Day 82
Friday November 18
We decided right at the beginning we weren’t going to write a day by day account of this next thing, but now it’s concluded, we can at least finally let you in on what’s been going on. October 20 was when we realised we would have to move onto the next stage of this thing, something we’d known was possible right from the start. That next stage being Maja re-entering the workforce so that we can keep this thing going. We wrote about this way back in the summer of 2021, revealing that Maja was and is a cloud engineer, a very highly sought and well paid profession. Well now she’s returning to allow us the possibility of continuing. But really, before things got real a few weeks ago, she had already said to me casually, one day while swimming in the local pool, ‘Would you like to move somewhere like New York or London? Maybe even Tokyo?’ We actually started mulling over the possibilities there and then while swimming laps. It’s actually happening now. After a long four week period of applications and interviews, today an offer was accepted and agreed and the job starts in London in January. So that’s it. We’re moving to London. Maybe even as early as next month.
The past few weeks, everything has been on hold as Maja has been preparing and attending online interviews. Now that process is complete, we now start looking for an apartment in London and getting this whole place packed up. How all this is going to happen, we have no idea just yet, but it is going to happen.
Everything on hold means all album production ceased, along with hustling gigs pretty much. This was why we were kind of relieved actually when the we arrived at The Canal Turn for the first time and discovered the mix up of dates. We’d managed no rehearsal and weren’t entirely sure how on our game we would have been. Having it replaced for the following week allowed us to get on it again and ensure we were able to put in the performance we did.
So we know we’re going to London, but for a while there were very real possibilities of a few other cities. Tokyo dropped in for a while, as did Amsterdam. New York was never a fully viability due to Visa requirements. But there was also the possibility of a remote position, meaning we could have stayed right where we were, although if that had happened, sometime next year we still would have probably aimed at a London move.
London’s a huge place, so you might be wondering just where specifically. Shoreditch. We’d already decided that if we were to move to London we wanted to live in Shoreditch, one of my absolute favourite areas of the city. Along with Camden, it’s the creative capital of the capital. Full of one-off shops and the coolest venues with so many of them open to original music. And, being so central and well served by all kinds of public transport, it’s very well connected to all the other music scenes around the city. Plenty of other cities, and indeed London areas, may have their own cases to make, but I would say that Shoreditch is the best place in London to be if you’re a songwriting act. Which would make it the best place in the UK. And if London is the best place in the world to be doing this, which many – myself included – believe it is, then that makes Shoreditch the single best place in the world for The Diaries to be.
It’s totally central and somewhere I actually fantastised about living in from time to time when I used to live in London. It seemed an unattainable location actually. So Maja was looking at maybe working somewhere in Soho, or maybe the financial district, which is just down the road from Shoreditch, with Soho being a little further away but still a perfectly comfortable commute.
While going through the process, one day Maja began musing about where the UK’s equivalent of Silicon Valley could be. I had no idea. I’d never had cause to think about it really.
So we looked into it. Do you want to guess where we discovered it was? I’m sure you have. Yep. Shoreditch. The roundabout next to Old Street tube station, which I’ve always looked upon with such fascination, even has a nickname. Silicon Roundabout.
What was that I was saying about Shoreditch being the best place in the world for The Diaries to be? Tomorrow the apartment hunt begins. And right now you really can guess where we’re looking to move to.
Day 85
Monday November 21
It’s starting. The plan is to drive to London with a full car load. The rest of everything we have will be put in storage in Dublin, and then a removal company/person will take that to the apartment in London that we don’t have yet.
But first we have to make sure that what we’re planning on taking with us can actually go with us. So today the car is brought into our back garden, then we identify the essentials and pack the car to make sure it does actually all fit. It does. We’re on. Right. Time to get boxes and get this whole house packed up and ready to go.
Day 90
Saturday November 26
Maja realises that, with Christmas happening with my family, if she wants to visit her family in any near future, it has to be now. Within minutes of that, she’s booked a flight leaving this Monday and returning Sunday December 11.
Day 92
Monday November 28
So that’s Maja off to Sweden and me on my own for a little while.
I think I’m going to get into quite a lot of things, including songwriting, some album recording – mostly drums and bass – and Diary catchup. But the day after she leaves I get sick and have basically have the first week wiped out. Once recovered, I get into songwriting, completing Without A Gloria, Talk About The Weather, and The Beanie Shop. We also have a song in this batch called Moving To London which I get a good look at as well.
