We de-camped New Forest midday following a relaxing three days in the Hampshire country side.  I managed to get the contents of two suitcases scattered to the four corners of the room in that time and it took what seemed like hours to get it folded, zipped, shoehorned and puzzled back in the bags.  The fleet of Rovers returned us to the Bournemouth airport for a 20 minute flight to Cardiff.

Cardiff's International Arena has been our venue many times before and is another shallow, wide auditorium with a capacity seating of just under 4,500 and a massive dressing room consisting of three spaces... any one of which being larger than some of the dressing rooms we encounter.  Catering was, as always, nothing short of a miracle.  One of several remarkable salads was a simple Caesar salad with roasted chicken that tasted anything but simple.  For dinner I had the fantastic chicken katsu curry, other entrees were smoked haddock and beef/mushroom stroganoff. Couldn't resist dessert tonight, fresh fruit bomb and a particularly festive looking... and tasting... trifle.

Great show, great audience.  Nigel Hitchcok has been playing these U.K. dates with us is a brilliant sax player and jumped in this evening on Shangri-La giving it a creamier, dreamier texture.

A runner from stage to Rovers to airport to Legacy to London's Luton airport which is technically not London but St. Albans and touching down lightly at 11:30 for a 45 minute drive into London and our hotel.

Here's today's scorecard:

5 cities (Lyndhurst-Bournemouth-Cardiff-St. Albans-London)

2 flights

1 show

.... all in less than 12 hours!

So long,

Richard