Back home after 5047 km of driving in Denmark and Germany; twelve shows, a lot of new friends, catching up with some old friends. I saw a lot of beautiful country too, driving across the Hartz mountains several times, the Weser valley, the Rhine valley, across the Elbe several times, and all the way to the Oder on the Polish border. It was 28c when I started, but by the time I left Germany autumn had started to colour the oak and beech trees that lined the avenues and the wooded hills of Hesse.

Thanks to everybody that came out for the concerts, to the promoters and the friends, all of whom showed me very generous hospitality.

Something I noticed on this tour was that more and more people are starting up private venues in old barns. Sometimes the best shows were in the places that had the least population. It turns out that a lot of places have the claim to be ‘the middle of nowhere’. In one such venue, the old dance hall in Mitlechtern, it was known that I had a birthday and a nice lady presented me with a cake on stage, complete with fireworks. However, her mother saw that and decided the cake was not good enough so she went into her kitchen and by the end of the set, had baked me a much bigger one; chocolate with fresh pears if I remember rightly. My friend Ulf came on stage and played bodhran on a few songs. It was a great way to spend a birthday.

Another great privilege during this kind of touring is the opportunity to talk to many different people and hear how things are in Europe these days. This doesn’t happen so much in a band, but when I am touring solo I meet more people and that is something I appreciate very much.

On this tour I played songs from all my albums, mostly from the new one ‘Even For A Shadow’ but I varied the set too and enjoyed revisiting some old songs I had not played for a long time.

Back home for a few weeks now before starting the UK tour. This tour is looking very good and very soon I will be doing it all again.