Breakfast with Juancho, Chema and his wife, agent, and promoter – Juancho also plays with lots of different bands including Robyn Hitchcock and Paul Collins. We were just saying our last farewells before we headed out for our return journey to Porto. Our hotel room was in the furthest corner of the hotel on the top floor, so getting the gear to the car was a task, but first to the lift. It was one of those weird lifts where the direction in which you enter isn’t the same as the direction you exit, it always reminds me of that scene in 2001 where the corridors change direction in the space station, not that it was quite so psychedelic and sophisticated at the hotel, it was just a lift after all. Two or three journeys to the car and we were on our way. We found petrol, then stopped to get the damn Bluetooth working and then to look at the temperature outside – 40°C/104°F.
Nine hours through the Spanish tundra and into Portugal – mountains, jagged rocks, canyons, boulders precariously sitting on the side of hills but unlikely to fall as they were spat there a millennia ago. Millions of sunflowers, castles, eagles and a hedgehog. Somehow there seemed to be more truck stops and garages on the way back, even though it was the same route. One place was so busy, but it didn’t matter because it was super efficient, don’t you love that. Another plate of fries, nothing in the place to eat for veggie folks. At the next stop I washed the windscreen, a car pulled up on the other side of the pump. She was driving and did the petrol, he went to the back and took care of the baby. I thought they looked busy and asked them if they wanted me to clean their particularly dirty windscreen, as I was already at it. But they said no, I think they thought I was going to charge them!
Our friends Arno, Virginie and Tim were simultaneously driving down from France, so we were in touch, they got to Porto a couple of hours before us, but we will meet tomorrow and Arno will finally return my Strat and pedalboard after two years in exile. I need another wall to hang it, the hooks are full. I need to dig downwards. I imagine The Archive like those secret massive underground bases, but you enter from a nondescript lift in the building above.
Back at the top of our street, rattling down the cobblestones down the hill and a quick park in an illegal spot to offload before Olivia took the car back around a one-way system via another garage to top up the fuel. I moved the gear into its approximate place and set about plugging things in, but I’m weary after the weekend and looking forward to sinking into the sack.
Music today has been Héroes del Silencio and their third album El Espíritu del Vino (1993). They were an epic rock band from Zaragoza, massive in Spanish-speaking countries, pulling tens of thousands of people to their gigs. Mostly unknown by English-speaking followers of this kind of music. I sang a song for them on stage last night – as you do.