Month: April 2021

Day 49

Friday April 9

Mark:

We’re exactly where we didn’t want to be. Living back in what we’re now referring to as The Carrol, after the name of the road. It was my home for six years and I didn’t really see any real circumstance in any kind of mid to even long term where I would have been thinking about leaving it. Well, I did leave it, accidentally and overnight, and now I’m kinda accidentally and overnight back here again and it’s the last place I wanted to be. I wouldn’t expect Maja to, but even I instinctively no longer refer to it as home. It is just The Carrol. We’ve opened up the single bed to make it into a double, which means it now covers the entire width of this tiny room – it literally touches both walls. So, as you enter the room, immediately on your right you have the wardrobe, in front of that and touching the bed is the cake trolley with a lamp on top of it. And to the left and up against the wall at the end of the bed you have our basses. All of which means the patch of floor we have available to us between the door and the bed is about the size of a large toilet mat. Not even luxury large. And of course, below all this is Jenn. Who is simply delighted that we’ve moved back in. Of course she isn’t, for anyone silly enough to have believed that. Sorry if that describes you but I guess that means you just have to face it now. You’re silly. Oh damn, we really need to be moving out of here again. And soon. Forget the fact that we now have a plan to move to Ireland as soon as possible. This is going to be beyond awkward and beyond cramped. Right now, all we’re thinking is to rest up and go to Alex’s party, aiming to arrive around seven. Then tomorrow or maybe the next day, we can start to get our things out of Sarah’s and move it into here, all the while trying to see what kind of other place to stay we can shake out of the trees.

I go outside and make a bunch of phone calls to friends to see if anyone has a heads up on anything, but the most we get is people saying they’ll be on the lookout, and a possibility of a place in Clapham for way over double our budget. When I say our budget is probably less than half of what’s on offer, I get laughed off the phone. Yeah. I’m not convinced London is the answer. And that’s a shame too because, as much as I had no thoughts of moving out of this house, I had even less of ever leaving London, a city I’d wanted to be able to live in again for so long before the opportunity to do so actually came up.

As we talk more about this, we start to think that, maybe rather than try to move somewhere else in London when we’re ultimately looking at leaving the country anyway, we should just stick it out here and make the big move when we’re ready. With that, we agree that I should continue to do the two weeks I’ve committed to the bar as notice, while making plans to move to Ireland as soon as that’s done. This thing will probably take around two weeks at least to plan and execute anyway. So why throw away all my goodwill and reputation, built up over three years, for the sake of leaving a few days early? After all, we still have a lot of research to do. All we know is, somewhere in Ireland. Beyond that, we have no house and no leads on one, and no car, and no leads on one. And we still need to get ourselves properly sorted out here. So no. Bar or no bar, this is not something we’re going to do overnight. So yeah. I’ll do the two weeks as planned while making a plan, and then, all things going well, soon after that we’ll leave.

I phone Paul for a bit of a chat and an update, and a little about what we’re thinking next. ‘Bloody hell Mark,’ he says. ‘You two should be on Oprah.’

Yeah, there still seems to be a lot going on. I think we really want to forget about all this, just have a nice time at the party, and worry about tomorrow tomorrow. Approaching 4pm we’re just lying down taking it easy, not intending to move until we have to. Maybe a couple of hours of just total chill time. Sounds lovely. Doesn’t happen. This plan lasts until 4:30pm when I get a voice message. It’s from Sarah. We listen to it together. Oh dear. She’s telling us that if we haven’t got our stuff out of the room today, it will be taken out. She says it will be put into the hallway, but whatever, it doesn’t sound good. We need to go. Now. But how? We have no car and I wouldn’t feel comfortable asking Cris to help us out because he’s not at all happy that we’ve come back and plonked ourselves right above Jenn again. Fair enough. Which is why I won’t put him in the position of having to say no. Then I remember Rafael who was so put out when we didn’t ask him to help us move to Sarah’s. It’s worth a call, but I’m kinda asking him to meet us now now.

I put the call in. He’s happy to help, but really not sure he can help now. Maybe tomorrow. No, I say. Really sorry, but tomorrow’s no good. It’s now or I’ll say thankyou very much and we’ll just do it ourselves. Oh damn this feels bad. He says he’ll call back in a few minutes. This is a tense time. Nothing we can do between now and then. But he does call back in a few minutes and says he’ll meet us there in ten but he’ll only be able to help for an hour or so. Thankyou thankyou thankyou, but I tell him we’ll be there in more like 15 because it will take at least that long to walk there, and that’s if we leave this very instant, which we will pretty much do. Fine.

As we approach Sarah’s we’re keeping a curiously nervous eye out to see if any of our stuff has been thrown out onto the street. Thankfully, it hasn’t. But there’s behind the apartments as well, with a whole garden area back there. I go round and have a look. OK. Nothing out here either. That’s at least a little relief. Now to go and wait for Rafael. We really don’t feel like encountering Sarah before we have to so we decide not to wait out front, preferring to go to the end of the street, on the corner with the main road. Every now and then, I walk out into the road to see if I can see him. After five minutes or so, here he comes. His van is painted in his company’s colours and has a bit of a strange roof for carrying particular materials, so it’s very distinctive. I thank him very much for coming. No problem. He goes and parks up outside where I tell him the apartment is and me and Maja go in.

We reach the front door and, although we have a key, I think it’s only right to knock rather than just walk in. To be fair, Sarah is someone who, if she has an issue, says her piece and mentally moves on and, outwardly at least, she’s pleased to see us and is welcoming, although she does make a point of demanding we take the fridge as well, because she doesn’t want it. Fine. I walk in first. I don’t see what looks the two girls exchange behind me. 

We walk into what we’d started considering home until last night and thankfully, everything is as we left it. To make things a little easier on Maja, who really doesn’t want to encounter Sarah too much, I opt for the heavy lifting. This means I’ll be taking everything downstairs to the van and Maja can concentrate on packing. And out on the street, Rafael says I should just drop everything next to the van and let him pack it. We have a few backpacks and a whole bunch of shopping bags. Plus, there are quite a few things that can just be taken down whole, such as the two bass amps. We get started. It does take an hour or so and is without incident or any kind of harsh words. Only best wishes from Sarah as we reach the end and give her her key back. The one bit that could have been sticky is getting the fridge out of there, but those things are a lot lighter and easier to move about than you’d think, even down stairs. Van all packed and we give our eternal thanks once more to Rafael and we’re off. Once at The Carrol, the job does take on a bit of a seemingly never ending quality as we first empty the van, which is parked about 40 yards from the house, and then get everything downstairs and back into the room, which Maja is organising. This sees us both carry everything from the van to the house, piling up the front garden and then the street, and then I start to take everything downstairs, bit by tiny bit. Yes, including the fridge, which means we now totally have our own fridge and freezer in the house which is quite handy. 

Unbelievably, from receiving the scary message at 4:30, by 7:50pm we’re on the bus to Angel. It was horrible having to do everything like that, and in the mad dash way in which we did, but now we can go to the party with the whole move behind us and tomorrow is completely clear. Yes. So much better that it’s all done.  

