So, one supposes, January, February and March aren't good times to be on the road Up Over, so it makes sense to head Down Under. You've got those summer festivals, the Big Day Out and it's cousin brothers, for a start.
And, at the end of Summer, as the stores built up their displays of Easter merchandise, you have the prospect of the multi-headed hydra of Bluesfest and affiliated activities.
That's what has delivered us to Sydney this time around, and there are issues involved with it that give plenty of musing material for those mornings when you're looking for the warm fuzzy dose under the doona in an air-conditioned hotel room.
Because Bluesfest isn't a single event. It was once, but that was well back in its twenty-five year history, before they started adding the big not quite blues names to the playing roster. If you want to get the Dylans of the world to your Bluesfest you have to pay them, and you need to pay to get them here as well, which explains the cluster of festival operations that once stretched across to Singapore.
These days you've got the West Coast Bluesfest in Fremantle the weekend before Easter, Bluesfest itself and a similar operation in Deniliquin, of all places, over Easter, and another shebang in Auckland the following weekend.
And, from the week before Fremantle up to the end of the Auckland extravaganza, you've got three weeks where you can ship the Bluesfest-related artists around the countryside, which is the reason Hughesy will probably be doing this sort of exercise every year.
But there are problems, and the problems are what brings the probably into that last sentence.
A location in the Deep North and a nephew in the Unit at Southport raises some tricky back and forth issues. So does the presence of Ninja and Lik Lik at the Little House of Concrete, for that matter, but at the moment we're not in a position to head away for the full fortnight between Fremantle and Auckland and paying for accommodation at prime season rates in the middle thereof.
So it's down to finding a couple of shows that sit comfortably together, flying down for them and flying back north at the end. Madam's not a big concert goer, so she can arrive later or leave earlier, thus reducing the amount of stress we're inflicting on the LHoC feline population. She doesn't mind the prospect of a couple of days in Sydney or Melbourne.
I can head down earlier, and/or stay later, catch as many shows as I'm interested in, but, as always, there's a catch. There's a point where we need to lock in airfares and hotel bookings, and once the airfares are paid for that's, more or less, it.
Which explains why Hughesy wasn't off to see Govt Mule and Gregg Allman at the Enmore last night. These things get announced in batches, and that batch came after the bookings that got us down here and will take us back.
On the road; Brunch; Townsville > Sydney