And yes, during this time I do what I can about packing and preparing, but there is an awful lot we will have to do and decide together. And of course, I have no idea what Maja wants to do with her own stuff with regards to taking, storing or taking to our favourite charity shop. So I can’t do anything about that at all. But I’m satisfied that, by the time she gets back, I’ve done everything I can during her Sweden break.
Oh, and that charity shop. For local knowledge, it’s across the road from the Mace petrol station and has become one of our favourite places in Clara. Run by volunteers, including Lisa who becomes a very good friend of ours, it’s a wonderful shop and something of a drop-in place for a chat and a cup of tea. I want to name a few more names, but I know I’ll miss people out so I’ll leave it at Lisa who becomes our best friend there and a big supporter of The Diaries.
Day 105
Sunday December 11
Maja’s back from Sweden which means if we start tomorrow, we have exactly one week and a day to pack everything we have and leave the place as we found it when we first moved in. This will be a big planning job as we decide what we want to take, what to throw away, and what to give to the charity shop.
Taking our stuff to the storage unit in Dublin will ultimately take four trips, and we end up taking three carloads to the nearby rubbish/recycling centre. The amount of stuff you accumulate in a little over a year and a half. And we consider ourselves streamlined and definitely not hoarders.
Day 109
Thursday Dec 15
A visit to Tullamore just because, and we take ourselves to our favourite coffee shop, The Riverside Cafe. We first came here in our first two weeks in Clara just as such places were allowed to open, but only for outside consumption. We heard the story then of how it was a fledgling business with a big heart. Well, it’s still here and we’ve continued to come from time to time. We have a chat with the manager today and tell him we’re leaving Ireland next week so this will probably be our last visit. We give him a card, and with that, he goes behind the counter and comes back with a present for us. A wonderful bag of Coffee Perfection coffee bags. This is a family run coffee company from County Meath. What a lovely gift and something to remember this fantastic cafe by. Thankyou Tullamore. We’ve loved our regular visits here. But I’m not best pleased at myself for neglecting to get the manager’s name. But thankyou to you too.
Day 110
Friday December 16
The ladies at the charity shop are well aware of our shows having seen various videos. They’ve often asked when we were going to play locally, but as you know, we generally do the Now Hustle so have no idea when or where until the day or even the minute. So we promised to do a show for them one day. It’s not been so easy to get calendars to match, we understand, so today as we’re out and about we decide to just go in and offer to play for them today. We go in and it’s Lisa and her friend Rosie looking after the shop. Of course we want to play for everyone and anyone, but we really wanted Lisa to get the chance to see us, and now here we are. She’s delighted to see us and to that we’ve said we’re going to play but the shop has to close in the next hour or so and then that’s it for Christmas. Oh wow. We’ve only just caught them in the shop’s very last hour of the year. OK. We’re on it. We make a quick dash home to get the guitar and return as soon as we can. Now it’s on and among all the racks of clothes and toys and general charity shop bric a brac we do our thing with Lisa and Rosie joyfully bouncing along. It really is one of the most fun songs we’ve ever done. Just the four of us in here, but vibe is almost blowing through the walls. We play four or five songs before finishing with Beanie Love. This has been a very impromptu set which we’ve made up as we’ve gone along and this particular song has been last by accident really. But they go crazy for it, telling us that’s our show stopper, encore, show closer, everything. Wow. OK. You kind of have a feeling a song is good, and have faith in what you do, or at least try to, and we’ve felt good about this song from the beginning. But to get such emphatic feedback is amazing. We’ve given them I Like You (Better When You’re Naked) How You Rock’n’Roll, Six Sense Lover, Rock’n’Roll Tree and The Cat, and they’ve chosen Beanie Love as their favourite out of the lot of them. You really know nothing about your own songs most of the time. You often find out where the best ones are by listening to your audience.
Thankyou very much ladies. We really have got just under the wire here as they are getting called away and have to close the shop, almost as the last notes of Beanie Love are still reverberating around these four small walls.
Tears are shed as we hug and say our goodbyes before walking back home down the road, ecstatic at the show we’ve just done and the sheer fact we were able to do it. We truly didn’t want to leave Clara without Lisa having seen us play. We also can’t believe the sheer last minuteness of it. And this show might only have been for just two people in an empty charity shop, but oh it felt epic.