And this party will be Maja’s first indoor London social where she will meet what I consider to be my central London crowd made up of some of the coolest and best bar staff and bar managers in London. Basically people I met while me and Dan were playing the scene as pop cover duo The Insiders. And yep, when we arrive, there they all are. Not everyone, but a really good representation. Kristoff, Alex, Tom, Jess, Shane, Molly, Jess, and a few other people. They’ve been busy recording the video for the lead single off Alex’s album which I’ve done a few sessions of bass recording on, including the song in question today. For that reason he asked me to bring my bass along, which I have, so that he could possibly film a scene with me and him. We don’t get around to that tonight. Instead, we arrive deep in party territory and just get stuck in. Oh, these guys love Maja and she’s instantly the centre of attention and having a great time. So the pubs aren’t open yet, Maja’s never been to a London pub, and now here she is at a party above one. And yes, we’re going to stay the night. Of course, it turns into a very late one.

Day 50

Saturday April 10

Mark:

Alex’s apartment sometime late morning. A few guys have hung around and we have a wonderfully relaxed and fun morning having a full English breakfast and playing Uno until we decide it’s time to leave around 3pm. We’re very close to the financial district and the old, original London Roman wall so I suggest we take a walk to that. This is a very strange archaeological site of Roman ruins right in among the super modern London banking buildings and a perfect setting to round off a very eventful few days as we meander through the rough, broken stone and haphazardly kept vegetation between it all, trying very hard to picture a London that began and ended within these ancient walls. 

Day 51

Sunday April 11

Mark:

Wow, I have been on furlough for a long time. This whole saga, as far as I’m concerned, began on March 23, 2020 when the bars closed and I went onto furlough payments, which was 80 per cent of salary, based on average wages over a given period. My payments really were quite generous and perfectly adequate. The bars reopened on June 23. On November 5, with covid on the rise again, a second lockdown was announced so the bar closed and into furlough I went again. Then we went into farce territory with bars opening again on December 2 with the government desperate to ‘save Christmas,’ only for them to close again on December 21. Me and Maja then spoke for the first time on the phone on December 26.

A quick covid bar furlough timeline looks like this.

March 23, 2020, bars close

June 23, bars reopen

November 5, bars close

December 2, bars reopen

December 21, bars close

And so it has remained. Until tomorrow, April 12, although one caveat of bars reopening is that they can only serve outside and everything has to be table service so this will be fun. It also means that bars with not so much outdoor space will not be reopening, so only a partial return to form anyway. As for the Palmerston, well that has six tables out front and a whole massive garden out back, so we have plenty of capacity. It will just be a bit of a stretch doing table service only for those two wide apart areas.

Today we have a staff meeting at the bar where I announce to everyone that I’m leaving in two weeks. This is of course met with shock, and a why and what the hell, and then quite a bit of happiness and well wishing as I tell a short version of the story. Next, the important bit. Who can take shifts off me? The big problem is that a few people who went home to their native countries haven’t come back so we don’t have a full complement of staff. I’m very disappointed that I only manage to get two days taken off me. Oh well. OK. I start tomorrow. 

Back to tell Maja the news and she’s equally disappointed, but I make it clear that, as the days go on, I may well be able to arrange cover for more shifts. But really, it’s no big deal. I can just do these two weeks, cover what cover, do what I don’t and then we’re back as you were.

With the bars opening up tomorrow, that means no more lockdown London and Maja wants one last look at the epic emptiness of it, so we take a trip out. First to Kings Cross where I suggest an overground train. I have a very good reason for this as I’ve wanted to show Maja this for a while. This train goes to Blackfriars station which I’ve said before is quite possibly one of the most stunning train platforms in the world. The whole thing is a bridge across the River Thames, quite close to St Paul’s Cathedral, so offers incredible views all across the city centre on both sides. Of course, by default, it also takes us into the city, so this is where we get off for one last walk through empty lockdown London. Maja’s London. There is a real feeling of loosening in the air so it’s not quite as iconic as it has been, but still. These streets are definitely not bustling. And there’s a moment on the way back, as we approach Farringdon in zone one, that we’re able to look all ways on a crossroads and not see a single person. So yes, we did get what we came for. We end up walking all the way back to King’s Cross where we started and get a bus back from there. Which is weird, as it means I’m back on the old and familiar 214 to The Carrol. 

Day 52

Monday April 12

Mark:

Oh wow. I really did not see this coming. The bar is traumatically busy. Just non non non stop. And it’s only me the boss, Moni, on. It really is one of the busiest days ever. It’s like a Sunday and looks like continuing this way. I’ve never seen this, not even on the busiest of Sundays; even she has a moment where she just leans back, half sitting, and says, ‘This is just too much.’ Moni says that. I never thought I’d see the day, but here it is. With everything having been closed for almost four months, I can totally understand the feeding frenzy which means that no-one can just walk in here and claim an outdoor table. Anyone who’s been remotely clued up has seen this coming and has booked. You can see the bookings on the system and I’ve never seen anything like it. And it’s already booked exactly like this everyday for the next ten days. And you just know that the days and weeks after that will end up being the same. The relief me and Moni have when Kitty comes in to start sometime mid afternoon. But then, poor Kitty, as she realises what she’s walking into. But with three of us on now, it feels a whole lot easier.

I finish at five and Maja comes by as planned. The gardens are all full so we do what customers can’t and go upstairs to the function room where we share a burger and chips. We could get a beer and actually be inside a pub with one when no-one else is allowed to, but we decide to go home and get some stuff done instead. I like this idea because all day at the pub I’ve been wanting to get home and research what it could take to live in Ireland. We think about how to get stuff there and I suggest hire a van we can leave in Ireland. Maja jumps in with, no. We buy a van as we need one anyway.

So the plan now is to find a house in the countryside of Ireland and live and do our thing there, with a studio setup, a place to invite people, and to tour the country and beyond from there.

With this decided, Maja immediately starts looking at vans for sale. The idea is to buy an actual van rather than a camper van, and adapt it for living, to make it viable for touring.

As the plan starts to take shape, Maja reveals she’s long had the idea for an adapted van but didn’t know what she really wanted to do with it. I now say that I’ve long had the idea to tour in this kind of way but didn’t know how it could really happen. WHere we are now is that Maja had the how, I had the what, but neither of us really had an exact idea of the where. Now all three have come together.

The plan

What, touring

Who, Mark and Maja

How, adapted van

Where, Ireland

We’re planning all this upstairs in our room. Well, Maja’s in the room, sitting on the bed. Which leaves no space for anything or anyone else. Outside the bedroom door is the hallway with a railing above the stairs and immediately opposite the door is the toilet. I’m sitting next to the toilet with my back against the railings. Yep. We have basically annexed part of the hallway to our room.

Day 53

Tuesday April 13

Mark:

April 13 – the last 13th, we almost killed a cat. I wonder what will happen on this one.

I’m in the bar sometime in the early afternoon and finishing around 9, so that means Maja can come by tonight and have her first drink in a bar in London. Or at least her first drink outside in a bar in London. But her very first visit is to go there for a coffee as I have the idea to meet a regular and a friend, Ricky, who I know has contacts in Ireland so I think he will be a good person for a preliminary chat. 

He meets us there and we tell him our plans. What he comes back with surprises the hell out of both of us. He’s taking care of a three bedroom house in Donegal, which I knew about. He now says he might be able to offer that to us for a nominal rent. He says if it was up to him, he would just let us have it but apparently there are other people to consider, so some rent would have to be charged. He asks how we’d feel about £300 a month. Damn. You can’t get a room in Ktown for anything like that, no matter how small. You’re talking almost twice that just to begin. And there’d be no deposit on this place either. Damn again. Just a pretty much token rent. For a three bedroom place. He says he’ll have to make a call or two, but he really expects we’ll be able to do this. So, just like that, we’re touching distance from having our starter home in Ireland. It’s right up in the north of the country, so hardly optimal for touring around the place, but it’s a start, and that’s all we’re looking for right now. A house, somewhere in Ireland. Where, is totally irrelevant. Just something we can move to, start from, and maybe plan the next move to somewhere that would be optimal. But first, let’s just worry about being able to get there.

