I can't get no sleep

I got through the door after my four day journey and wondered how I had got here.  It had seemed like another world away less than a week ago.  I had made it back to Blighty after being in another world in the mountains.  I was running on some kind of energy I didn't know I had.  When you know you have a big journey you put yourself into a different mindset and put your engine into overdrive.  When I got home at 6am in the morning I was still on this energy.  I spent a couple of hours taking a shaower, eating something and trying to adjust to being back in this familiar world.  By 12 I was heading out to go busking.

With no money and a debt for the ticket hanging over my head, I set off to Chester and tried to get used to busking again.  For the last 3 months Niz and I had not really played live, all energies were on mixing and recording.  It took a while to try and get back in the mindset.  It was slow going, but steady and I made a few quid but I was shaking as I was playing.  I was empty.  For nearly a week I hadn't slept lying down, hadn't slept at all really.  But there I was, trying to 'sing my heart out' on the streets.  After a few hours I headed back home.

The weather was so beautiful, a crisp, bright and green June day.  The sun here felt so fresh.  In the desert it was a hard dry sun, that sucked the life and energy out of everything.  Here, it brought out the life.  The birds were singing and darting from bush to bush, the green was glowing emerald and I could hear English being spoken all around me.  I breathed it all in and it felt good to be back and just wished Niz was with me to see England warm and sunny.

I was out busking each day for a week that I was back in England.  Trying to get enough money to pay back this ticket that my beautiful friend Dani had helped me buy.  I spoke to her on Skype and she tells me that a ticket has turned up for the legendary fusion festival with my name on it, as I am part of the crew.  I couldn't argue with fate and prepared myself to head to Berlin.  I had a studio job the next day and that would pay my flight over to Berlin and my lovely friend Anja said I could stay at hers the night I got there, so still without a good rest I take the plane to Berlin.

I get there and I always love the atmosphere you feel when you get there.  No troubles, just happy people about carrying a beer most of the time!  I take the train to Anjas in the South West arriving a bit late and ring the door bell.  No answer, I try again a couple of times and still nothing.  I sigh, and think about what to do.  I took the train to a place I thought I knew that had an internet cafe, I get there and it is a different place.  I walk up and down the ancient empty streets with no internet cafe's in sight.  Being now on the other side of town, with no more trams running I buy a couple of beers from the all night shop, put on all my shirts and an extra vest and curl up in a doorway trying to get some sleep.

The night before it had hail stoned, and the night was still bitter cold.  I had not bought a coat, just a jacket and lay there until 4 am shivering with my eyes closed and curled up.  Feeling groggy and so tired I walk to the metro station and see a train waiting.  I press the button on the door and it opens!  I walk into a warmth, find a seat, use my guitar as a pillow and sleep.  It was a circular line train, so it was just going round a circle round the centre of Berlin.  I stayed on it for 2 hours dozing, being woken by the people getting on and off as the city starts to come to life.  At 6.30 am I get off, I have about 8 euroes to my name and find a cheap grande coffee for 1.50.  I start to get myself in motion and find the place where the bus leaves at 10.10am for the fusion festival.

I get there and again sit, walk, eat a little and just kill 3 hours.  It's hard to kill time sometimes, but I am getting so used to it now.  My heart and mind were constantly on Nizha.  Our first night in Berlin together, we had slept on a park bench.  I felt so lost and lonely without her.  The energy I had been running on to get back to Europe was starting to ware off, and the heartache of being without my wife was eating away at me rapidly.

I loved travelling on my own previously, you are your own island, you are your own direction.  But as soon as I met Niz, I found my partner in everything.  Everything was better and more exciting with her.  The music, the travels, the people we meet.  We are such a great combo, and now feeling like I am back on my own was killing me.  It was like a giant step backwards.  With Niz, we move forward and push eachother to be stronger in everything.  Here I am on my own, after a night on the streets killing time and feeling like shit without her.


Download our album ‘Where The Days Have No Name’ full of harmony and love in every way.



Follow us on Soundcloud



Like us on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/deadseacaravan

And visit our digital HQ at www.deadseacaravan.com