ICS in BOlivia: the run up to departure

I had five leaving do´s: 

1. Sunday 4th at the Blue Bell open mic in Conwy. Absolutely cracking as ever, and many of my North Wales friends came. My guitar was out of tune and the electrics were faulty, but nevertheless, the house band and I gave the audience a little bit of a latin-flavoured pop-rock dance party (Manu Chao, La Bamba, Livin´ La Vida Loca etc).

2. Wednesday, Sessiwn Fach at the Ealges, Penmachno. Great fun as ever, with great people.  
The good people behind the Blue Bell, Eagles and Cross Keys open mics all helped me with my fundraising, thank you to all of you, organisers and punters!

3. I set off early on Thursday morning with a big suitcase, medium backpack and guitar, to catch the train to Birmingham (I cheated slightly and got a lift to Junction with my Dad). There, I saw more wonderful friends and we had lunch in a social enterprise vegetarian cafe, the Warehouse Cafe. My brther-from-another-mother Mr G came down from Sheffield too. After lunch, went into a cathedral and then to explore the amazing new library, designed by the Dutch architect Francine Houben (and an excellent team of course). It was really wonderful. My friends and I had loads of exciting ideas about starting social enterprises, hippie/artist world changing commune/organisations/bands....its all a bit messy and unclear in my head to be honest, but I´m going to do it somehow! Birmingham is well and truly on the list of possible places to live after coming back from Bolivia.

4. In the evening I went to see my brother and relatives in Hemel Hempstead. On Friday, my brother and I went to London and met Paul and his sister in Elephant & Castle (you know him, he  co-writes and co-fronts the band Timestealers with me). We played music and entertained some people who were having a party in one of the bars in Artworks UK (a kind of artsy retail place for independant businesses made out of shipping containers, its our new London hang-out). 
         There are a lot of neat conicidences in my life (I guess there are in everyone´s). Thas night, I added one to my theoretical book of coincicences:
The party-goers were mostly doing the "National Citizen Service" which is related to the scheme I´m doing. One of their team leaders had previously been a team leader for International Citizen Service in Bolivia, working with exactly the same charity as me!

5. Rather last minute, I had arranged to meet up with my friends in Madrid. I met them in terminal 1 and we played guitar, sang, danced and chatted. It was a lovely end to a great week. Madrid went on my list of places to go after Bolivia.