We leave Ricky, chill for a bit, then I go in for my Tuesday, which is every bit as busy as my Monday, but at least I know what I’m walking into this time. When I’ve finished, Maja arrives and we have drinks outside, again with Ricky, and a few other off duty staff members. This is where the only drinking outside thing hits its first real snag. It’s April, so the evenings can still get a bit chilly. To sit out there and drink cold beer, doesn’t really work so well. And this is the south east of the UK. This outside thing is going to bite a lot more up north, and let’s not even start on what it could be like in Scotland. We have a couple of drinks and realise that to stay for anymore would be to endure rather than enjoy. We’ve enjoyed this little tickle, but it’s time to get off now. But it’s been lovely for people to meet Maja in this way, and for us to tell them our plans, which are to plan stuff during this two week period while I’m at the bar, finish that two weeks, and then head off to Ireland, assuming our planning has gone how we would like. 

It’s a ten minute walk home. Half of that walk is downhill, all the way to the corner shop, pretty much where Kentish Town, Highgate, Gospel Oak and Tufnell Park all meet. That little street on the corner also contains the wonderful organic shop we just casually pop out to all the time. This corner is less than five minutes walk to the house.

We’re approaching it on the right hand side, hand in hand, walking at a pretty decent pace, me on the inside. I give Maja a little shove, to indicate that we should start crossing the road at a diagonal angle, to take in the corner as well, walking all the way across the road to be on the pavement walking past the organic shop. Maja responds and steps off the kerb. She goes immediately, with a scream. I react very quickly to try to stop her falling but nothing can be done. She goes all the way down, landing very heavily on her knee and just stays there, head down, not quite screaming, but scarily loud all the same. The speed of the fall has taken her deep into the road but she is making no moves at all to get out of the way of any cars that could be coming. But it’s very quiet right now and no cars are coming. I have no idea what to do. I go and crouch down with Maja to see what’s going on, but she isn’t responding at all. It’s just very clear something has gone very wrong. She’s sobbing quietly now but still no acknowledgement of any awareness of her surroundings, or the fact that I’m even there. I have no idea how long we stay like this, but eventually she at least manages to get up and be dragged somewhat to the kerb and somewhere a little more safe. I then ask if she can get up and walk. She slowly gets up, but walk, that’s another thing altogether. I support most of her weight, or as much as I can, and she hobbles very very carefully to the end of the street. There are no thoughts now of trying to cross the whole thing in one go, instead, we stay at this side, intending to cross just where the estate starts, about 40 yards down at a zebra crossing where we’ll have right of way and will be able to take our time. 

Just as we reach this pavement, at which would normally be five minutes from the house but now I have no idea how long this will take, a car stops. The guy asks if we need help getting anywhere. Yes. Yes please, we do. Except I don’t say that right away. I start by wanting go reassure him that we really don’t have far to go, that we just live a little way past that bridge over there. Before I can say anything else, he says, OK, no problem, and drives off. Noooooo. Come back. That’s not what I meant. Damn. We carry on the very slow, hobbly walk home. My first indication that this is bad, comes when we’re just 10 yards or so away from the house. Practically outside next door. Maja goes down again and says she simply can’t go any further. She takes a break for a while and we go again, pushing it for the last 10 yards. But then of course, when we reach our upside-down house, there are a whole bunch of stairs to negotiate downwards to reach the bedroom.

We reach the room and have by now decided that this is something pretty bad. Maybe a really bad twist. I call 111, the non emergency number and we get given an A&E (ER) appointment for 11am the next morning. Then we try to sleep, but for Maja, I know this is far from a comfortable night. I do what I can, but really, there isn’t much I can do.

Day 54

Wednesday April 14

Maja:

My ankle is broken. In two places. The tendons on each side of the ankle, the two little bits that stick out, were pulled so hard and fast that pieces of bone were pulled out of both of them. 

Mark:

When I hear that, a shiver goes through my whole body. And at the same time we realise we won’t be going to Ireland anytime soon. There’s no way Maja will be able to drive in any near future. And no, I can’t drive. Failed my test an embarrassing amount of times with the last one being far too many years ago to think of. Maybe I’ll get back on that particular horse, sorry, car one day. No idea when. 

But anyway, the hospital visit goes like this.

We arrive in a taxi and immediately realise we will need a wheelchair if Maja is to be in anyway mobile around here. I leave her by the entrance to go in and see what I can do. I speak to someone on reception and they tell me wheelchairs aren’t given out. You just have to walk around and try and find one another patient has vacated. So that’s what I do for the next five or ten minutes or so. I’m almost giving up until I realise that’s not an option. I don’t want Maja waiting too long wondering where the hell I’ve got to, especially not in the distressed state she must be in. I make my way back to the entrance just to let her know I’ve not found anything yet but am still looking. On the way I walk past the ambulance bay. And there, right in front of one of them, is a wheelchair. Wonderful. Job done. But it’s not one of those large wheeled things. No, this only has little wheels, meaning the person sitting in it can’t propel themselves, but always have to be pushed. Totally takes away any independence. But I get it. They don’t want drunken people, or non drunken people, finding wheelchairs and deciding to have races down the corridors Hollywood style. Little wheels it is. Sorry Maja. I’m in control now.

Back home and I leave Maja in bed to go off to shop. I get there and before I even start to have a look around, the manager asks me to wait a second because he has something for me. What could he possibly be talking about? He disappears out back, and comes back carrying a bass. Yep. He disappears out back, and comes back carrying a bass.

‘This was left here by someone about a month ago,’ he says. We kept it to see if anyone would come back and claim it but no-one did. I decided that if it was still here by around now, I would give it to you. Wow. Just wow. So this is what apparently happens now when I pop out to get milk. I also see immediately that it’s tuned B E A D. Very cool. You could say Maja’s a bit surprised when I arrive back at the room with a, ‘Guess what I just got from the shop.’ Just for the record, it’s a light brown satellite. Oh, and we plug it in and it really is super quiet, but we’re confident this is something that can be fixed.

Although she’s gone to the hospital and been well looked after, Maja is continuing to have pains. Luckily I wasn’t rota’d on at the bar for today, but I am supposed to be in tomorrow. I decide I won’t be and, if it comes to it, I will just refuse. But I make the call and give them a little time to cover me, hoping it won’t come to me having to make a flat out refusal. I’m also hoping to get Friday and Saturday covered, but Moni calls back after a couple of hours and says tomorrow is arranged but that’s all that can be done as we’re currently operating with such a tiny staff and Duran, the assistant manager, is also working at another pub while continuing to work with us. It really is a stretch to get days covered. Fair enough and thankyou. OK. Let’s deal with this.

We already knew our Ireland plans had been completely smashed aside with this. Today, as the shock subsides and reality settles, we realise Maja won’t be able to drive for seven or eight weeks. A driver needs to at least be able to do an emergency stop comfortably, meaning you really have to be able to slam down on the brake, so just being able to soft pedal the thing is no good. But in any case, it’s going to be a long drive. At least from here to Liverpool for the ferry to Belfast, then from there to we have no idea where in Ireland. This would be a tough drive at the best of times. With a recovering broken ankle? Forget about it.

