From Sommeri 6 am to Melbourne with Christmas coming

The European tour ended at 6 am in Sommeri, somewhere east of just about everywhere. Walking home with Marc, trundling The Bag by my side, we passed a gravestone which, as Marc's girlfriend pointed out, probably marked the final resting place of the last person to try to make this walk from venue to B&B on a freezing cold December morning.

I'd just played the final concert of 38 concerts. 38 concerts in 60 days. Then I flew back to Australia with 60 kilos of luggage - one for every day I'd been away. Like picking up a jar of marmalade every place I visited.

Bloody nice marmalade.

Just now I opened my guitar case and caught what I fancied was a blast of London studio air. Hadn't opened it since producing a song for a friend there, sandwiched between Concert #38 and flying back.

It was 39 degrees centigrade yesterday in Melbourne. The tarmac on the road was sticky, and getting off the train I looked around to see where the shot came from, before realizing that I had stepped on a molten bubble in the pavement and it exploded beneath my feet.

Today a cold wind is blowing through the open windows, it's in the low twenties and sheet rain is falling. It's more like being in a car wash than a rain shower. I am thinking about that 6 am morning, walking home from the last show of the tour, and listening to a Robert Forster interview on ABC radio.

I heard the first part of it yesterday afternoon, whilst on my way to the car pound.

Around these parts it's $300 if you get your car towed.

That's a bill of $300 for looking up old Rolling Stones videos on youtube and trying to find the John Lennon interview with Bob Harris from 1974 I saw at a friend's house in Italy.

There's no extra charge for looking at pictures of vintage J-45 guitars - that comes when you try to buy one.

The tour that started in a bar in Copenhagen at the start of October is over. From Denmark's cobbled streets, rattling the bones of my bags and guitars, I took the bus to Berlin. Flew to London and engaged in practices of the UK kind for thirty days and thirty nights. Travelling with Rad, who's got the road sewn into the lining of his Iowa jeans.

We headed up to Scotland, practised bad Scottish accents and had a wonderful time with friends and shows, flew to Belfast and picked up The Insignia (or was it The Enigma?) - a sports car to rattle cages and set this driver's heart a-flutter with its digital radio cranked up loud. Smelt like success. Drove that thing to Dublin and back three times and didn't feel a thing.

The book was launched in Belfast on a wonderful Friday evening in the Black Box. Rad playing jazz piano, poetry everywhere, speeches and sister Ali joining me in the reading. We'll be doing more of this in February - watch this space.

Before this, the album was launched in London at the Half Moon, another atmspheric evening (and only the second time Rad and I have played 'Letter From T').

In Italy a few days later the onstage conversation turned into band - with bass, drums and female vocals, all talking Italian. I settled back into the world of driving fast and eating lunch. Three weekends later I took a train from Milano Centrale north to Switzerland, which led me via late nights and laughs to that lonesome road, hauling gear at 6 am.

The last concert of the tour was recorded - that is one I'll be listening to. You have sent videos too - will be in touch.

I'll try to put them online, and any photos I can find, too. The ones of the J-45 you'll have to look up yourselves.

Until we meet again,

Happy Christmas and let's have an amazing 2010.

See you next time ...

Andy x