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Namibian has put paw to paper once more. If anybody can make sense from his sequel then – frankly – I doff my hat. Here is his inimitable contribution:

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Hi to all blogers,,Namibian is back on open air gigs mmmm,,After having a few days
at home to get homework up to date out again for 3 and a half months. Now would like
to tell about how I get about in Europe,, Barny has been a good teacher as it was he that got
me in to touring and loving it,,
As im not the youngest driver on tour but am the rook y of the tour,, The drivers have 8 to 30 years experience between them they are all great to talk to and have amassing story”s if U asked
them anything U need to know they are never to busy to help. I follow Barny 99% of the time as our truck speed is different,,but;;;a big but,,He makes me plan the rout find the address for the gig and sort all what is needed,,I spend a lot of time getting the directions,,write
it down,take to him for approval if wrong he will say no find a better rout, then sometimes when iv spent 3hrs.s. getting it sorted already to leave ,,he will come on the tesco radio ;;OK LOVE IV CHANGED MY MIND WE GO A DIFERENT WAY THAN WHAT I PLAND,GRRRRRR
then Im f*%$£+as iv no idea which way,,I tell after U spending a time with auto route,Saturn ,maps,and go ogle earth Im lost then,, its all good fun in the end..
Hope U all have a lovely summer Namibian………….

Grandparents are not to be taken for granted.

I am incredibly lucky to have three of them still kicking about, and really do thank my lucky stars. My advice is to make the most of them while they’re still with you.

Grandma is now 90 but still full of beans – certainly potty, but compos mentis and wonderful. Dad offers her a drop of the cheapest table wine that money can buy in France. ‘Oh, the merest tot, just to be convivial,’ she says. You can see where I get it from, can’t you?

The electricity then cuts out. This soon sorts out the men from the boys; namby-pambys with microwaves would be doomed, forced out to the chip shop. Not so for the old Davies campaigners. A paraffin lamp happens to be nearby, and there is a good deal of wheeling up wicks, and talk of snuffers. Grandma sneaks off to the kitchen to for a quick cough and to grate some cheese, calling Dad’s mobile phone a ‘microwave’.

Father’s propensity in the cooking department is pretty much the same as mine but we’ve thought ahead. Aunty Gilly – another aunty who falls outside the label of ‘wicked’ – has left us a bolognaise sauce. Surely we can manage that?

I check Grandma hasn’t grated her fingers along with the parmesan, and ask how her piano playing is these days. Over the feedback in her earpiece, she interprets this as, ‘Where’s the telephone?’ Oh dear..

Back at the oven, a good deal of head-scratching ensues. Grandma turns on the gas well before Dad can bend down with a lighted match, which leaves us all shouting urgent, incoherent instructions at each other.

I think Dad is all too aware of that time when his hair actually caught fire while leaning over the Aga. It was priceless to see him dashing upstairs to the bathroom, actually ablaze.

So, even with a pre-prepared meal, it still takes three of us to conjure up something edible: one to hold the torch, one to get in the way, and one to cook. We take turns to hold the middle position.

Returning to my in-tray for a moment, there is a letter from that rascal Grandpa. Yes, there are a few of us left who still correspond by ‘snail mail’. It really is so much nicer to receive a penned account of goings-on in the Umbrian mountains rather than an email.

Actually, there’s little danger of electronic mail from that neck of the woods, because why does he need the internet? He has a fantastic life that would be ruined by those blasted pop-ups and pages ‘freezing’.

Anyway, he still manages to imbue in me a sense of literary inadequacy, and I, by return post, highlight the odd spelling mistake that he tries to mask with an increasingly illegible style of handwriting. This time he harangues me, with references to ‘Mind the Gaffe’, published by Penguin.

I tell you, a family get-together, with Mum and Grandpa, is just a laugh a minute: arguing the finer points of the gerund, that infamous verbal noun ending, over a lentil-based dish. Don’t most families watch the Eastenders omnibus?..

PS. I almost forgot that this is a rock n roll AC/DC blog so: we’re off to Dublin tonight. Guitars, trucks, noise, yeah..

Though AC/DC are in London for three days, and there are zillions of things to do in the city, I’ve gone home again.