Day 55

Thursday April 15

Oh dear. I do my best to get out of the bar for the next two days, but with so many people having not returned yet, not to mention the fact that I can only be covered by another supervisor or management level person, I’m told with apologies that I can’t be accommodated. So, short of simply refusing to go in and damning the consequences for everybody, I just have to do this. Maja is not happy at all, but understands and my job now is to make sure she has enough food and drink in the room for the time I’m away because she simply cannot go downstairs to the kitchen. But at least I just happen to be off today. I think if I wasn’t with it just being the day after the hospital, I might just have done that rebellion thing and refused to go in and damn the consequences. At the very least, I’m grateful that it didn’t come to that. 

Day 56

Friday April 16

Mark:

I’m in from 1pm till 8:30. Maja can’t begin to think about stairs, and our bedroom is on the mid level, with the front door upstairs and the kitchen downstairs. The toilet, like we established a few days ago, is directly opposite the bedroom so that’s an easy reach. But the kitchen is a no no. So before I leave, I have to make sure Maja has enough food and drink to get her through the amount of time I’ll be out. It’s a very unhappy Maja that I say goodbye to shortly before 1pm as I leave for the bar for the day.

During the day, I tell Moni how things are and ask if she could at least get me out sometime early tomorrow.

Day 57

Saturday April 17

Mark:

Moni comes through for me and goes above what I asked for. Thankyou very much Moni. 

I’m due in from 10am till 5pm today. But at 8:30am she texts me to say that not only are this Sunday and my Tuesday now covered. Brilliant. I was already scheduled to be off tomorrow, so now after this short bit today, I’m off all the way to and including Thursday. Which means that after today, I only have two days left to work in the bar before I’m all done, and that will be Friday and Saturday.

When I get in today, it gets even better as Moni tells me I can finish at two today instead of Five. Result. She then adds that she has 15 applicants for my job, so if she gets to interviews this week, maybe even Friday and Saturday will go. 

During the day I tell one of our regulars I’m quitting the bar job. He naturally asks for the why and I tell him some of our story. As I get deeper and deeper into it, he collapses more and more in laughter at the continuing absurdity, not least the fact that right now this very moment, my girlfriend, who I met online and who came from Sweden to stay in lockdown London seeking temporary respite when her world fell apart, is lying in our bed, right above the room I used to share with my former girlfriend, who is still living there by the way, and is there as we speak. It takes him a while to grasp the fact that we are all actually living in the same house. And that I’m about to move to Ireland with this girl who I met less than two months ago and with whom I’ve already moved house twice, the second one back to where we started as we fled the crazy naked communal, musical living situation we’d walked into which just happened to come with an offer of a free apartment which never fully materialised. That’s all before you consider the fact that me and Maja became an item on the way from the airport to my house during what was supposed to be a friendly visit, and were talking about having kids together less than a week later, shortly after, deciding to get married and tour the world playing songs we haven’t written yet with Maja having never played a single live show in her life. We were planning on leaving for Ireland next week to get started, but of course a few days ago she broke her ankle walking back from the bar.

This guy is a head cameraman who works on top Hollywood productions. As I’m talking, he stops me and says, ‘You do realise this thing is just too implausible for a movie?’ I nod. I know. ‘But you’re telling me all this actually happened?’ Yep. He shakes his head in disbelief and acceptance. ‘If it’s a true story, that’s totally different,’ he says. ‘What I’m really reminded of is Catch Me If You Can, a story you could never get away with apart from the fact that it’s all true.’ This is a Steven Spielberg movie starring Matt Damon. Then my friend says, ‘You also realise that there’s too much here for a movie? It would have to be a TV series.’ Took the words right out of my mouth. That’s exactly where we think this is ultimately all going. We very much agree with him on the implausibility factor as well.

Maja:

I remember when we walked down the streets of Camden, joyfully giggling and shouting at times: ‘We need to fire our script writer, this is all too crazy!’ Just too many things that have been happening lately that it stopped making sense ages ago. One enormous development after the next, and I, for the life of me, would never have been able to foresee what would happen next. When Mark comes home and tells me about his conversation today, I feel oddly validated. Yes, it’s not only me. This really is a bit over the top.

Mark:

Just as we start to think we’re going to be OK with this, Maja says her foot is numb. Not good, so we call 111 who say we need to go to A&E immediately. Damn. Fine. We get a taxi and when we arrive, I’m told I can’t go in because of the Covid thing. OK but not OK. It is pretty cold and I’m not dressed for a long wait outside. I get it, but Maja is not independent at all right now and no-one had a problem with me being in with her the last time we were here. That’s not cutting any ice. At all. So I wait outside for the hour and a half it takes for this to be sorted. There really isn’t much to do so I content myself with sending silly messages to Maja.

Day 58

Sunday April 18

Mark:

We have a first rehearsal at the house today, just chucking some songwriting ideas back and forth with the guitar. Getting the musical feeling back really. I also hit the bass with pretty much the same attitude. Just getting back into it. What’s really nice is that I wake up just needing to play so I do.

Then, once we’re up and about, we’re in the garden for the first time since we got back. It really is nice to be outside and relaxed like this, and it’s here, reclining in deckchairs in the sun, that Maja first has the idea of maybe traveling about with a car and a tent. This could be an effective touring strategy – turning up at venues in which we could stay the night after a show, but demonstrating that we’re self sufficient at the same time. We kinda think that in touring, we could also stay at the houses of audience members, but we still like the idea of having a tent handy, kind of in the spirit of, people help people who help themselves. All in all, we’re just putting detail on the bones of how a life of musical touring could be possible.

Day 59

Monday April 19

Maja:

The weather is nice so we go on a walk around the block, making our way to the outdoor coffee shop where we have a nice coffee and chat with the locals. We meet a friend of Mark’s, also called Mark, by the coffee shop and he sits down with us to have a chat. I’m resting my superboot on a chair, so it’s only natural that he sits with us. He tells us about his filming project going on a motorcycle all around the island of England to interview locals, and I misinterpret it as a filming project about him traveling all around Ireland to interview locals. I really think it’s fun that he is looking at traveling to Ireland as well. Mark explains my misunderstanding to me as we walk back home at a super slow pace. He was actually talking about going round the UK, referring to it as The Island. 

