(Excerpt from www.marygauthier.com/roadnotes.html)
		May 23, 2003   In The Country of England   This has been another trying day. We drove for 4 hours, and spent 2 hours in Leicester trying to figure out the best way to change Sterling into dollars, as I leave at 6 in the morning for Spain and will not be back to the UK on this tour. It is better to change money inside the Country it is from, you save on the exchange rate. It’s complicated though, banks won't change money for you unless you have an account there, and wiring money is a huge mess thanks to the terrorists. It takes an act of God to make it possible for you to wire money to your own account and it all took too long to deal with. You have to change Sterling in England to get the best rate, and it is possible for my agent to wire it to me, but that would involve going into Central London to get the cash to him and there is not enough time, so we ended up at the Post Office, and it took a long time to find the one in town that does the money exchange.     I look at the tour sheet after we sort the money thing out, and I see that it says that dinner tonight is at the promoter’s house. I am not at all in the mood for this, I am very tired, and I want to eat a hot meal at the Hotel, take a hot shower and check my e-mail, and rest a little if I can. I ask my tour manager to call the promoter and let him know that I would rather eat at the Hotel. The conversation went something like this " Hello, this is Frits, the tour manager for Mary Gauthier. Is this the promoter? Yes, Hello. I see that our instructions say that you will have dinner for us at your house, but Mary is on a special diet and quite tired, and would like to eat at the Hotel tonight." The voice on the other line speaks to him, then Frits says,  "Yes, right. Well, if there is no food at the Hotel, she would like to have her meal at a restaurant near the club." The voice on the other line appears to be getting upset now.  Frits says, "Yes, right. I see, you made a special meal for us. Right. But Mary is on a low carbohydrate diet and she is also wanting to rests little before the show, and there is not much time." The voice on the other line is now clearly pissed. Frit’s say’s, "Yes, right. Well, she would still like to take her meal at a restaurant." Silence on the other line. The phone call ended abruptly. Well, here we go, now I look like a jerk no matter what I do. If I don’t eat with these people, it will never end. I have been through this a hundred times before. I will look like an ungrateful spoiled little princess, who is difficult to work with. And they will tell everyone they meet what a jerk I am. I am defeated. I have to eat with them, even though I know damned well that there will be very little food there that is low carb at the dinner table, there never is. People he world over don’t know what the hell carbs are. They hear diet and think low fat, every single time. If only I would have sent the dining instructions yesterday. It is too late for that now. I prepare myself for the inevitable, I am going to have to go to their house and eat.      When we finally got to the hotel, there was only an hour and a half before sound check, and really I wanted to check my e-mails and take a hot shower.  No such luck, the hotel room has telephones that are cheap and old, there is no way to get on the Internet here. Now I am pissed. There is also no elevator, and no breakfast in the morning. The restaurant is closed down. The breakfast thing is petty and I know it, but I still feel like pushing the issue. I tell my tour manager to call the guy and sort out the problems for me, but it only got worse. He sends his wife over to the hotel, and now, with only an hour till sound check, I am being driven over to their house to use their computer, ( Use our computer! It’s easy! Right around the corner!) and have dinner. This IS NOT what I want to do, not at all. I am tired, I am hungry, and I want some privacy before I take on another show. I have been traveling now for 6 weeks, and I just want to have what my damned contract says I should have. These guys signed the damned thing, and they didn’t read it. If I make a big deal out of this, then I will be the asshole, and they will tell everyone that I am impossible to work with, a real bitch. I can't win. I don’t want to eat at their house, it seems as though no one understands my diet but me and I KNOW they will not get the food right, and I know I will not get much to eat tonight. Fucking hell, I am miserable, TRAPPED, which is my biggest fear and always has been. I grab my stage clothes from the hotel and go their house with them. Their computer is useless to me, there is no time. The meal is vegetarian, lots of potatoes and beans and CARBOHYDRATES, and I am right, 90% of the food here I cannot eat. I have three pieces of cold ham and I am not in to mood to talk about this anymore. Maybe this will be funny when I re-read it back in Nashville one day.   My guitar is acting up again, and I have to spend 30 minutes jiggling the wires inside of it to make it work. I forgot my jacket in my hotel room, Hotel and it is freezing in this place.  I am getting whiny and miserable, and I hate it when I get this way. I keep trying to remember how cool Jimmy LaFave was when things went wrong for him. It helps a little bit. I do the show (in some kind of a gym), and by the time I get back to the Hotel, it is midnight. There are cars everywhere, and LOUD music. The fucking Hotel is having a function, it’s SINGLES NIGHT! I just can’t believe it. I have a 7:30AM flight to Spain, and the sound of loud dance music is reverberating all through my body. No one could sleep in this hotel tonight, no one. I am disgusted. I am exhausted. I am miserable. I put my earplugs in, I put the pillows over my head, and I try very hard to make it all go away. The bass blasts through the earplugs like a knife through warm butter. It is hopeless. I am screwed, and that’s just life. Deal with it kid. Things were going so good, until now.    I have no problem waking up at 6am though, the doors in the hall are slamming loudly as people leave their hotel rooms. I literally slammed awake. I stand under a hot shower and feel like I have been hit by a bus. The Midlands Airport is teeming with thousands of parents and children, the place is overflowing with people. There's nowhere to hide. There is nowhere to sit. It's madness. Babies everywhere. There is a bank Holiday on Monday here, and people are going to Spain, to Germany. To God knows where. Jesus Christ, I am overwhelmed. There is a child screaming in my ear on both sides of me, and thousands more of them jammed into the departure area. I have no coping skills left. And I slept 4 hours last night. This is the last day of a 6-week tour, and I am spent, shot, beat, bewildered, elated, exhausted, hungry, and overwhelmed. The flight, just like the airport, is filled with screaming children, and I wish I could take drugs again. A child is wiping his nose on my suede jacket now, and I am starting to see the humor in this.