My Hands Are On The Wheel (Almost)

It's the final countdown

Hello Dear Reader

Allow me to tell you a story.

The parents among you will know, or vaguely remember depending on the age of your kids, about that mystical thing the midwives told you about: The Birthplan. They tell you about it and you lap it up, because you are a foolish child and do not realise you are being trolled. You cherish this Birthplan and have it printed on the finest vellum parchment paper, and carefully place it in your hospital bag along with the CD of whale song you have ordered from a doula called Rainbow, somewhere in the Mojave desert.

Then you find yourself giving birth much sooner than you had planned, because children are annoying like that, and there is no birthplan and there is definitely no whale song. There are only the cold, stark hospital theatre lights and Chris Evans maniacally speeding along the airwaves at an obscenely early hour of the morning and your child is born to The Final Countdown by Europe while the surgeon and the anaesthetist discuss Manchester United’s prospects this coming football season.

You did not ask me why whenever I hear the words the final countdown I have to cross my legs very tightly for a bit but I told you anyway. Because there are only three days until the start of the Fires tour and my hands are about to take the wheel and see you in Bristol, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Manchester. (But not Idaho - I know, I know. One day... )

The start of this year has been quiet, but in a good, productive way. I’ve been working on my book and also painting as a way to distract myself from the world out there. I should imagine with the current state of things, I’ll be writing and painting an awful lot more once I’m back from the shows.

These two, Idaho and Damascus will be available for sale from my webstore soon - both the originals and a limited run of fine art prints.

But for now, I’m putting my brushes down, closing the laptop and picking up my guitar to go through Halfway Home a few more times and getting quietly excited to play these little songs for you in coming days.

See you any day now…

With love as ever,

Nerina xxx