Well home I’m exhausted. I haven’t been out and about in about a week, and it’s just exhausting so I go to sleep for a while, while Mark gets on with some phone calls. There’s always phone calls to be had. Always. Around 8 ish, we’re awake, hungry and annoyed about not being as productive as we’d like to have been. And we haven’t even played any bass today, or worked on any songs. At all. We eat something small, and I decide that we’ll do a bass session. Mark wants to do some music writing, but we start off with bass. It’s another one hour session entirely on right hand plucking technique. I start to somewhat get a hang on how to pluck more fluently. My plucking technique is now better than it has ever been before, and I am now using the same technique that Mark uses – free strokes. I’ve always used rest strokes before. After finishing a session on bass, we continue to finally get some original music writing done. Mark’s a brilliant songwriter. I’m not sure if that has been clearly written enough in these diaries, but he really knows what he is doing. So finally, after everything we’ve been through these couple of months, after everyone we’ve told about our project, we are finally in a mentally calm enough space to be able to even start to consider writing music. Even if writing music is our top priority, even if it now is our self chosen duty to actually write music, every disturbance that came along just put our heads further and further away from actually writing. We’d prepared a couple of documents with lyrics ideas in advance. So we take a look through our documents and start with the one that is most ready. And here the magic happens. Mark just does, well how to say it, his magic. I’ve never worked with a true professional like this before, and it is clear as day that he knows exactly what he is doing. Line after line just comes out, accompanied by his bass playing. I struggle to sing along and be helpful, it’s quite fun, but compared to him, I have no idea of what I am doing. I got one melodic idea during the session, to do with one of the lines, but he had so many. It’s truly wonderful to be able to work with him. Amazing really. I don’t feel pressed on performing very well in this situation, I know that it’ll come around when I’m more used to it. He has had a lifetime in music, and now he has decided that he wants to invest that in someone like me. I am truly flattered. I know that eventually, I am going to have more to give in the creative aspects, but for now, I’m going with the flow. Watching. Learning. Using what I have to do what I can. For me, it’s like I am a student, working with a colleague that is a star.

Mark:

What can I say? All the above is true. But seriously, sometimes ideas and melodies come, sometimes they don’t. Today they just happen to be exploding in me. But also, Maja really has woken the dormant songwriter in me and it’s so cool to be thinking about original music again. That’s not something I’ve really had an interest in for around seven or eight years, despite, for a long time, songwriting being all I wanted to do. I just hit a point when I realised so many of the impossibilities of songwriting as a profession, not least the fact that I needed so many different people to work with and could never get them all in the room at the same time. So I decided to make it as just being a bass player instead and totally dedicated myself to that and reinventing myself as how I played bass. This was around 2013, and in 2014 I took off on the adventure that would become Mark’s Diaries. Which ended about two months ago as Mark’s Diaries violently collided with Maja’s Diaries and became The Diaries.

Going way way back in time, in almost every band I’ve been in I’ve been the primary songwriter, which included writing about 80 per cent of Drunken Monkees’ album in 2010, the one that saw us take off to Hamburg to try to be rockstars. Going further back, I’ve run songwriter nights, including the legendary regular Tuesday night at Fred Zeppelins in Cork. I can claim absolutely no credit for its legendariness, that kudos all going to Ronan Leanard who ran it before me, couldn’t continue with it for reasons I can’t begin to remember and so handed me the reins. That, for me, felt like the moment I arrived in Cork as a true part of the music establishment of that incredibly musical city. At the time, I was of course a journalist on the Evening Echo, a job I had for four years but even then I had kind of morphed into the paper’s de facto music writer and so was totally immersed in all things musical in the city, both professionally and personally. Call it unprofessional, but as well as reporting on all the original bands of the time, I was also playing in a whole bunch of them, including my own, Fly On The Wall, playing mostly my songs although other members did make their own notable contributions from time to time. A lot of this happened in conjunction with running the songwriter night, for which I felt obliged to lead by example and have at least one new song every week; as host, I played the first two or three song set.

This whole original band thing continued until I had to leave journalism in the illness/fibromyalgia episode that lasted around five years until I had my breakthrough and moved to Madrid. During that five years, I couldn’t see myself doing any conventional work again, and so really put myself into becoming a songwriter trying to have my songs placed with other people. I worked with a producer on this, working from home and my own little studio and sending rough productions of my songs to him regularly, sometimes even at request for a particular artist of particular project. But nothing came of any of them. Then the move to Madrid happened where I tried to keep this thing going but it really just fizzled out. Then, after the whole album thing, I hit a five minute period when it looked like this part of my life might just be making a come back but again that came to nothing and I thought, screw it, just concentrate on being the best bass player you can be and go that way, which led to the Costa Blanca Diary and then directly to London. So there I was. All through London refusing to be involved, as a direct member, in any original project. If someone wanted to pay me for a studio session on their own stuff, great. But live, apart from jam sessions, if it didn’t pay, I didn’t do it. Which meant playing covers, although there was that interlude playing original songs with Dan, but I was also playing in The Insiders with him – our professional cover duo – so I was happy to help him out with original sets from time to time and it was something fun and cool to work on alongside our cover work, indeed we would sometimes do an original set somewhere in London, then run off to do a paid gig somewhere. And there was always the possibility his thing could take off, and we did manage to get some good representation in the form of Hot Vox, so it was really all good. But that was it, as far as I was concerned, until Maja came along.

All this new thinking about songwriting today seems to have opened my mind a little and I remember that I have some Irish running through my family in the shape of one of my uncles. I call him, bring him up to speed with some of our craziness, and ask if he might know anyone in Ireland who could just give us a heads up on houses or anything. He puts me in touch with a friend of his who just happens to live in Donegal. There’s Donegal again. Are we getting some kind of message here? Her name is Sarah and her and her husband moved to Donegal some years ago and she’s happy to give me some bits and pieces about how much she loves the place, but little concrete, so to speak. But it’s great to have made this contact and she says that now she knows we’re looking, and the kind of thing we’re looking for, if she should hear of anything suitable, she’ll let us know. Wonderful. 

Day 60

Tuesday April 20

Mark:

Maja sits down to properly budget today to see how much time we can last on the money that’s available. Into this go a few things we can’t quite know such as the car we need to buy and how much rent we’ll have to pay for whatever we find in Ireland, including deposit. But we put figures here on the highest amounts we want to spend and factor that into the equations. What comes up is that if no more money came in at all, we have enough to last six months give or take.

A little cash injection would definitely help and I think it’s now time to make a suggestion I’ve been thinking about recently which could help us to pull in a chunk more before we set off. If it works and really comes through it could add four or five months to our viability. It might sound scary, but the answer is this. Medical trials. But really, not as scary or outlandish as you might think. I’m not coming at this blind. I’ve done two of them at the same facility in north London and the place in question was considered so safe that even the nurses working there would take out holiday and join a trial. Kinda like the workers in a sausage factory happily eating their own sausages or bar staff eating the food from the bar’s kitchen. Adds a layer or two of consumer confidence. It also helps that on my two trials I spoke to people with a lot of experience of doing them. Some even did them as their main source of income, and others saw them as a very powerful financial supplement to their self employed endeavours. The only financial restriction is that you can’t take a trial within three months of finishing one so you can’t just hop from one to another. But even so, it is still possible to do three or four a year if the jigsaw of schedules falls right. And if you get on the right ones, you really can make a liveable wage. I have a look and there are a couple starting soon that don’t take too long to complete and pay £3000 per person, so £6000 to add to our battle kitty should we both get on. Perfect if we could do that, especially as we have an enforced longer period in London now we have to wait for Maja’s ankle. It would also get us away from the house for a week or so. From what, I’m sure you can imagine, isn’t always the most comfortable of atmospheres. We decide to have a look at it just a little more, sleep on it, and if we still feel good about this tomorrow I’ll make the call. 

I also start to think further forwards and research, digging up and starting to remember contacts of mine from my time in Ireland. As do, I begin to feel like I’ve spent my whole life preparing for this. A few bullet points.

I’ve been involved in live music performance at many different levels for most of my life. Bass mostly of course, but a decent enough amount of experience on guitar, at the very least at a basic rhythm level, perfectly adequate for accompanying purposes.

I was a journalist for 10 years, covering a lot of different topics but I mostly gravitated towards music. There, I very deliberately researched that industry for around 10 years on so many different levels.