I agonised a bit at first, because really I should take the opportunity to visit city-dwelling chums. But then I thought: ‘No, blast them, I’m going back to the beach.’

I know that I’ve just had four days at home, but given the amount of time spent away on tour this year, it’s a no-brainer decision.

Also, four days only made a small dent in the postal in-tray; my poor little abode was, and in a sense still is, buckling under the sheer magnitude of mail. Don’t assume that I mean fan mail from blog readers. Oh, you weren’t.

Yes, you were right the first time: letters from banks, the council tax office and telephone companies. It’s never-ending of course; I pop out on tour for just three months, and banking concerns – by phone to Delhi – have rather stacked up again. So, to finish what I’ve started, I’m in Hastings.

Ah, the joys of domesticity. Now that my ex-girlfriend has moved out – known affectionately as The Old Boiler, or The Gargoyle if you prefer a less derogatory pet name – there is a serious catering issue in this house. She was invaluable in culinary matters, and I miss her sorely when I’m home. My tummy certainly does. We do, however, remain firm friends.

Selfishly, Boiler turned down my offer of a winter contract, just when I needed her most. Women are so blooming complex, aren’t they?

Fancy not wanting to be my girlfriend just to get me through the chilly months. To my utter surprise – when the nights began to draw in – she didn’t even consider the alluring contract, even after six years together. Oh, well.

Actually, I’m not sure that I should admit to being unable to cook; buying all the wine and living with attractive women is maybe only a short-term solution. But I’ll soldier on until an alternative presents itself.

Oh, and I must say, I’m finding this idea of ironing clothes a little irksome. For a start, I’m ironing in the creases into a shirt marked ‘non-iron’. What the hell are all these dials? Boiler, help..

Having opened a personal window into my life – introducing you to the Old Boiler – I thought maybe you’d also be interested in my car. She’s of a similar vintage, actually. And this performance Citroen AX has a full, throaty one-litre under the bonnet.

OK, so the radio doesn’t work, and there is no bass tube in the boot, but she will comfortably do a whopping seventy miles per hour.

She shakes a bit above that and, in top gear (fourth), she’s a bit noisy, so sixty-five is more practical. I suppose I should have quoted these high speeds in kilometres per hour – to make them sound even more impressive..

Namibian has conjured up a little jewel recently – literary flair is simply thriving on tour.

Between extended periods of gnawing on his knuckles, polishing his curved horns and fangs.. Oh sorry, I got carried away there – his tail doesn’t, in fact, thrash like a wild scorpion. Namibian doesn’t even have a tail.

Anyway, in the lead-up to his anecdotal blog entry, I’ll just casually mention that I have easily accessible photos of him shirtless and sexy in the heat of last summer.

I’m sure he’d hate these saucy stills to be exhibited on the blog, so I’ll just leave the threat hanging in case he really is planning to take up the metaphorical cudgels – and run me through like a blackguard – in his entry. As promised then, I hand over the baton to that indefatigable of characters, the Namibian:

Will Hi there all u Blog Readers; I the Namibian has been asked to do a blog; well time to take the ppp, Only 1 thing comes up as Barny is always taking the P out of me,, this one beets them all.. Most of Europe on the hiways U have

to pay to use the loo,only cost 50 cent,,now Barny dont want to pay this he is a tight arcs,one day in Italy he was doing a wee next to his truck as the a female cop drove past ,,mmm cant tell u what she said, Anyway he was given a 25 ERO fine, we wer parked on a no parking zone he got 70 for that i didn’t,so that cost 200 trips to the loo,ha he calles me lazy,the loo was 100 meters away.

Me again: it seems I’ve escaped lightly, for now at least. We’ll let bygones be bygones, I think, but I do like a little churlishness: I seem to have included a snap of my South African pal (taken only yards from a Spanish toilet) instead of me. Honestly, talk about hypocrisy, Namibian..

Julian, a pal from school days, lives in Zurich.

I hastily abandon the truck this morning, and board a tram to go and see him. The tram is travelling in the wrong direction.

With every intention to purchase a travelcard once in town, but with no Swiss money immediately to hand, I have to sit ticketless, quivering in fear of inspectors.

The trip, however, is essential, because his partner Justine has a staggering collection of audio books for me to borrow.

