The Swimming Club Guide to Cat Naps on Lay-Bys

When The Mayor asked me what the first picture was that came into my mind when I thought back to Halifax, I did not think first of the driving, or the ferry, or even of the practical nonsense of England being back to front. I thought of the atmosphere during the concert at dusk.

That was the picture.

The darker it got, the better the ambience became. The venue itself helped a lot. The Piece Hall in Halifax is an old cloth market hall, without a roof, something like one hundred by one hundred yards, with shops on all four sides, three stories high, and this very old building feeling around you. There is a stage diagonally in one corner, and during the summer it serves as a venue for many concerts. But to say that is only the practical description. It does not really explain what it feels like when the light slowly disappears and the sound fills the square.

The Mayor asked whether, before the trip, I had imagined it as a simple concert visit, a small adventure, or already something slightly ridiculous. I think it was a big adventure from the beginning. It was full of memories from past concerts, but also the excitement of visiting a different town in a different country. That already makes the mind work differently. It is not just, “I am going to see a band.” It is, “I am going to cross water, drive on the other side, enter another rhythm, and somehow end up in Halifax for Garbage.”

Of course, when Manfred heard I was going to Halifax for Garbage, his first thought was not romantic or musical. Manfred wondered whether I would go straight to jail for past felonies, meaning Scottish parking tickets, or whether I would bribe myself out of a sticky situation. That is Manfred. He hears “concert trip” and immediately sees a criminal subplot. In fairness, with my history of practical adventures, he is not completely wrong to expect some complications.

The actual journey was not short. I drove to Hoek van Holland, took the ferry across to Harwich, and then drove another four hundred kilometres north to Halifax. On the way I passed Cambridge, Peterborough, Grantham, which of course makes one think of Maggie Thatcher, and Doncaster. Somewhere in that journey, I also developed the material for what may become a very important publication: The Swimming Club Guide to Cat Naps on Lay-Bys. I think this is a title with potential. It sounds both practical and slightly worrying, which is usually where the best travel advice begins.

The first moment when I really thought, yes, now I am in England, was not a big tourist moment. It was the drivers. English drivers are very polite in their manners. They keep their distance. They drive respectfully. This sounds like a small thing, but when you come from the Netherlands, and you have already crossed by ferry and are now sitting on the other side of the car, with everything reversed, these small signs become very strong. The countryside was also beautiful. The English landscape has its own softness. And the architecture, especially when you move through older towns and villages, gives you the feeling that the country is constantly remembering itself.

But one thing about a trip like this is that people only hear, “I went to a concert,” and they miss the small things that make it a real story. For example, meeting once more the fan who has been to many concerts. You can see the same band many times, but every venue is different. Even if you meet the same people again, or if you meet new people at the entrance, the evening changes because the place changes. The building changes the sound, the town changes the mood, the crowd changes the memory. A concert is never only the concert.

The Mayor was good at pulling these small details out. He asked what sounded simple before the trip, but was not so simple when I actually had to do it. The answer is: many things. In England, everything is back to front. In car parks, I had to get out of the car to collect my parking ticket, because of course the machine is on the wrong side for a continental driver. Then there is the English currency. The one-pound coins feel heavy, and the banknotes have this plastic feeling. It is not difficult exactly, but it is unfamiliar enough to make you feel slightly clumsy.

And then there was the phone charger.

I forgot the phone charger in the car on the ferry. This meant I had to wait seven hours. Seven hours is a long time when your phone is becoming a small dying animal in your pocket and the charger is unreachable in the car deck. This is the kind of detail people forget when they make travel sound glamorous. The ferry is romantic until your charger is imprisoned below.

Manfred would probably say this was predictable. He would probably not show too much sympathy either. He has a talent for treating my inconvenience as part of the entertainment package. And maybe he is right. A good trip needs a little bit of suffering, as long as the suffering is ridiculous and not fatal.