Four years of this journalistic experience was in Ireland where I built up the contacts and knowledge of the country and its music industry,

I have a whole bunch of songs I wrote over a period of years which we will now be looking at as we start to create our own set. Or at the very least, all that songwriting gives me a very solid basis of experience.

I spent six years as a full time English teacher in Madrid, and this is now being used to help Maja with her own English, meaning I’m able to answer language questions and explain language concepts to a deeper level than a layperson.

Then there’s Maja.

She’s a singer, or at least has already embarked on the journey of becoming one, along with already having embraced the possibility of fronting a band.

She drives

She has the very highest level of computer and internet skills, a vital component in any business that wants to make a real impact whatever the industry.

And for both of us

We share the same drive, ambition, work ethic and intensity. 

Here’s something we could both say: I’ve always had this intensity. I now feel there are two of me. 

It’s a cliche that any multiple of people can be greater than the sum of its parts, but we’re feeling even greater than a sum. Instead, we more have a feeling of things multiplying.

So basically, on a broad level, we very much share the same skillset and have the same ambitions and directions in which we want to take that skillset. But we also both have things the other doesn’t have and which complement and fill gaps in the others’ spectrum. As we contemplate all this we have a realisation. We are going to be famous. This is said as matter of factly as if we were saying we we’re going to pop out and buy some bread. It just totally feels like a totally unassailable, unstoppable truth.

Day 61

Wednesday April 21

Mark:

I get on the medical trial trail and speak to a person called Hannah who is very happy to hear from us and says that there’s no reason we can’t get the ball rolling from here. During these phone calls we discover that Maja weighs a little bit too much to participate right now, so she decides to go on a strict diet until the trial. Maja is also told she has to register with a GP but we are already looking at this so that’s handy. That happens today at our local practice Kentish town where I also take the opportunity to get the relevant medical records I need for the hospital.

We really start to dig deep today, looking at the modern music industry and how we can use it to actually make this thing work. It helps if you can break these things down into actual workable, tangible, realistic projects. With that, we realise we have our first goal: get a place in Ireland and organise the means to get there. Which means find a house in a country we’re currently not even in, and buy a car so that we can drive to wherever that ends up being. We also talk about what kind of music we’re going to write and play and conclude that it will be cute and poppy, maybe with a touch of attitude. We’re on our way. Kinda.

I call Per to say hi and then get round to what’s happening here. Kinda. ‘Remember that girl whose music we listened to and critiqued on the phone to her a few weeks back?’ ‘The Swedish one?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Well she’s living with me now and we’re an item.’ I might as well have just told him I’d built a rocket in my back garden, was setting off for the moon today and did he fancy coming. He reacts like it’s obviously a joke. A not very funny one, but, ‘Yeah yeah. Of course she is.’ ‘No, really, she’s here now. Upstairs in the house and asleep right now.’ This actually goes back and forth a bit – more than looks good on the printed page – until finally something breaks. His voice suddenly changes tone he says, ‘You’re actually not joking are you? What the hell’s going on? What happened?’ When I’m finally able to get clear sky to let him in on things and on what we’ve been talking about and what we’re planning to do, he couldn’t be happier. For me, for us, for himself for simply hearing this kind of story happening in reality to a friend of his. ‘You think things like this can’t happen mate,’ he says. ‘To meet a girl whose on the same page as you as much as this on the things you both want to do, and that you’re really making a plan to go to go off and do all that together. That’s just the best thing I’ve heard in years.’ Then, when I tell him about the ankle break and what that’s done to our plans, he goes slightly into overdrive. ‘That’s too much now,’ he says. ‘You know this is a movie right?’ Yeah, I’ve been getting that a lot.

Day 62

Thursday April 22

Maja:

Neither of us sleeps very well, possibly with minds racing that this has all suddenly become very real and very doable.

This not sleeping would normally be OK and we’d just sleep more in the morning, but not today. I have to be at the hospital by 9am. We both go and the prognosis after it’s had time to settle is promising. It’s apparently healing exceptionally quickly. I also ask when I’ll be able to drive again and I am told in a week or two, which is great and may make our Ireland move possible at an earlier stage again. 

Mark:

Maja comes out all positive and almost ready to leave for Ireland this week. Now if we could, it seems to me. ‘When the doctor says you’re OK to drive, he’s probably thinking about a trip to the shops. Not a road trip of four to five hundred miles, without even thinking about how much driving about we might have to do when we actually get there. We have no idea if we’re going to get a place or where it’s going to be.’ A slightly sheepish OK comes back.

Maja:

I can now use the foot to walk with, even without the boot. We walk to hampstead heath and sit on a bench just looking. I am particularly affected by lack of sleep in general. Mark seems completely fine. The diet I started yesterday is affecting me kinda bad. I am hungry all the time and feel very dull, and it is not helpful that I couldn’t sleep last night. 

Mark:

Ambjorn, a friend I haven’t seen for over 20 years, gets in touch online today wanting to make a donation to the Diary. He says he’s read the whole thing, absolutely loves it and feels he really should pay something. Wow. I never even knew him that well. He was more a friend of friends, but yeah, you do the hang out thing and get on and all that, and now, here he is. The timing is perfect. His reachout makes it feel a bit like day one of the project as an actual person has got in touch and wants to make a payment into it. That’s real.

Per is delighted today when I call back and tell him I have someone here I would like him to meet. With that we’re on a three way call as Maja says hi. Before I know it they’re chatting like old friends and then then they start speaking together in a language that isn’t English. I interject to say I had no idea either Maja spoke Norwegian or Per Swedish. They both laugh and say that their languages are so close they’re able to speak Norwegian and Swedish respectively and be understood. That’s my thing learned for the day. As we chat, Per says they’re having a barbeque at his place this Saturday and would we like to come? Absolutely. Sounds wonderful. Thankyou very much. Here, I tell him that that’s my last day at the bar and I’m doing the early one so I’ll be done by five. Perfect, he says. I guess I’ll be seeing you guys around seven then. You most certainly will. So that’s my last day at the bar party planned.

Day 63

Friday April 23

Maja:

Last night we slept amazingly well. Mark had set an alarm for 7 am since he wanted to get some writing done before he had to go to the bar.

Mark:

I’ve always, always said, ‘to the bar, or at the bar.’ I’ve never called it work, as in, ‘I’ve got to go to work now, or, I was in work when…’ I’ve never seen it as my work, always as just part of what I do, with music and writing being the other parts. So, am I also not at work when I’m doing them? Do I say I was at work when talking about something that happened during a gig? Or a time a phone rang while I was writing? No. So I don’t say ‘at work’ when referring to the bar. Also, the other significant reason for me is that calling it work would make it seem permanent. Which would by definition imply that the other things I do fall into hobby and that thing at the bar, which is hardly the top of of the professional tree, is the thing I really do. It wouldn’t matter if I got right to the top of that particular tree,and yes I’ve had plenty of opportunities to climb that I’ve turned down. Because, well, that’s not what I do. It’s not my work. I’d much rather be somewhere on the rock’n’roll tree.

Maja:

Mark gently wakes me and asks if I’d like to have a coffee or if I’d like to go back to sleep. I look at him and say, ‘What have you done to me?’ He stares at me with big eyes. He has no idea what I’m talking about. ‘Well I want to have tea,’ I say softly. ‘I mean, you’ve made me coffee these last couple of days, but it doesn’t taste as good anymore,’ Mark starts to laugh and so do I. ‘You’ve made me a tea drinker!’ We can’t stop laughing about it. I can’t believe it. Mark has transformed me to proper British person. I drink tea now. Yorkshire tea. Or as I always said, that boring English breakfast tea that I don’t understand why anyone drinks. 

