Bzzzzzz.

You have to take your time, in life.

You cannot rush things.

You cannot constantly race the clock.

You have to take the time you are given, and more, if you need it.

You cannot run the risk of the bee you just resuscitated being trapped in the van with the five of you, should he not get out on time.

That's why I wrote the rulebook.

But Trewin didn't have time to read the rulebook.

So he picked the bee up from the tarmac at the ferryport and let it rest in the van as we waited to board, slowly nursing the little dot back to health with the caramel from a Mars bar.

I could have had that.

The bee came to life as we tumbled across the bridge thing, into the belly of the ship. We hadn't let the little thing out to rest when the call came for us to board.

We are not the types to give up on ill bees. You should know this by now.

So as it rose like a tiny sharp zombie, we all started shouting and panicking and flailing our arms. Because it's a bee. And it was flying around in the van. And real men don't cry. They flail.

We fanned it out through the open side-door (Trewin was hanging from the van – encouraging the thing out like it was a nervous fawn) just before we disappeared into the hole. We watched it buzz its way through the various criss-crosses of metal and the ship's rigging. A dot of the sky was being redacted by a pissed-up censor.

We would not have got so panicked were we not so rushed.

We needed more time to feed the bee.

We didn't have more time to feed the bee.

We didn't have time to do anything – we were due in Norway in two days.

–

Evidently, we had not had the time to read the booking arrangements for the hostel, either, as after a sixteen hour drive along the dizzying and never-ending tongue of the Autobahn we discovered we had not fulfilled the criteria for a late check-in.

Never mind. Laugh.

Death laugh.

Where's open?

Where will have us?

The clock hands start spinning.

There's a place. It's big.

We have to go to bed now. We have to be up in four hours.

Oh, we've already slept. Where next?

Tick tock.

Gothenburg.

Drive.

What's this now where's this?

Nice people, and a nice flat down by the river. Have a brisk walk. Flick through Swedish television. Nothing's good. Give nothing a chance. Flip, flip, flip. Down your beer, don't sip it.

We have to be in Oslo tomorrow, and I don't know where I am.

–

Get up and get out.

What's outside the window?

Trees.

“What's the scenery like driving through Scandanavia?”

Trees.

Where are we?

Oslo.

Get in. Set up. Good. Soundcheck. Nice. Everyone's nice. Hello, yes. Yes, thank you. OK, great.

Soundcheck finishedNO TIMEget onstage whoops no time sorry good luck.

Blast it. Every beat played punctually and every applause coming no more than 1.7 seconds after the end of each song. Good. We've got a schedule. Thanks to everyone for being so kind.

Where are we going? Bar. Downtown. How long? Twenty-minutes.

One hour later. Still walking.

And Norway doesn't sell alcohol on a Sunday. Did you know this? I didn't have time to read up on it before I left. I drank mine too fast.

Dry. Sobering.

So we have to get there quicker.

Jeez, get on with it, right, drink it up and laugh and spend and get into the hotel in 3 a.m. Norwegian perfect daylight. No bedsheets. They cost extra. You pay for their quality, no doubt.

So now morning and your brain's a needle on a scratched record and sprint back up to the festival site in the hot sun.

“You drive to Norway for one gig? Are you crazy?”

Don't answer him, Seryn – we've got to go. We're on a very tight schedule and if we break it we will die.

Crash, bang, wallop through to late nights in Copenhagen and Cologne (I don't have time to find the o with the umlaut) to very efficiently let good generous friends catch up with us on our race to a grim and abandoned finishing post that doesn't exist.

Quick. Up and out, again.

The ferries are on strike. The roads are clogged. Quick we have to make it.

We have to get there.

There's no time.

The sun stands still and the people walk around their dead cars, gesturing. The queues span around you in a circle and a police car slips by every second.

Time is passing us.

Our lives are bleeding out.

I can feel it.

I can feel it.

We're being crushed by a million still tyres.

Our fuel is burning.

I can feel it.

–

So, you have to take your time, and not rush things.

Just as soon as we hit our stride in the journey, it was time to come home.

Just as soon as we started making stories, ours was over.

So take your time with it. Rest a little, or get up and do something in the blackness.

We have nothing ahead of us, now.

One festival, close to home. And Europe...later. Much later.

The album is roasting. Slow roasting. We've covered up the timer with our pants and are drowning out the ticking by screaming.

We're doing nothing but peeping through the little window with our thumbs over our heads, pressing the button for the little yellow light.

We're taking the necessary time.

We're not rushing.

I'm going to lie motionless on the floor, hoping somebody feeds me a Mars bar.