Another 2 weeks feeling old on the road in Flaming June

Am I getting too old for this? The truth is, I’ve been getting too old for this for some years now. Then again, I keep doing it and surviving it so perhaps not too old, perhaps just old enough.
That was a tough schedule though, when James called me to offer me the job he was careful to spell out the demands of the schedule, 8 trucks of kit, loading in at 5.00am, 2 shows a day followed by a load-out, then onto sleeper buses to the next city to do it all over again. You earn your money touring like that. I wasn’t especially concerned about the money, the money was OK, not great, not bad. I was more worried about staying on my feet for 18 hours a day, humping that kit across the country without having a stroke or a heart attack.
Fortunately (and slightly annoyingly) no one else seemed concerned. “You’ll be fine” they told me. ´You’ll enjoy it’ and now that I’m back, well perhaps I did.
Certainly, there were things about it that I did enjoy. The crew spirit, the sleep-deprived laughter, the challenge of getting it all up and on and out. Things I didn’t enjoy - that increasingly familiar feeling that I am getting too old for this. Eyesight and hearing no longer as sharp, and the creaking and groaning of my bones at the start of every day. One day, and maybe one day soon, I really won’t be able to do this any more, and I really want to make that call myself. I don’t want anyone to have a quiet word, or a whispered conversation in my absence.
Anyway, a couple of weeks off now until the next jobs, a couple of conferences in Holland and Belgium.
I’m grateful for the work, I really don’t take it for granted, there’s younger folk out there who can do it just as well as me, and better probably, with their twenty-something eyesight and hearing.