Handing back the last dozen I had on loan, we sit on their bed, leafing through every conceivable genre. ‘Now, we want a balance,’ she says, ‘between didactic and racy, and well-written.’

Julian, I am happy to say, is squinting rather less than at our last meeting. I comment on it, congratulating him on an unscrewed-up face. ‘He’s got a little thingy now,’ says Justine, helpfully. Well, I know that… But she is, in fact, alluding to a small plastic prism that sticks on his spectacle lens, aiding short-sightedness.

Julian swears that he recently opened another bottle of Tempranillo, but he is unable to find it. Ah, he hasn’t got his little thingy on, that’s why. While he hunts for the alcohol, squinting furiously again, I telephone his brother in Spain.

We’re planning to ‘do’ lunch in Barcelona, AC/DC’s next tour date. Julian asks me if I’d mind taking my sock out of his wine glass.

I hope I’m not giving the impression that this touring life is anything but hard work? It is ‘work hard, play hard’ in this industry; you can make a tour work for you but it’s no good if you can’t survive on catnaps. For those that need eight hours in bed at night – I like it but don’t need it – DO NOT APPLY.

Now, talking of playing hard, we were enjoying a nightcap in a dimly lit bar last night. And Justine, like most of us, was bemoaning the changing of the clocks. Why is it that we cannot decide whether they move forward or back?

Twice a year, this is a huge talking point in village post offices throughout England. ‘Ooh, Maureen,’ one old duck will say to another, ‘do we lose an hour or gain one, this time?’

Even when the point is settled, people (including me) still don’t know in which direction to wind their wristwatches. For the next fortnight, Justine will be asking, ‘yes, but what time is it really?’

Just to leave you on a spicy cliffhanger, I’m meeting a mystery girl tonight: Claudia, one of Crazy Sandra’s friends. Tut, now you’re going to want to know how I get on. If I don’t mention her, you’ll assume she’s ghastly, and if I do? Ooh, tricky. Assume I’ll just have a quiet drink and we’ll leave it at that..

Last night was a perfect opportunity to drink heavily and chase women.

We’d unloaded at noon – a day early to comply with tachograph rules – which left a free evening and a lie-in today. However, instead of visiting Boob’s table-dance bar (complete with video cabins) near the station, I poured a nice glass of red, plumped the pillows and settled down to a romantic comedy. I know – sorry.

Only after inserting the disc did I remember that my laptop screen is cracked; watching a film, as though looking into a broken mirror, leaves rather a lot to be desired. Pah!

At the station this morning, a diesel locomotive is warming up for the two-hour trip to Neuschwanstein Castle, a splendid edifice nestling in the foothills of the Alps, near Fussen. Billed as Germany’s No.1 tourist attraction, this ethereal folly is featured in the film, “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”, and was the inspiration for Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty”.

Next to my train is an odd statue. I’ve heard of gay pride, but a gay pride of lions? Hardly a fitting image to portray the macho, beer-swilling Bavarians.

Having missed out on last night’s pursuits with the boys, I join a tour in the hope of meeting some crumpet. Maxine, the tour guide, smiles as I approach, remembering me from last year.

‘Ooh, hello again,’ she says, ‘you’re from Sweden aren’t you?’ Umm. Also joining the tour are three Indians, two Mexicans, two “Septic Tanks” (Americans), and two Brazilians.

As we pull out of the station, she tells a tale of drama, intrigue and romance. It was the visionary Ludwig II (1845-86) that left such a wonderful legacy of castles in this region. He had some killer ideas envisaging flying machines, but, like most men, had commitment issues and led the life of a recluse.

Physicians pronounced him mad without physically examining him, instead relying on witnesses’ accounts of insanity. Not really cricket is it? His demise was a suspicious drowning in knee-high water despite measuring six feet tall – an unsolved mystery. And not much romance, after all. Maxine adds that he might have been a poof.

As snow thickens outside the carriage window, she tells of the castle’s swan motif, Bavarian beer purity laws, and Ludwig’s composer pal,Wagner – all of which is fascinating.

It then occurs to me that I’m choosing the history of kings and composers over loose women at night. It’s rather a rum thing, and it worries me. The next step is surely wearing tracksuit bottoms and pausing outside shop windows to look at comfortable shoes. Am I turning into Namibian? Help!..

