Past 8 - bye bye Scotland

After our fleeting stay in Scotland we find ourselves once again searching for a nice traditional pub serving nice hearty food, this time in Northumberlandshire. We try various little villages with bizarre names like Morpeth but no cigar, maybe Greene King have bought them all and turned them into flats. We eventually find a pub using a flashy iPhone app. and despite the early promise of log fires and a saliva inducing menu it doesnt quite live up to expectation and we end up going slightly delirious and by attacking each other with numbered wooden spoons. I guess the epic travelling and crippling tiredness, had something to do with that! My bones actually feel like bricks right now. Miles travelled so far: 2103. Oh yeah, that ludicrous dry ice machine caused the fire alarm to go off at the venue in Edinburgh last night. It also prompted a man in the audience at the Glasgow show to ask if they could switch the fog machine off as it was blowing straight at me and turning me into a cloud. They didnt switch it off but well done that man for trying!

Part 7 - Glasgow, haggis, neaps and tatties

We couldn't come to Scotland without having perhaps their most famous culinary delight: haggis. After much searching down this amazing street that had a pleasingly inordinate number of musical instrument shops and charity/ vintage shops, we found a nice pub that did haggis, and it was truly delicious! The Fruitmarket in Glasgow was ace, all the old endearing features were in tact and pretty coloured lights draped round the perimeter, photos of that will come soon. About to sound check now so must dash, doors in 10 mins! Oh dear. . . .

Part 6 - Nottingham & the M6

There's a lyric in Moscow State Circus by Eugene McGuinness that goes "I can name all the service stations on the M6 off by heart" and I'm beginning to feel like that. Having said that though, we've just stopped off at a lovely farm tea room in Yorkshire en route to Glasgow. The farm had a rather uncoventional selection of animals with cows, lamas, emus and a camel all sharing the same space in a field. Jessica almost had her fingers nibbled off after petting the animals, which would have been a bit of a disaster for playing guitar tonight but luckily the animals were friendly. I couldn't help but imagine one of those pigs sizzling away in the oven, shoot me!

The Albert Hall in Nottingham was an odd venue, conference centre by day and concert hall by night, the main room was beautiful with a huge pipe organ at the front. We were on stupidly early cos it was a Sunday which apparently means everyone turns into vampires if they stay out later that 10pm, so we ended up playing to a rather sparse room, but it was a good gig all the same.

We've just passed a road sign warning us about potential crossing tanks so I'm going to keep a look out for tanks now and enjoy the wonderful scenery.

Total distance travelled so far: 1816 miles