Of course, anyone who’s ever moved house knows that however long you think anything is going to take, or however much you think you have to do, multiply it by five or maybe even ten and you might, just might, be half way there in your estimation. And oh is there a lot a lot a lot to do. Just overwhelming at times, but keep going. One foot in front of the other. One car load after another. One box packed after another. It’s pretty much the same with recording actually. As I’ve often said, approach any day in a studio and you’re like, oh today we’re going to get that, that and that done, and maybe some of that and that. If you’re lucky, you might be there till midnight and get half of one of the thats done. So it is here. Which means we feel like we have hardly any time to do anything at all outside of what we’re doing to get all this done in the first place. Which explains why the charity shop show, that was so important to us, only just made it under the tightest of wires. And why we feel up against it to even think about playing a last goodbye show in The Trap. But it would just be wrong not to. And of course we want to hang out in there a little and have a drink or two with so many of the people who’ve been with us since the beginning, were at our very first show, and have become friends and simply part of our community, or rather, we’ve become, or at least tried to become, part of theirs.
With that in mind, we head off into The Trap for a Friday night out. During general mingling we chat to Jimmy, one of the bosses. Somehow he hasn’t heard that we’re leaving but we’re actually glad about that as it means we’ve told him ourselves. But it’s still mad to see the way his face falls when we do so. ‘You’re going to have to play here before you go,’ is his immediate reaction. Fantastic. Exactly what we were thinking. This is also a good place in which to tell you what our actual leaving plans are.
We have an 8:30am ferry on Wednesday from Dublin which means we want to be on the road by 5:30am at the latest to absolutely ensure we arrive by 7:30. We’re banking on having a few last minute things to do that morning, maybe bits and pieces we can’t do until the last minute, including a few checklist things our landlord has asked us to be in place to ensure easy takeover. So we’re planning on being up by 4am to give ourselves an hour and a half in the ‘morning.’ Which essentially means that although we’re technically leaving Wednesday morning, we’re really leaving very late Tuesday night. All this is to say that a night out Tuesday is out of the question. And with The Trap having music Saturday and Sunday, the only available night to have a last show is Monday. And that’s exactly what we settle on.
Apart from telling Jimmy, a few other people hear the news for the first time tonight, while there are other people who already know and come to say hello, have a chat and generally say nice things about what we’ve achieved in our time here, from playing our very first show in The Trap to the two European tours to our continuing travels playing around Ireland. All from scratch and all from our base in our house in Clara which we used to do exactly all of this.
The overriding sentiment is that we’ve made a big impact on the local community, that we really have been taken into the hearts of so many people here, and that we will very much be missed and people are very sorry to see us go. One person tells us that we actually can’t leave, going on to almost asking us not to. Then, for us, there’s a huge moment when someone else tells us we enhanced Clara. Oh damn. Enhanced Clara. I can’t think of a bigger compliment and that one just about floors us.
And there are a couple of friends who’ve begun their own songwriting efforts which we like to think we’ve inspired. During the evening, they ask if we would mind if they covered I Like You (Better When You’re Naked). Oh wow. Lads, of course not. Go for it. It’s an honour to be asked and we look forward to hearing it.
When we first arrived and first started thinking about playing live, we discussed at some length where we would play and if we would even think about playing locally. The thought being we might want to keep this kind of to ourselves as far as the local community was concerned, and maybe there was a little feeling that if we didn’t go down well, then that could impact our experience here. Can you imagine getting to know people, making friends and then getting booed out of your first show? I really did feel quite trepidatious going into that first one. Indeed, one guy said if we weren’t good he’d throw things at us – said in jest, but really… And another person, who we’d come to get on very well with said they couldn’t hang around after we started. That person stayed till the end, said I Like You (Better When You’re Naked) was the best song she’d heard in years, and became a firm supporter of ours. So yeah, I really felt there was a hell of a lot riding on that first show. I don’t think Maja felt quite the same and indeed, she really didn’t have any nerves about it at all which blew me away quite frankly. And as that particular evening went on, it became clear these were not words of bravado, but a statement of matter of fact. Conversely, in our first conversations about whether or not we should play around here, right down to where we would like our first show to be, there was an underlying arrogance, or at least confidence. No. Arrogance. And it was me who voiced it. I thought it was important our first show was in Clara and that people here knew what we were doing and that we would be seen to do it. I had the idea that Clara could develop a sense of ownership of us. That this was where we started. That, in some kind of sense, the people of Clara could grow to feel some kind of ownership of us, or at least feel a part of our story, and if that was to be the case, there was an importance that this had to be where it all began. Not just from living, writing and working here, but also to be the place where we first ventured out into the (spot)light. And so we did. And here we are, last show in Ireland booked, in the same place we played our first show anywhere. The Trap. As we hear the thoughts of people who have become our friends and supporters, people who we are going to play for again on Monday, our last night out in Ireland, at least for now, it’s clear that everything we said to ourselves at the beginning, with breathtaking arrogance to be fair, has come to be. This is the birthplace of The Diaries and we have also very much made it our home. There can be no doubt. Clara totally has a place in our hearts and we know we will miss it very much.
