This might be the first Collins and Herring 6Music show that I have done without having had a gig the night before and I felt surprisingly chipper on my way in. It has been a punishing first quarter of the year and it's amazing that after a couple of nights without a gig I have a whole lot more energy.
I have been feeling a bit run down over the last couple of weeks and some aches and pains that are a bit unusual for me. In all likelihood I have probably pulled a muscle or two lugging programmes and buckets of money around, but I am going for a complete medical next week just to check I am OK. I have been blithely pushing myself onwards like I am still in my 20s or 30s, but I have to accept that I am not anymore and I have to look after myself a bit better and also realise that aches and pains and stiffness and numbness are going to become more prevalent. Thank goodness I have already had my mid-life crisis, but I still find it hard to accept I am the age I am and that I can't work such long hours, eating rubbish food and drinking beer without some kind of pay-off.
And if my body had felt rested after one day off, I was about to jolt it back into activity, because not only was I getting up at 7am to do a 3 hour radio show, but I was then doing a six hour round trip to Bridport to do a gig and wouldn't be home until 1am.
These Saturdays have been real killers over the last few weeks. But next week, (when I have to do the show and then drive to Whitby) will be the last one where things are quite so packed. There are only four more Hitler Moustaches to do now and they are spread out nicely and I am going to listen to my body's moaning and warnings and get back to the gym and the healthy living I had eighteen months ago.
Whilst I am confident I am OK it is good to be reminded of my own mortality - even though I don't actually believe I will ever not be here - and though the Bridport gig was fun and I had a lot more energy at the end than I had had at the beginning, the long, winding drive home was filled with thoughts of my non-existence.
It's very difficult to imagine not being. Even though we have all spent an infinity of time not being before we were born. It's pretty much impossible to contemplate a Universe where you are entirely absent. And when you get close to imagining that it is a chilling and frightening thought. It's not just darkness with your internal monologue saying "Oooh, it's a bit dark isn't it? Dum de dum de dum". It's darkness which you're not even in and can't perceive or comment upon.
Though if we're honest, we would probably agree that better to be totally absent than having to be suspended in darkness for the rest of all time (and beyond) thinking, "It's a bit dark."
Perhaps the fact that I was driving through dark A roads made this all the more pertinent - especially given that if I didn't keep my mind of the driving I might shoot off the road and discover that infinite, imperceptible blankness much sooner than expected.
I felt glad that next year I will have a tour manager to assist me and to drive me around. It was probably foolish to try and do this long tour almost entirely on my own (thank God my girlfriend was there to help out with the driving last weekend), but I am glad I have got through it (well almost) and it is a Herculean achievement. It is too much for one man. If I was younger I might be able to cope with the driving, but the loneliness would have driven me crazy. Now I am comfortable enough with my own company, but for the good of the show I need to have someone to help, so I can stay as fresh and alert as possible.
And alive.
It would be good to get another twenty years in before the darkness descends and I am not even there to witness it.