There was a moment when the trip became tiring, annoying, or more complicated than expected. My panic button was on holiday. That is the best way I can describe it. Normally, when things begin to go wrong, there is some internal alarm system. This time, it seemed to have taken annual leave. Maybe this was good. Maybe the only way to do such a trip properly is not to think too much once you have started. You just keep going: ferry, roads, cat naps, parking tickets, coins, plastic notes, Halifax.

Some parts were serious. Getting on the ferry on time was serious. There is no point being romantic about missing a ferry. Ferries do not care about your emotional connection to a band. They leave. So that part required attention.

But some parts were secretly funny. Meeting Paul, who comes from Gravesend in East London, was one of those small human moments that becomes part of the whole trip. Then there was the Halifax cash machine in Halifax, which sounds simple but made me smile. Sometimes place names become jokes by themselves, especially when you are tired and far from home.

Then there is the matter of Garbage.

Explaining the band Garbage to someone who does not know them is always a little dangerous, because the name itself sounds like a mistake if you do not know the band. But taste is a matter of personal preference, and for me this band cannot be pigeonholed into a single genre. They are unique and innovative. Every album is diverse and has its own character. They have never allowed themselves to be forced to conform. I love every aspect of this band: the diverse sound, the brilliant melodies, the moving lyrics, the magnificent and beautiful voice, the live performances, and also the fact that they are such lovely people.

That is maybe why travelling to Halifax does not feel strange to me. To someone else, it may sound excessive. Why would a person travel to Halifax for a concert? It is a good question, especially since I could have continued following the band in the UK. But The Piece Hall is a particularly beautiful venue. Halifax itself is a very beautiful city in the lovely Yorkshire region. Manchester and Leeds are nearby, so it is not as if Halifax is nowhere. It is somewhere with character, and sometimes that is the whole point.

The Mayor seemed interested in whether the trip felt bigger, smaller, or stranger after the concert than I had expected. Definitely bigger. So many impressions. So many great people I met. And the magic of the concert will echo on forever anyway. I know that sounds like something people say after concerts, but sometimes clichés survive because they are true. A concert like that continues after the sound has stopped. It lives in the driving afterwards, in the tiredness, in the memory of the dusk, in the old stone of the venue, in the people you meet once more.

Manfred’s role in the story, from a distance, was to keep the madness honest. He saw the possibility of jail, parking tickets, bribery, and sticky situations. He did not allow the trip to become too noble. That is useful. Every adventure needs someone standing at the side saying, “Yes, but this is also slightly absurd.”

And he was right. It was slightly absurd.

The Mayor asked what the first rule would be if this became a page in The Swimming Club Manual. That was easy. Never book just one ticket for a band you like as much as I like Garbage. Book tickets for multiple concerts. This is not financial advice. It is emotional logistics. If the band matters that much, and if you are already crossing seas and reorganising your nervous system around ferry schedules and English parking machines, then one concert is almost too modest.

Maybe that is the real lesson. Not a lesson in the serious sense, because I try not to turn everything into wisdom. But maybe a rule of life, or at least a rule of The Swimming Club Manual: when the madness is harmless, musical, and memorable, do not reduce it too much. Let it be a little bigger than necessary.

When The Mayor asked what he should remember from this story — the music, the travel, the madness, or the small practical details — I could not choose only one. It has to be a little bit of everything. The music was the reason. The travel was the body of the story. The madness was the flavour. The small practical details were what made it human.

But above all, he should remember the madness of the music.

Because that is what stayed with me. Not only the sound of the band, but the strange and beautiful fact that music can make a person drive to Hoek van Holland, cross by ferry to Harwich, travel four hundred kilometres through England, pass Cambridge, Peterborough, Grantham and Doncaster, negotiate backwards car parks, plastic banknotes, heavy coins, a missing phone charger, and still arrive feeling that the whole thing made perfect sense.

Maybe that is what a good concert does. It makes the ridiculous feel reasonable.

And in Halifax, at dusk, inside that old roofless cloth hall, with the stage in the corner and the light slowly disappearing, it was more than reasonable.

It was worth every mile.