Just in case you were worrying, a train did eventually arrive in Milan – with me on it.

Sunburned AC/DC truckers, with cheerful dispositions, proved what good weather I had missed fooling about attempting to scale glaciers.

Today, too, is sunny, yet is spent driving and dealing with a menopausal harridan of a policewoman. She could of course be a lesbian but I think it more likely that she has just spent a lonely Saturday evening watching reality TV.

Regardless, she’s got out of bed on the wrong side this morning, and is out to diligently nab foreign drivers. It all starts when she interrupts my pee at the side of the truck.

No, no, you’ve got the wrong idea. This is all very considerate and discreet in the hedge – far preferable to the nearside wheel. Tarmac smells in hot weather, grass doesn’t. Also, it avoids the inevitable ricochet into one’s sandals.

So, to cut a long story short, I’m taking a leak, turned away from any other member of public, in the shadow of a juggernaut. Her opening line then, neck craned, naturally puzzles me: ‘I don’t want to see your penis.’

This, I decide in a flash, is not the time to say, ‘Are you sure?’ She decides that Namibian’s penis is not worth worrying about, and Little Dick, well… Aren’t words, and arguably penises, fun to play with?

She is in rather a tight-fitting uniform, with a gun and large sunglasses – a stereotypical Italian cop.

Now, I’ve always taken the option of meek, polite ignorance where officers of the law are concerned, but today those tactics fail; she is a larcenous, if modish, hound. She looks through my tachographs and invents an extortionate figure – ostensibly for speeding.

Then, just for kicks, she adds a large fine for parking illegally. I point out my no-win situation in this regard: I have to stop for a legally required break, yet there are no parking bays available. As with peeing, I’m very considerate and have parked safely and courteously.

‘I know,’ replies the money-grabbing hag, ‘but I’ve just started my shift.’ With the amount of money she’s just got out of me, I imagine she’ll relax by the pool for the rest of it. Honestly, this is daylight robbery.

Conversely, if I’m having a bad day, you don’t see me taking things out on Namibian…although I must mention that, in Hungary this afternoon, he asked if Turdish people live around here. I give a resigned shrug while Namibian makes me another consoling flask of tea.

The rest of the day, despite pleasant driving conditions shadowing Slovenia’s Julian Alps, is spent stewing, miffed to the core.

Had I decided to argue the “on-the-spot” fine, it would have steadily increased – faults with documentation would have been found, or invented, in this hopelessly harmonised Eurozone.

The alternatives to this unfair, nay draconian, practice are either to be frogmarched – oh OK, simply driven in the squad car – to the local police station, or to be clamped. Or to be incarcerated and fed bread through bars while the vehicle is impounded.

It isn’t so much surviving on rations that worries me; it’s the fact that this is actually a rock and roll tour. Drivers languishing in jail for whacking saucy bints over the head with their penises has always been regarded as bad form.

So, on this occasion, like so many others – officers know that we’re generally in a rush to reach the next venue – I kowtow. But, when we finally reach Hungary after almost ten hours’ driving, “cock soup” on the menu is taking the piss..

At 4.30am Grandpa waggles my foot, interrupting a splendid dream and leading me to the conclusion that I’m being overrun with marauders ransacking the bedroom.

Three soothing, magical words swiftly bring me from this reverie: ‘Cup of tea?’ A blizzard, unusual in late March in Central Italy, accompanies us to Spoleto train station.

I smugly notice, in a borrowed jacket to combat hypothermia, that while trains to other destinations are delayed, the 05.29 direct service to Milano Centrale is due on time. ‘It’s only coming a few miles from Terni, so no need to worry,’ says my silly, I mean sagacious, old grandfather.

Promptly, at 05.29 on the dot, the departures board wastes no time in showing a thirty minute delay.

‘Ah,’ says a suitably shrinking Grandpa, and we go for a latte macchiato. As we huddle in the station cafe, a spate of tinny, unintelligible Tannoy announcements heralds little except a train to Rome…which doesn’t appear to be going to Rome.