Tea made, and we’re up and about starting our next writing session. We take a look at the funding pool on paypal that I started yesterday for Mark’s diaries. And yes, the promised payment is there. So now we’ve made the first money on our writing projects. This is amazing, and is an important milestone in making them self sufficient. 

Mark is editing my diaries, since we need to get them properly edited to put in a more public forum. In the meantime, I am updating our shared diaries, the words you read right now. 

Day 64

Saturday April 24

My last day at the bar. My last actual day at the bar with a 10am open. And it’s right up there with some of the busiest I’ve ever seen, including some of the deepest days of Christmas. Certainly one of the most booked bars I’ve ever seen as we’re fully booked right up until 8pm. I’ll be gone by the time it calms down as I’m set to finish at five. What really doesn’t help is that one of our most on the ball members of staff, Kitty, comes in with a bad foot. I immediately tell her she can just stay on the bar as much as possible, which leaves me fully in charge of three, maybe even four sections with not a great deal of help – the back and front gardens which really are quite far apart, the restaurant, and the bar area which is, on really busy days, itself three sections. Yes, this is a big one to go out on.

In a rare lull, Kitty asks how I’m feeling about my last day and how I’m feeling about going out and doing our music thing full time in Ireland. I know she wants to hear a lot of adjectives in the ballpark of excited, but I really don’t know how to answer. Is it just too much to think about? The reality not sunk in yet? Or is it just that it’s more natural than anything else, just the next thing I’m doing and I’m thinking why not? Of course, there’s also a hell of a lot of uncertainty. The true reality is that all we’re doing is giving ourselves a chance. We don’t yet have any real prospects of making this thing work financially beyond belief, work ethic and hopefully a little talent and hard won  and hard practiced ability. But I don’t want to say any of those things either. I mumble something a little underwhelming and then duty literally calls both of us as things kick off around us again. Saved by the kitchen bell. 

But this has got me thinking. I really do not know how to feel about any of this. The thing is, it really does feel natural, which is just the most unnatural thing I can think of.

The place is still busy when I finish at 5pm so there are no big goodbyes. I just finish the last thing I was doing and I’m out the door. Back home and I talk to Maja about my inner reaction to being asked about all this. She says she feels exactly the same – doesn’t know how to feel, and also that natural feeling being the most surreal thing of all.

I don’t have time to flop on the bed following this last frantic day at the bar. Instead, we’re up and out again straight away. Off to Per’s for a Filipino barbecue, and where he will meet Maja for the first time.

We arrive and are joyfully greeted by him and his family, and then joyfully taken out to the back garden to join in with the generally eating and drinking thing, the centrepiece being a spectacular spread of fish, shellfish and squid. While we’re taking all this in and everyone’s getting to know Maja, Per says we can stay in the caravan in the garden tonight if we want. Brilliant. That’s made that simple. And in this warm environment as I sit, drink in hand and for the first time really stopped since leaving the house this morning and then leaving the bar an hour or so ago, I’m finally able to take in the fact that barworld really has ended for me. Who knows what may yet transpire, but for now, I really am done with it and facing a new future with Maja somewhere in Ireland.

The caravan we’re to spend the night in is pretty much as big as a conventional caravan can be and has been converted into a wonderful entertaining space complete with Per’s signature karaoke system. And in the front is a large double bedroom where we will sleep.

As festivities die down in the main garden, the three of us retire here for beer, whiskey and karaoke until Per leaves us to it deep into the early hours.

Day 65

Sunday April 25

We don’t emerge from the caravan until 1pm.

As soon as we do, we’re presented with an amazing filipino breakfast of pork, veg and noodles and take it in the garden in the April sun while we talk about our plans that we’re about to get onto tackling today. We say goodbye to Per and our hosts in mid afternoon and, on the bus, we’re online to look at cars. We find a great looking one being advertised in the West End, which is what the main central part of London is known as. Cool. We start a text conversation with the seller and all’s going well and we’re starting to make plans to go, have a look and maybe pick up. All’s left is to ask him exactly where he is. Just outside Bainbridge comes the answer. That’s strange in itself because, once in the West End, the areas are so small, you never refer to yourself as just outside somewhere. Always in somewhere. Intrigued, I look it up. Bainbridge. Glasgow. It’s in the west end of Glasgow. Over 400 miles away. I get back to the guy to tell him of the misunderstanding. I think, even from that distance, we can almost hear each other laughing as we sign off and both wish the other well.

Once we’re settled back home, for the first time we begin to look at houses in Ireland to see what’s available and what kind of budget we could be looking at. We’re looking at countryside Ireland because, first, it’s cheaper than the cities, and second, because we believe that with that we might just be able to find something a little isolated where we could make all the noise we wanted to anytime of the day or night.  

The first one that really looks viable is situated 20 minutes outside the town of Ennis, almost on its own. A three bedroom house for €470 a month in Frure, Lisseycassey. Which is £407. You couldn’t even get a room for that in Ktown for that, no matter how small. To recap, the tiny, just-about-fits-us-both-in room we currently have is £490 a month, and pre Covid it was £550, putting it at €640. The house we’re looking at now is slap bang in the middle of nowhere but by now we’ve decided that if someone offered us an affordable and viable house in Ireland we’d take it without asking where it was.

So if we think of our house as being in the ballpark of €5-600, and budget around €2500 for a car, this medical trial we’re thinking of doing would cover a house for six months, a car, and leave around three months living expenses. And that’s before we begin on the budget we were already looking at. This plan really is starting to come together and to look realistic.

I choose this moment to really drop something on Maja as I have a sudden realisation. ‘Maja, you know we’re talking about songwriting yeah?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Well, I might just have a whole bunch of songs sitting on a computer, The computer’s broken. But the hard drive might just be retrievable.’ Maja sits up with a start. ‘And you’re only mentioning this to me now?’ ‘Er, yeah.’ She laughs in disbelief and says, ‘OK. First thing tomorrow, we’re going into town and seeing if we can get that sorted out.’ If we could, that really would give us a hyperboost. I have no idea how many songs are on there but it’s a lot. We could use them whole, we could adapt them, we could use the musical ideas with lyrics we’ve written since we’ve been together. And that’s a lot of lyrics. Incidentally, this is the computer that I actually discovered was broken while chatting to Maja one time and I said I would just go and start it up and get up some files she was asking about. That was when I discovered it wouldn’t start, and it still hasn’t since.

Day 66

Monday April 26

A trip down into Londontown to see if the files can indeed be retrieved. We find the right kind of shop, the guy has a look at it, and says that yes, this can indeed be done. Brilliant.

Day 68

Wednesday April 28

A call to the computer shop and we discover that the guys have been able to rescue the computer files. They’re still in the process of it though, so we won’t be able to pick them up until tomorrow. That’s absolutely fine. And wonderful news.

Day 69

Thursday April 29

This is the day as we head back into town and pick up the rescued disc containing the songs. This will be a fun project to get on and listen to when we get back.

Before we headed out, we received a call from the hospital that we’ve been confirmed for screening for the trial. This is where they check to see if you’re healthy enough. We’re seeing that as a formality so while we’re out we go shopping for toiletry and other supplies to see us through the two weeks of the trial. 