Day 113
Monday December 19
The night of our last show in Ireland – for now. And as you know, it’s the same venue we played our very first show in just over a year ago on November 5 – The Trap. You can read about that particular show in The Tour Diaries Prologue.
Just as the contrast between where we are now and where were were that day is enormous, so it is between tonight’s show and the last one we played. In The Canal Turn, we were facing a sceptical crowd that we really had to win over. Here, they are on our side as soon as we enter. If anything, they’ve been waiting for us and a cheer goes up as we walk in the door. They even know a lot of our songs. This is a home fixture. But more. A goodbye home fixture.
It’s possible we’ve never had so much expectation. Laksmi, Berlin maybe. And the return to Peadars in Moate was also a bit special to be fair. But The Trap. That’s different altogether. You might think that would allow us to relax a little. Of course it’s nice to walk into a place and people know what you’re about, but relax? Not at all. You simply can’t be complacent. If anything, you have to go for a show like this even more; unlike any other show we’ve ever done, tonight I’m feeling the tingle of responsibility that I don’t want to let down. More than anywhere else right now, this is our crowd and we really truly have to give them what they came for. Oh, that’s another thing. As you know by now, our general model is to essentially ambush. There’s none of that tonight. This time, people are ready and waiting for us. And they expect. We have to deliver.
We really wanted to get into The Trap at some point in the weekend for our last weekend in Clara and we did that on Friday. As for the rest of the weekend, we were just so busy packing and organising with the clock very much ticking against us. Oh, there’s been so so much to do and there still is. It just feels never ending. But tonight we get a bit of a respite as we head across to The Trap again to play our last show at what will definitively be our last night in the bar.
I wrote a blow by blow account of our last show at The Canal Turn so I won’t recount a full show again, but what I will say is that the turnout does us proud and that we hear so many comments that are so heartfelt that I really don’t want to put them in here. But what comes across from everyone we talk to tonight, before and after the show, is how much they love that we just put ourselves out there. That we include the audience. That we don’t just stay on the stage, that we move around the venue and take the show to the people. We also hear that our presence has been positively felt about the place, in here and out and about. And of course it’s great to see that the songs do indeed hit home as we play them in here for the last time. And yes, when it comes to the two song encore, we do indeed finish with I Like You (Better When You’re Naked), a song who’s very popularity, it feels, was born in The Trap.
As we come to our last few songs, off duty bar staff Adam and Amy, who’ve wonderfully come out tonight to see us, approach us in a rare moment when we’re both on stage, and present us with two amazing bouquets of roses. At this, the whole place erupts in a spontaneous applause which becomes the longest sustained applause we’ve ever had. I can’t speak for Maja here, but I feel, in that moment, that they’re not just clapping tonight’s performance. They’re clapping for us, The Diaries, for everything we’ve done to get to this point. And maybe, clapping for all of the performances we’ve done in here with The Trap being the place we’ve played more than any other; tonight is our seventh live appearance in here. And it’s the first place we ever played, which by extension makes it the first place we played in Ireland, and it now becomes our last show in Ireland.
With that – maybe it’s people seeing their last chance – as we finish, there’s a clamour for autographs on our very own Diaries beer mats. So much so that, as Maja sets herself up at a table to be able to write on them, a queue forms. An actual queue. For autographs of The Diaries.
It should be mentioned, mostly as a silent thankyou to the people who came out for us tonight, that we don’t do the hat for this show. But bar owner Angela is totally on hand for us with free drinks, and our friends here help keep us topped up after that as well so that’s still a result.
During this aftershow glow, people insist we return someday, and we fully and truly agree. Now we have a wonderful wonderful post show mingle around so many of these people who have become our friends. However, there are still some we’ve been on nodding acquaintance with for a while but have never really spoken to properly. That changes tonight in quite a few cases.
When the time comes for us to leave, we do so with the applause of Clara ringing in our ears and accompanying us out into the night.
Oh, we are going to miss this place.
