Sarah McQuaid: Tour Diary

Waking up on Friday morning, I heard rain hammering down outside, but by the time we were ready to head out for breakfast the sun was already starting to come out. We found a cafe with free wifi, ordered coffee and blueberry bagels with cream cheese, and caught up on a few emails.

Back at the carriage house, we loaded our bags into the car and loaded up some Bobbie Gentry on Martin’s iPod, then went off in search of FAME studios in Muscle Shoals, where Gentry recorded “Ode To Billie Joe” (something I’d found out only after I sang it during the previous night’s concert).

On the way there, we made yet another stop at the ever-essential Walgreen’s, this time for boxes of Ferrero Rocher (”Ambassador, you are spoiling us!”) to give as presents to our hosts in Tuscaloosa and Nashville, as well as bottles of water for the road. Martin waxed nostalgic about his youth in Plymouth, when a posh do meant Ferrero Rocher, vol-au-vents and Black Tower plonk. Fondue, anyone?

The legendary studio was a fairly nondescript brown building located beside a busy intersection, but hey, it was a photo op and we made the most of it. Alas, I didn’t get a pic of the far more picturesque Stagger Lee’s Lounge, which we passed on our way out of town.

The drive that followed was more than twice as long as it needed to be, thanks to TomTom’s inordinate affection for interstate motorways -- in future I’ll make sure to always check the map of the route before setting off. A lesson you’d think I’d have learned well before now, but better late than never.

I felt especially bad about my failure to second-guess the machine as by this time Martin had apparently picked up a low-grade version of the tummy bug I’d had earlier in the week. The poor fellow was feeling ropy in the extreme and our pit stops increased in frequency and urgency as the journey dragged on.

When we eventually arrived at Jil Chambless and Dan Vogt’s house, their teenage children welcomed us with chicken salad sandwiches, and then Martin took himself off to bed.

I had a long chat on Skype with Feargal, who told me that Classic Bike magazine had agreed to buy his 15-year-old Honda VFR as a restoration project for its Practical Classics imprint -- for the pitiful sum of £80, which is all it’s worth, as it’s been slowly crumbling to pieces (rather like my tooth) outside our house while we tried to save up enough money to have it repaired. “Another little piece of my soul stripped away,” he said sadly.

Later, when Martin emerged from his sickbed to eat a bowl of soup (here he is eating it, and you can see what a healthy bowl of soup it is), I told him what Feargal had said.

“Well,” said Martin, “if you ever have a hit single, you know what you have to do.” Yes, I do indeed. I have actually bought Feargal several bikes, but they were all about three inches high and made of moulded plastic. Someday I do hope to be able to afford to buy him a real one!

The concert was good fun, and I finally got to meet Rick Cunningham, who’s been a virtual friend for a long time. Here we are saying a virtual hello to our mutual friend Paul de Grae: