I had made a bit of a mistake a couple of weeks ago when I bought a ticket to see World Party play the Cavern in Liverpool. The mistake was that it clashed with Jude arriving back in the UK and reaching Liverpool at roughly the same time.

Tonight, therefore, I managed to get three things done in town: I got my walk done around the city centre, I caught a quick bit of World Party and I got to Lime Street with moments to spare to meet Jude. What more could you want?

It had been a busy day, Lily had spent the day at home after feeling poorly at school this morning. Well, she felt poorly at 9am, slept for a few hours and woke up refreshed and full of beans. It was a lunchtime miracle, and meant that I had a bouncy 11 year old distracting me for half the day (which is cool, really)

My parents came to look after the children while I was due to go into Liverpool. They came around armed with food and DIY assistance. Dad and I put up a pullymaid clothes airer over the Aga – which I wanted to be done before J got back.

I’m rarely happier than when filling the tumble dryer with wet clothes, and marvelling an hour later when they’re dry… Yet, Jude sees this as taking a chainsaw to an iceberg or polar bear and prefers to dry clothes next to the toasty warm oven. Given that this had been in the back room for about three months, I thought it would be a good job done – which it was.

Food scoffed and I was off into Liverpool. First task, walk around the city for half an hour with the intention of ending at the Cavern Club on Matthew Street. It worked pretty well, although runkeeper’s GPS was all over the place and has calculated that I walked at a pace of 7:55 minutes per km – which is basically a run. To be fair, I wasn’t dawdling, but neither was I running. The track looks like I was wobbling from one side of the road to the other, walking through buildings and overshooting my destination. Something was seriously wrong.

When I arrived back at Matthew Street, Karl Wallinger (basically World Party) was ducking into the club wearing a hoodie. I should have grabbed him to explain that I had to go and pick up Jude and therefore I didn’t have long for any tunes that he wanted to play. Hindsight’s a wonderful thing and I’m sure that Karl (we’re on first name terms) would have come out on time had he known that I needed to leave early.

As it was, I received a text from Jude saying that her train was running 20 minutes late. Welcome back to England! She may have got used to goat-powered buses while she was away, but by god, those goats ran on time.

So… Twenty minutes! That’s a whole side of an LP, I thought. We’ll get a boatload of songs in those 20 minutes, I thought. So I drank my diet coke and watched the support. Which was fun.

As time creeped on, it became apparent that although I had arrived on time for our 9pm appointment, Karl didn’t really understand the urgency. At 9:15 he was on stage tuning his guitar and obviously couldn’t see me tapping my watch and giving him my “really, you’re tuning your guitar now?” look.

They burst into “Waiting such a long long time”. A good song, not their best, but appropriate under the circumstances – but as it came to an end, I had to leave. Oh well, if this clash ever happens again, I’ll book a later train for Jude.

I scampered up to Lime Street Station with three minutes to spare, enough time to find the platform and be there when Jude arrived. And before I knew it, she was back — full of tales of children, schools, porridge, slums, dust, heat and flights. Next thing we were home, the children got up, there were hugs and more tales, some supper and then finally Jude retired to bed.

It’s felt like a full day, but it’s been fine. Everyone’s back under the same roof and that’s comforting. Tomorrow it’s my turn to be away for a couple of days and then we’re properly back together on Monday.

For now, I got my walk done – although I have no idea how far it actually was. It took 30 minutes and was certainly no more than 3.8km.