Daniela came back to Birmingham in the car with me. The weather was still very unsettled. The wind made it particularly difficult to drive. We made it back to the venue in time for early soundcheck. I had a photo shoot for Allen & Heath, who supply the mixing consoles for my monitors. That out of the way, Daniela and I had dinner with Pete and his wife, Avril. It’s not often we get to spend a few minutes like this. Things are normally so hectic backstage. Tonight my guests were: the managing director of Premier, John James, and his family, and my motor racing team manager, Iain Rowley, and my team mate, Nicholas Pearce. He brought another driver, Steve Nicholls (who works as a designer for the the McLaren Formula 1 Racing team) along with him. They visited me backstage before the concert. I missed the last 4 races of the season, due to the tour starting , so this was an ideal opportunity to catch up. It turns out Nick Pearce won his class in both Formula 4 and the URS FF2000 series, and won the Derek Bell Trophy i its inaugural year, as well as winning the German Open series – basically everything he entered, he won!  A tremendously gifted driver. We actually went to school together for years, and he still lives in the same house he grew up in: just round the corner from my house (which just happens to be just round the corner from the house I lived in when I was a kid!!). The gig crept up on me too quickly tonight. My neck is really starting to affect me adversely. I have lost virtually all sensation in the last two fingers of my left hand… so drumming was a lot of guesswork this evening. I hate that. I’ve tried calling the chiropractor, but he is fully booked up for days. Dammit. I managed to get to the end of the gig, though. I can’t say I enjoyed it much. The drive home was cold and windy – avoided most of the snow, though. The outside temperature was barely above freezing all the way back.