We moved here in May 2021 and so have been here just over a year and a half. It has course been covered in The Diaries, but it’s worth mentioning again here that the total catalyst for the move was Brexit; once me and Maja had become an item and saw a future for ourselves, we knew that Maja couldn’t stay and work in the UK and I couldn’t move to Europe and live and work there. So we needed a solution. That’s where Ireland came in; it was in the EU so Maja was OK there, and owing to its border with the UK’s Northern Ireland, a Common Travel Area was created meaning I was OK there as well. Once that was decided, we then further decided to make the most of the move, seeing it as an opportunity to find a detached house – in a countryside area we thought, because this would make it the most cost effective solution. The idea then was to use that house as a base to write songs and have a place to rehearse and record any time day or night, a concept that would have been financially far out of reach in London.
As you know, that’s exactly what we did. We had different ideas of what would happen next, one of the possibilities being to keep the house in Clara and use it as a base to return from European and world touring. Then the London move and opportunity came up, and here we are.
Clara, and all at the Trap, thankyou very much.
Day 114
Tuesday December 20
Our last day in Ireland. And our last day of packing, organising and cleaning. It feels like we’ve been doing this forever and there’s still a ridiculous amount to do. It doesn’t feel like we can get it all done today, but we have to. Tonight we leave. Well, actually tomorrow, but as we’ve been saying and thinking, we’re going to be up at 4am, planning to actually leave by 5:30am so that really counts as Tuesday night.
After last night’s amazingness, I’m up at 8am and on it straight away, although yes, there is a mid morning break and slump before we’re up and properly at it again. The flowers we received from Adam and Amy last night are on proud display and we even manage to get a few photos of the flowers in different parts of the house.
When we started this process, we really thought we’d get more or less finished with a day or two then left to chill. Oh how funny that is. We haven’t even managed a buffer day. Instead, we’ve feel up against deadline the whole time and we don’t even get a respite from that today as the job just goes on and on and on. Finally finally finally, as 2am rolls round, two hours before we have to get up again, we declare ourselves totally fully, truly done. We even have the car packed. Now there are just those very last minute of last minute things to do that can’t be done until we’re ready to go. Which is why we’re up an hour and a half before we have to leave. Which means we get to go to bed for a full two hours. A little more than a nap. I don’t even manage that much. I don’t sleep at all. Then the alarm goes at 4am and we’re up and on it again. Time to finish up and leave. This is it.
Day 115
Wednesday December 21
It actually feels really unsettling when we truly finish everything. By 5:30am as planned, Maja’s waiting in the car, which is already started, and I close the door. For the first time ever we don’t have the keys to get back in again. This really is it. We’re out of the house and it’s no longer ours. We’re locked out. Time to move forwards. Time to move to London.
I walk away, get in the car, and we’re off. Goodbye Clara.
We arrive at Dublin’s ferry terminal around 7, then we’re onto the ferry at 8. We’ve been on the go for exactly 24 hours.
Although this is only a short crossing to Wales, we still booked a cabin. Mostly because Maja still has a long drive on the other side and we kinda had a feeling that the day before this would be a big one. Here we are and with the 2am finish, it’s all played out even more extreme than expected. We really need to sleep now and we need to sleep properly. Oh wow, the bed feels incredible and the sleep is instant and truly glorious. We then wake around 11am, not long before arriving in Wales and have a shower which feels like just the most ridiculous level of luxury. Oh wow we are now ready to be on our way again. And although it’s full on daylight and midday, we’ve really done little more than nap, so it still feels like we’re in Tuesday.
We’re expecting a drive of around five hours but our GPS takes us very much on the scenic route, during which time we suddenly find ourselves driving through the village of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. Well, it has a Co-Op, so that will do for a nice pitstop. And yes, the name of the village is on its frontage.
Now, I always thought Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch was the longest place name in the world. I’ve just discovered it isn’t. To get the name of this place – I copied it off the net. Of course I didn’t look it up and type it, or even more ridiculous, remember it. But no. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch isn’t the longest place name in the world. That belongs to Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu.
Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu, I’ve just discovered, and I might just have inadvertently copied and pasted this next bit, is a hill near the town of Porangahau, south of Waipukurau in southern Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand. But if no-one lives there – and no I haven’t bothered checking – that means that Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu is simply the name of a hill, while Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is the name of an actual village where actual people actually live. So by that reasoning, could it possibly be claimed that Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is indeed the longest place name in the world and not Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu?
Of course I have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about.
Maja:
And neither have I. I just thought it was really fun to take a selfie in front of Co-Op in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.
