing pool complex beside the concert hall. I went back and reported this to Nadia and we headed down for the afternoon.

We had a lovely afternoon swimming in the open-air saltwater pool and basking in the sun. It was at around 5, as we were leaving that we had made a huge mistake. Very embarrassing and neglectfully we had applied no sunscreen and realized we were very sunburned. How this skipped our mind entirely we have no idea. But this did put a bit of a dampener on the rest of the holiday.

We went back to the hotel and spent the evening wallowing in our sorrows, having cold showers and rehydrating. We went to sleep pretty early.

The next day was show day. Nadia had a slow morning and I went for a big walk up the hill to a settlement to get some perspective on the city. It was very hot but great to see what I assume was a pretty affluent area.

In the evening we were met at the hotel by Elena from the festival who walked us to the venue, a museum just around the corner. The gig was in an atrium in the open air, which was a very nice setting.

The show was free to the public and launched the festival. It was 80% full and they seemed to engage with Nadia despite the language barrier. All were happy and we sold some merch before leaving. We were provided dinner post-show at a lovely restaurant we had gone to a few times already before heading back to the room to bed.

We flew out late the next day so we took the tram over to a neighboring town called La Laguna, which is a UNESCO world heritage site. This felt a lot more Spanish than Santa Cruz. We spent the afternoon there before heading back to catch a taxi to the airport and our flight back.

We arrived in London just after midnight on a much quieter flight. We went down to the train station at Gatwick to find that the train for which I had tickets didn’t run after midnight. D’oh! No matter, our tickets were still valid for the night train, although slower and arriving at a different station than I had anticipated. Which with low battery was a bit of stress.

On arriving at Blackfriars Station we took a black cab to Pimlico. On the way, the cabbie regaled us with a tale of the most beautiful, down to earth woman he had even had as a passenger. It was Dame Kiri.

We were staying with my friend Finnbar in his apartment in Pimlico. He had sent me an elaborate set of instructions for getting into his house at this late hour, for which I was very grateful and made the process very easy.

I woke up early the next morning to catch up with Finnbar before he left for work. He’s currently training to be a primary school teacher after becoming disenchanted by the realities of a law career.

We spent a few days enjoying the area, going for runs, visiting galleries and having dinner ready for the worker when he came home. Finnbar’s father David came to stay for a few nights, who I last saw at Christmas 2015 in the Isle of White.

On Wednesday, we packed up and headed north on the train to Kenilworth, where Nadia was playing the third of her three shows while we are over here. Kenilworth is a little town 10 minutes from Coventry, which I only just learned was a city rather than a county.

We were met by Liz, one of the staff for the Kenilworth Arts Festival who came whizzing along on a bike to show us to our Airbnb, about 10 meters away.

Once settled we went for an explore to the local park Abbey Fields, where there was once an Abbey and to the local castle – the main draw to the town.

We went and got some dinner before getting an early night. A relaxed day the next day. Nadia had a media appointment on BBC Coventry with the festival director and founder Lewis, who might be a little younger than me.

After the interview, we hung around Coventry for an hour or so just to get a feel for it. Felt like a pretty average town – but it’s hard to judge a down by it’s shopping high street.

We got a cab back to Kenilworth and prepared for the evening. The show was in St Nicholas Church in Old Kenilworth, which dates back to the 12 century. The church was full for the performance that evening, which launched the Kenilworth Arts Festival. Being Nadia’s only UK show this year, people came from as far away as Newcastle (4 and a half hours away). So it was a crowd of very dedicated fans.

The next day we got the train back to Liverpool.