I am currently bracing myself for what will be my longest stint on the road to date.

I go to London on the 19th to play a show in Hammersmith, London and then it's off for an Irish tour with the Beautiful south and straight into a European, UK and Ireland tour with the Divine Comedy which finishes in Derry on November 13th. Before that I am involved in rehearsals and then 4 nights in Europe doing promo stuff.

On one hand I am looking forward to it all, to the concerts, meeting the other acts, seeing all the cities along the way and all the people we will come across. I am also feeling shit for leaving my family for so long and being absent from their lives - e-mail and telephone only goes so far.

I have done a few interviews recently which has been revealing in so much as it has highlighted to me what I am actually writing about in my songs. I think it is the struggle to come to terms with the shitiness we find in ourselves; the fight to find magic and poetry in the middle of a relationship, not at the beginning or end where those things are more apparent; and finding beauty and wonder in moments that are normally passed over.

Just some thoughts....