Utrecht

Our ferry left Dover at far too early for comfort, but we had sandwiches and pizza made for us as we left. We'd spent the day before writing new material, intending to play a new song for the Europeans, but couldn't finish anything we liked enough to debut live. What we started, though, sounded exactly as we intended it to.

The venue had free tea and coffee and biscuits, and Brendan drank too many chocolate milks. We didn't have much soundcheck time, and felt under-rehearsed, but the Dutch crowd were welcoming and enthusiastic. I broke a string mid-set, and my amp made intrusive noises as i struggled to swap guitars quickly enough to continue with the song. We hardly made any mistakes, though, and everyone we spoke to seemed to really enjoy it.

Utrecht is a beautiful city, and its people some of the nicest we've met. A million thanks to Lucas, and Stefan for the great night out and beer recommendations, and to Gerben for the show (and, in fact, almost every Utrecht local that we said hello to or asked for directions from).

I'm writing on the autobahn; Brendan and Jack have their sketchbooks open, Olly is air-drumming to Jim O'Rourke, Daniel is studying, Simon is trying to dissuade his belly from throwing up a third time, John is smoking out of the window, I'm counting down the kilometres until I can leave this cramped van.

the Koln show is this evening, where the enjoy eternal bliss vinyl will finally catch up with us, hooray!