The extent to which I am driven by my stomach is yet to be fully explored in these pages. But there are certainly themes here. And food carries almost as much weight as temperature.
I’m in Portsmouth, sitting happily full in a queue, waiting to be taken to a room where I can’t cook for a month but where people will change my sheets. When I’m in a live show I’m rarely cooking anyway, so I reckon I won’t hate it. Part of me keeps swearing about the fact I’m staying in a Premier Inn just down the road from where I was born. But… life is complicated and strange. I haven’t got any property in Jersey, and I couldn’t ask my remaining family on the island to put me up as I will need to get home when and how I want to, and sleep late without making anyone uncomfortable.
I’ll be on the high seas tonight, snoozing in a cabin on a Condor Ferry that gets into St Helier just after 6am. I can’t check in to my new homefor a few hours so tomorrow morning will be about finding somewhere lovely to sit and maybe snoozing in the car. It looks like the weather will be calm on the sea thankfully.
The stomach thinking is because I managed to snatch an hour to fill myself with brisket in Southsea with an old schoolfriend. It has made me very very happy and was worth risking a late boat. Lunch was miso mushrooms on sourdough. I do very much like to eat well on somebody else’s plates. And I have very much done so lately.
Boat is boarding.
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We are underway. A long night but I’ve learned from sleeping on freezing cushions that a cabin is a worthwhile splash on overnight ferries so I’m feeling comfortable and profligate and I’m gonna publish this before we go out of reception and then try and get some shuteye.
AlBarclay 