I can't believe how well it went. Gabi is a genius for discovering that the perspex for the frames that I had thought was of such bad quality was, in fact, covered with protective film, and once that was peeled off they looked great. It took four hours to frame them and put them all up. I exercised muscles that I did not even know I possessed, but I think it was worth it in the end.
They had borrowed a Telecaster for me and John took me to the music shop to get some fresh strings, so I could re-string it. Once that was done it sounded lovely and sparkly and I could rehearse the songs for the Friday night. On Wednesday Israel came to interview me for his podcast, and the rest of the time I wandered around like a complete tourist, or flaneuse, as I prefer to describe myself.
I'd thought that there would be about 3 people at the show but there were ten times that amount and apart from a couple of songs where my fingers turned to unco-operative twigs because of the air conditioning ( the stage light thawed them out and I played the songs later in the set), and some of the usual lyric-forgetting in a couple of songs, I played for an hour that included some fantastic singing from the audience and a dancing toddler at the back (no swearing from me!). I had some great chats afterwards with people, including a couple from Finland, which was quite a coincidence because I can count in Finnish and had been planning to count in one of the songs in Finnish just for a lark (I forgot).
I'm back from Valencia now, with warm bones, a warm heart, and a feeling that there was something very challenging, then healing about the process. I love Spain: I want to go back!
Photos: Gabi, Israel and me
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