In fact, if anything, confusion abounds and I contract a mild bout of tinnitus. At 7am, still standing like lemons – if lemons had bluish lips and loss of feeling in their extremities – Grandpa chats up a couple of girls from Yeehahsville, Arizona.

By this time, the Milan train has simply disappeared from the screen.

A bus outside is reportedly taking passengers to Foligno, one stop up the line. I’m reluctant to board, however, as last time my grandfather waved me off on a bus it was an unroadworthy affair across Nigeria.

Riddled with malaria – and with clumps of hair falling out, as though I was moulting – the trip was disastrous: I arrived home three days late to a mother on the verge of nervous breakdown while Grandpa snoozed contentedly in the African bush, certain his grandson was back at school and tickety-boo.

It turns out that Amber and Christie (excellent travel companions) are not in fact from Yeehah, but from Salt Lake City, Utah – named, quite sensibly, after a salt lake. They say ‘si’ frequently, thereby embracing the Italian culture, and then fall asleep.

Both are blissfully unaware that Americans are known around the world as “septics” – as are most septics, come to think of it, making it all the more fun. I should stop informing them.

At Foligno, we wait ninety minutes for a train to Florence. Admittedly, we’re a little closer to Milan, yet the ticket price is €27 dearer and now includes a change.

Thoroughly disheartened by the Italian rail system, I throw caution to the wind and book first-class, something I’ve always associated with stuffy, pompous grown-ups.

But I need power for the laptop to write the blog. Imagine then, if you will, how fierce I become at the absence of power in first-class on this provincial train with tattered upholstery.

Talking of blogging, I rather blotted my copybook back at the Umbria residence – with not knowing the derivation of the word “blog”. Grandpa blundered erroneously to the rescue. As we know, a log thrown off a ship’s stern – to measure speed in knots – led to record keeping becoming known as a ship’s log. So far, so good, but then Grandpa’s font of knowledge dissolves into fatuous hyperbole.

For a personal record on the internet, he intones, something a little punchier was required. ‘The alphabet was accordingly sifted through, arriving early on at “b”. And there you have it, Barnaby: “blog” was born.’

“B” for Bulls**t, more like? Yes,“blog” is actually a contraction of “web log”, but he was close..

Today commences with a mild interrogation over a two-hour breakfast.

While his wife, Ursula, puts away the dishes, Grandpa John asks me – conspiratorially – if it’s easier nowadays to ‘get your leg over.’ He then proceeds to call me Barbara, yet I look nothing like his first wife.

Oh, he’s insufferably English, and tells me about pious Aunty Lizzie who sang – with poor John beneath the pulpit – more slowly and tremulously than any other in the congregation, embarrassing him horribly as a child.

My mother’s green Fiat 127 – in which I used to try and hide under the front seat – doesn’t even come close in the humiliation stakes, I don’t think.

A “brief” tour of the garden rather fills the morning, though we do manage to store some heavy wine-making equipment in the “cantina”. (Grandpa has very sensibly decided that the machinery may be a little too much for an octogenarian to lift while balancing atop a stepladder.) Breaking for lunch, I just take a minute to breathe the fresh air and savour the vista.

Grandpa decants a gallon or so of San Giovese red wine, plucked from his own vines, while I think of my good fortune: I’m still being paid, yet here I am halfway up a mountain, enjoying an inestimably fine view of Central Italy.

There are no diesel fumes and I have one of Ursula’s mountainous plates of carbohydrates to look forward to. This is how life should be, isn’t it? How idyllic to take a nap in such a higgledy-piggledy house – there are four doors to Grandpa’s property…on four different levels.

As the evening approaches, we drive up to Monte San Vito, a typical Umbrian village at 914 metres above sea level. This is a former customs post between provinces, reached by impossibly twisty bends.

Ursula, giddy with excitement, makes her first-ever mobile phone call as we loiter in front of a 1630 fresco.

The call is to Maggie, another eccentric ex-pat, living nearby with nine cats and a dog. ‘At 65, she may be a little old for you,’ says Grandpa, dashing any notions of romance.

A meal at a trattoria in the town of Sant’ Anatolia di Narco has been organised, and, as we dip biscotti into fortified wine, Grandpa begins a familiar story. You see, sporting shoulder-length hair at sixteen, I was once mistaken for his second wife in Nigeria..