Supersonic Catatonic

Heather said in response to last weeks blog ‘Now we need to know if it all fell into place’…so here’s a little follow up.

One of the first things that is relevant to the report is to know the I am not a good sleeper. I mostly put it down to the time I was an au pair in France. The woman I worked for worked nights and her husband had a short temper. I was looking after two little boys Thomas, 5 and Tristan, 18 months. Tristan was probably the first individual I fell absolutely and totally in love with…well maybe not the first but it was a big one. Anyway. Tristan was hyperactive with a propensity for infections of the throat etc etc often running high temperatures. The mixture of the two meant he often woke in the night. His mum wasn’t there and his dad tended to ‘resolve’ the situation by shouting at him and smacking him. I couldn’t stand that. The result of this was that, despite him sleeping in another room, I became highly tuned to when his breathing changed which a) meant I knew when he was awake and b) I knew when he was going to cry. I’d leap up go and get him and take him to bed with me. This continued for a few months until he learnt to haul himself up and over the bars of his cot and then he’d come and find me. That stopped me having to get up at the very least but still involved him coooing at me, ‘tata’ (French term for aunty) and poking me up the nose, in my ears, giggling and generally being adoring but it didn’t involve much sleeping.  The result was a Jo who could no longer sleep as I wake with any noise and a pre condition to existing in a sleep deprived catatonic state on a regular basis. I tell you that because I feel I achieve quite a lot and if I was firing on all cylinders …well…I’d be, quite frankly, dangerous.

The point of telling you all that will become clear.

The plan was that I would go and rest at Chris and Kerry’s, in kent, after Broadstairs and Barry, my brother -in -law, would return home with my keys and go to the house to get my passport and deliver it to Andy to bring to me…and breath.

I got a phone call Monday morning to say he could find my euro purse but not my passport. I have a travel wallet and horror of horrors it wasn’t in there and yet I had a strong memory of having put it there. Barry searched every surface high and low with more and more frantic suggestions from a nearly hysterical Jo who was trying not to cry and to come to terms with the fact she was probably going to have to drive home 200 miles to look for it and either return having found it or at worse leave the band to go without me. Eventually after discussions Barry was back in the study. “What about on top of the printer” I said. Barry, showing true initiative lifted the lid of the printer and there was the passport in the scanner. The morning I was due to go to Sidmouth Paul had asked for copies of documents for the van hire for the Europe trip and, thinking we’d be tight on time if I waited unto after Broadstairs to do it, I did it in haste, just before leaving and…didn’t put it back where it lived. Found…hoorah and a text a few hours later from Andy to say he had it, with a photo of details so that I could check in for my return flight from Turin. Result, if a little stressful.

I passed a lovely couple of days, some time just working and one day when I drove to Gatwick to leave my car ready for my return from Italy and took a trip into London for lunch with a good friend.

The Wednesday night arrived. I went to bed relatively early and managed to go to sleep but woke at 2am.there I was twiddling my thumbs when I heard a car arrive at 2.50am. Dave – early. I rushed down to let him in but there were no keys in the door. Fortunately Andy, who’d arrived about 10pm, had heard him and came out with a key. I told Dave to lie on the sofa and went back to lie down but the others arrived a few minutes later. I gave up in the end, got up, got the last bit of packing together and off we went. We were early and they managed to get us on a slightly earlier crossing.

So after a very very short night we eventually arrived at the festival in France for about 5pm. I’d done a lot of the driving and was glad to stop. We had a couple of beers and then someone took us to our accommodation which was a large educational Gite about 10 minutes drive from the festival site…..that meant someone was going to have to drive each night. When we arrived at the gite we were told that the six guys were sharing and that I was in a room with two other women…..I didn’t know. I told them this was my worst nightmare and that I may be better off in the room with the men. We went upstairs to have a look.

The guys room had three beds on one side, three on the other and a tiny gap down the middle which meant had I moved in there everyone would have been falling over me in the night, there would have been little or no oxygen and I would have been screaming with claustrophobia in 5 seconds…and no sleep. The women’s room was tiny with a sloping roof with three beds close together and no room to swing a cat. I just said, non, non, non…and went and had a little weep on my own.