Day 70

Friday April 30

Mark:

The hospital thing for the trial screening is a bit of a trek, being in the middle of industrial far north London, up past Wembley stadium and a little way off any bus routes, but I’ve done this many times before and so am familiar with how to get there; as well as having come here for the two previous trials, both also included a number of follow-up visits after completion of the actual in-patient part. The beauty of this new trial is that there is only one follow up visit, so it’s two weeks and a bit, then one follow-up week or so later, then all done.

We get there and meet our friendly contact who is delighted to see we’ve made it, then it’s on for the formalities of the checks. For a start, by definition I’ve already been through this process twice, and Maja’s been able to answer yes to all the questions. They just have to make sure of it all then we’re on our way. They split us up into two rooms and we go through the tests. Heart rate, blood pressure, blood samples and a bunch of other stuff. Then I’m told Maja’s all done and I have to wait a while. I wait a long while. As does Maja, and I’m allowed to go and visit her and let her know I have some kind of hold up. What it is, we have no idea. So I go and wait back in my little medical booth. I’m a little alarmed when a doctor different to the one who’s been checking me out comes in and she looks a little serious. She informs me they’ve found some kind of heart defect in my results and I won’t be able to take part in the trial. What now? She pulls out the charts and goes through them with me. Apparently some electrical charge, or period between electrical charges in my heart are too close together. She says that in some people, this can actually be part of their normal heart function and nothing to worry about, but if it’s a new development it could be an issue. Something like that. She says she suspects it’s part of my normal make-up but they can’t be entirely sure and, until they are, I can’t proceed any further. That’s a bit of a balls. It’s suggested that, regardless of trial, I get on this, and we’re also left to decide what to do if I can’t, which means does Maja do it on her own. We’ve already decided it’s both of us or neither of us so are quite clear on that. They also show us some other trials we could do if we miss out on this one, but we’re also clear that we’re kinda on a deadline here and have plans to move to Ireland so again, it’s this trial or none of them. And this isn’t being churlish or missing out on a payday for the sake of it. None of the others coming up pay anything like this one, and the ones that are any decent are spread out over a much longer time frame. No. This is the only one that suits. We talk about this on the way home and while there is the possibility that we could also wait for the next consort group of this particular trial as it moves to its next stage, that’s simply too far off for us to wait around for so that doesn’t work either.

Oh well. We resolve to just see how all this plays out and, when we get home, forget all about it. Bars are of course open again, I’m no longer working in one so we have our evenings clear now, and we have options. With that we head out on what we realise is going to be our first actual date. We’re going to Rosella’s right across the road, run by my good friend Luca. Cheers. 

This really is a quite wonderful restaurant and, unbidden and unpaid by anyone, I’m going to chuck out their website to you. https://rossella.co.uk/ If you ever find yourself in London, or in the vicinity of Kentish Town in general and fancy something Italian, pop in and, if you see him, please tell Luca Mark and Maja sent you.

Now at the end of this entry, I’m going to say all is good with the heart/electrical anomaly thing. I don’t think it would be appropriate to treat such a potentially serious situation as cliffhanger material so I’ll just say here that over the next few days I do get it checked out and it comes back that this is indeed normal for me, so not something to worry about. However, totally understandably, after a few back and forth emails, the hospital says that with apologies, although they were happy to take me before, they’ve decided they still can’t take me on this one as the side effects of the trialed drug are unknown and they are reluctant to take someone with any kind of discrepancy like this. Fair enough and nothing to be done. But that is a massive chunk of money we’re having to say goodbye to.

Day 71

Saturday May 1

I’ve known this for a while but it only really hits me today when I get up sometime before 6am already itching to write. As I start to get down to it, I suddenly realise I potentially have the best job in the world and am setting out to do everything I ever wanted to do. Well really, I’m already doing it and am doing it right now. As a professional journalist, my main strength, the thing I loved doing most and the thing I was quite fortunate to do a fair amount of, was what I called experience writing. That is to go out, experience something and write about it. Beyond and above that, my biggest thing is music. But then, as this whole Diary thing attests, I love to take my musical inspired events and write about them. Today, to fill in a few details from the beginning that I didn’t realise at the time were important, I’m suddenly looking back over what has and is turning out to be the best experience of my life and I’m getting to relive it all again as I write about it.I’m almost jumping about in the kitchen too much to actually be able to sit down and put words on the page. Excuse me. It’s time to get up and go have another jump.

Day 72

Sunday May 2

Wow. Just wow. Today for the first time we go and have a look at what the rescued hard drive has to give to us. I had an idea of what was there, but the sheer scope is even taking me by surprise. And Maja is ready to do all kinds of bad things to me. I’d told her I might just have a few songs lying about. What we discover here is something approaching a hundred songs with well over 50 fully complete and too many sets of lyrics to fully appreciate. But then as we look into it, there’s more. Files within files within files, each one giving up more songs, or more ideas. Choruses, concepts, more ideas, sketches. One file is an actual book I’d kinda forgotten I’d written, or at least forgotten I still had. This was for a book of poetry related to the art collection of a notable artist. We managed to get a book deal for this thing at the time but then the publisher went under, both me and the artist moved onto other projects while we were waiting for this to get picked up by someone else and the whole thing disappeared. Well now we have it as raw material for songwriting and it’s just one piece of treasure among all that we’ve unearthed in this unexpected cave.

We get down to listening and pull out at least 16 songs that could be goers, but by the time we even make it there, there’s still so much more to go through. Oh, Maja is not happy with me, forgetting about this and even very very nearly letting it all just slip away.

Day 74

Tuesday May 4

Just a wonderful wander around central London today and back by 8pm, going through my old songs again. Beer, chill, and a wonderful steak dinner at 11pm. 

Day 75

Wednesday May 5

Maja’s feeling good about her healing broken ankle and it seems we’re starting to look at the final strait in London, or at least we think we can start to think about the next step. We then have a hit of reality as Maja faces up to the wrist surgery she needs on the ganglion that’s been bothering her for so long. Physio hasn’t been helping, it’s only getting more painful, and surgery in Ireland won’t be an option. Not without paying for it. Which won’t be an option. Like so many other things we’ve had to deal with since February, we have no idea how this circle is going to be squared.

Day 78

Saturday May 8

This house searching isn’t exactly going as we expected. We’ve called and emailed quite a few houses all over the country. Because we’re not there and can’t see the places or meet the landlords, we’ve been offering two to three months’ deposit straight up to take a place sight unseen. No dice. So today we just go for it, call a house and offer six months right now. They still say they want to meet us. What the hell is going on? I even have a phone call or two where people are downright confrontational when I try to up the offer to three, and then four months, with one saying, ‘You won’t be getting round me like that now,’ like this is some kind of competition between me and him. I hang up immediately when he says that and turn to Maja saying, ‘I don’t care. I will not deal with a guy like that. No way is someone like that going to be our landlord. I do manage to get one person to give me some time beyond business and he explains to me that demand for houses in Ireland is far outstripping availability, especially in the countryside areas which is where we’re looking. He wishes us good luck but warns me that there are so many people in the running for every rental that comes on the market that it’s going to be tough, maybe even impossible if we’re trying to do it remotely. 

Oh dear. We really thought we could do a deal on the phone, get a house sorted, and then take our time and move there when we were ready. But no. This really isn’t going to be as straightforward as we thought.