Another example of being in the right place at the right time was my getting booked for the UK dates of Showtime Australia‘s Whitney Houston tribute tour The Greatest Love of All (with, for the UK leg only, 8 strings and 4 brass as well as the 6-piece core band, backing dancers, touring sound and light crew and, because it’s better in many ways than picking up everyone’s restaurant receipts, the gear to fully equip a kitchen packed into flight crates).

The right place at the right time for my career anyway. Maybe less so for managing and recovering from chronic fatigue syndrome. Here’s an approximate timeline:

• 10 October, early morning: one of the two booked violists pulls out
• 10 October, c. 9:30: I see an ad while idly scrolling through Facebook over breakfast
• 10 October, still about 10am and in my pyjamas: two phone calls later, I’m confirmed for the first three shows of the tour. I look at train times and find I have 15 minutes to catch the last train that will get me to rehearsal on time. Luckily the station is 4 minutes’ walk or 2 minutes’ not-dressed-or-trained-for-this sprint from my house. In the end I actually arrive slightly early.
• 10 October, afternoon: the only rehearsal for the tour as such, at Symphony Hall in Birmingham. It’s charted, to click, on clip mikes, on in-ear monitors all round.
• 10 October, evening: first show of the tour, at the same venue.
• 10-11 October, middle of the night: by the time I get out, I’m getting the last train back to London by default. Then some night buses.
• 11 October: while the tour stay overnight in Birmingham and then have a day off, I have a morning diabetes management appointment at the hospital clinic and then play a bar gig in Chatham. Some very chatty (see what I did there?) punters as I’m leaving mean it’s last train to London, night bus and go to bed in the small hours again.
• 12 October, far too early in the morning: catch a bus at 6:30am to start a journey that gets me to Northampton for a 9am chamber orchestra rehearsal of Malcolm Arnold. Concert at lunchtime.
• 12 October, afternoon: I have a train route mapped out, and it’s just about worth it for the fee for several shows touring, though due to short notice I’m putting a lot of spend on my credit card getting a walk-up ticket from Northampton to Newcastle (the real one, not under Lyme). Don’t try that at home kids. One train change out, my next connection is cancelled and there’s disruption all over the shop. Some urgent re-searching of the National Rail Enquiries planner and live departures sees me retrace my steps, follow a different route, run for at least one connection, and eventually arrive at Newcastle only about 45 minutes after I’d initially anticipated.
• 12 October, evening: the Northampton gig and travel always meant I was going to miss soundcheck for this show; the extra delay means I have about 40 minutes to set up and for my desk partner (or the other viola player, however you want to look at it) to talk me through a couple of changes and notes. Most of them seem to involve when we clap our hands over our heads on beats 2 and 4. Show at Newcastle City Hall.
• 12-13 October: stay overnight with the tour at a Holiday Inn Express (?) on the outskirts of Newcastle.
• 13 October, morning: tour bus drive from Newcastle to Glasgow.
• 13 October: setup, soundcheck and show at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.
• 13-14 October: overnight at another Holiday Inn.
• 14 October: coach trip from Glasgow down to London. For some reason the pickup and dropoff point is Park Royal tube station (look at a map of London – it’s pretty much diametrically opposite where I live). At least we get there by mid-afternoon so getting home by tube and train is no problem.
• 15 October: lunchtime pickup to go to Bournemouth for show at the Pavilion Theatre.
• 15-16 October: coach drops us back at Park Royal at about public transport stopping time. My introduction to the wonders of Uber Pool (basically taxi-sharing with strangers by app).
• 16 October, morning: chronic fatigue treatment session. Just in case you thought I had a lie-in at this point.
• 16 October, evening: Buswell & Nyberg’s Pop-up Orchestra are supplying some live music for a swanky corporate p!ss-up, at the sort of highly-polished venue (happens to be a private members’ club in Soho) that always makes me feel I must be in the wrong place, even when I’m working there. However, it pays decent money plus very classy finger food, and drinks (except cocktails and prosecco) are on the house, or rather on the client (it’s open bar for all their employees too. I don’t think many of them care whether the music is any good).
• 17 October: apparently this was a day off.
• 18 October, afternoon: take the train to Brighton (no tour bus for the orchestra this time, though expenses will be reimbursed). Well and good. I’m walking from the station, which should take about 15 minutes, mostly downhill. Unfortunately, despite how often I’ve played in Brighton, I have a peculiar mental block that means I almost always come out of the station and start walking at 90 degrees to the correct direction. On this occasion, I don’t realise this till I’ve walked about 2/3 of a mile. When I make it to the seafront to walk along to the Brighton Centre, there’s a sea gale. It takes most of my remaining contingency time to work out that the stage entrance is at the back of the building and walk round several other businesses to get there; and then the interior gets all my wooden spoon prizes for signage and clarity of layout, so I run sweatily on stage pretty much as they start soundcheck. I started the trip with at least half an hour to spare!
• 19 October, morning: catch a train at 9:30 to meet the rest of the quartet for a Giardino Strings wedding gig in Dorking. Having played, get the train back as it’s on the right side of London (rather than get a lift to a dropoff location and then have to cross town anyway).
• 19 October, afternoon: home for a rather quick turnaround, change and swap one set of equipment for another.
• 19 October, evening: Kindred Spirit Duo pub gig in Brentford. Brentford FC had apparently come from 2 goals down to unexpectedly win that afternoon; the first half of the gig is rather dominated by very lairy but happy fans who loudly bawl along to whatever they know, whether or not we’re playing it.
• 20 October, morning: catch bus before 8:30 en route to 10am pickup in Park Royal. Tour bus to Liverpool for setup, soundcheck and show at the Philharmonic Hall, which has had a complete backstage revamp since I last played there as a second violin in the then Merseyside Youth Orchestra (now rebranded as the mouthful Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Youth Orchestra) in 2003. I manage a snooze in the dressing room between soundcheck and show.
• 20-21 October: this time the Holiday Inn is at Chester racecourse. Not that close to Liverpool, but I guess it is on the way to Cardiff. Everyone else goes off to get drunk in a bar that’s open till late. I go straight to bed; not that I can get to sleep.
• 21 October, morning: tour bus to Cardiff for setup, soundcheck and show at St David’s Hall.
• 21-22 October: tour bus back to Park Royal. Disadvantages of Uber revealed: if you don’t get to the stated pick-up point within 2 minutes (which can be difficult with luggage, unclear mapping and two very tired and somewhat tipsy people), it automatically cancels the booking and charges you £4.
• 22 October, small hours of the morning: while putting my luggage into a taxi, realise my viola is still on the tour bus, which drove off to park up about 15 minutes ago.
• 22 October, late morning: by phone calls to office and texts to drivers, establish the bus is untouched in Feltham (outer south-west London; I live in inner-ish south-east). Train journey there and back to successfully collect none the worse instrument.

It’s glamorous, life on the road …