The thing is bearing in mind I don’t sleep well..any noise means I am awake and especially so if it’s people or sounds I don’t know. Additionally I occasionally snore and the idea of falling asleep around people I don’t know and keeping them awake means…I stay awake. Further more I am supposed to rest for my health’s sake. Everyone says I look well etc etc and I do but I have a compromised immune system due to my cancer and I have to do all in my power, within reason, to look after myself which means making my ability to rest as near to the best it can be for me..and finally our contract says Jo is to have a room on her own but I think festivals look at this and think..well that’s because all the rest are men, she’ll be fine with a bunch of other women..not. Anyway, they could see how upset I was and more so for having to explain my health and needs , which really aggravates me, in order not to appear like some diva with a tantrum….oh go on why not…I can’t possibly…how dare you…don’t you know who I ham!!!! ha ha

Oh and there were no towels so I had a shower and had to use a T-shirt to dry myself. The festival sorted that small problem too. (Italy accommodation where the other’s stayed had no towels either – note to self – always know where your towel is).

I checked the next day with our French agent about the accommodation and he says it is in the contract about a room on my own for me but they hadn’t actually returned the contract until a few days before we arrived. They probably hadn’t read that bit either.

They moved someone else from a room downstairs and I had a room to myself. My phone had no reception so no-one could disturb me and that night after the session they wanted us to be part of, I had a long rest.

The next morning everything looked better apart from some nutter who decided to drive up the main street as if he was on a race track between me and parked cars..scrapped all the way down the side of the van, ran out hurled abuse at me which..when I pointed out to him in French, he was driving too fast, I am driving with a right hand vehicle with less visibility than him and look what he’d done…he looked visibly shocked jumped in his car and drove off. No chance to get his number plate or anything. So that meant we would be paying for the damage on the hire vehicle. My legs were shaking from the event and poor Barnaby had a weeping Jo on his shoulder. Two lots of tears in less than twenty four hours. I am not a ‘cryer’ on the whole so that did not bode well and I remember saying to Barnaby, ‘I am not having a good time. I want to go home’. I was also angry that being the only woman driver it should happen to me. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t have wanted it to happen to one of the others but the fact it was the only woman driver seemed like a slight. That’s me putting pressure on me to be as good as possible. Well it did happen and the band were brilliant acknowledging that there was nothing I could have done about it and it could have happened to anyone. We’re still waiting to know what the bill will be. I still feel bad about it.

After all that you may wonder how it all went. The gig was fantastic and I mean really bloody fantastic. We have had a summer full of packed crowds all over and the most brilliant responses to our music. This was one of those nights. A packed marquee who listened to an hours concert which they loved and then an hour and a half dance. The feel good factor was instantly restored. It really does make it all worth while when you get that reception. There were friends there and a good time was had by all. That was followed by another late night night and an early sound check in Italy – 4pm , the next day, despite the fact we weren’t due to be on until 11pm. That was hard. I can’t sleep in vans, planes or trains so I do not re-coup on route.

It’s amazing to think I dropped off to sleep back stage at about 10.15 and had a small snooze which meant I felt really sluggish as we went on stage. I remember jivying myself along saying , ‘come on, give it your all’. The crowd seem to love it although we struggled a bit with the sound on stage so whilst it was lovely to be in Italy, see many friends and do the gig it did not have the wow factor of the night before. It was lovely to be there and to see and here Anne-Lise Foy was a treat too. Her career started in my all Europeon women’s group, Freyja.

The rest of the travels you will be pleased to know went smoothly. Bed at my friend Anna’s by 4am, a lie in until 11.30 then a little car trip around her town. Lunch with her mum and sister with a lot of laughter. It was all utterly delightful and I wanted to kidnap her miniature mama as she was very cute. She chatted to me in Italian ….I nodded and smiled ..but understood on little bits. Anna then took me to the airport and despite the flight being delayed by half an hour and the M25 being a car park as usual my journey was only really about 5.5 hours. The guys were on the road for 18.5 hours partly because their ferry was delayed too. It was the right, if expensive, decision for me.

I am resting more than I would normally just now as I have two festivals this weekend and then I go straight into another summer school. No complications with travel for this one except it involves me driving me…..It’s a week away..again. Do I love what I do?

Yes. Very much and it is absolutely what keeps me alive but I do have to factor in recovery time and I am, believe it or not, getting better at that.