Up and coming Dublin singer Ann Scott recently sailed east in the company of Breton chanteuse Katell Keineg for a tour of the Welsh valleys. Here she shares some extracts from her tour diary exclusively with Hot Press.
Wednesday October 11
10.30am – Dun Laoghaire
Struggling with a battered Vox, bulging guitar case and tonne of clothes I meet Katell at the Ferryport, where we board HSS to Holyhead. 90 minutes later we’re taxi-ing towards the Galeri at Caernarfon, the venue for our first gig tonight and for a live TV performance on S4C. Our driver speaks Welsh and Katell converses easily but to me it sounds like ancient Hebrew – for all I know they could be plotting my murder! Turns out to be polite patter about the weather. Have dinner with Rhys Mwyn, our promoter who's worked with some of Wales’ best-known acts including pre-fame Catatonia and Super Furry Animals.

7pm
Stage time: we’ve decided on a set-list of ‘Whistle Tom’, ‘Hot Day’, ‘Wilbur Clown’, ‘Mountain’ and ‘100 Dances, 100 Stars’ while Katell sings ‘Hestia’, ‘There You Go’, a Welsh song (‘Y Gwyneb Iau’), ‘Lakes Of Pontchartrain’ and ‘Franklin’. A few encores later we stagger back to the Victoria Hotel and collapse into sleep.

Thursday October 12
10am
I wake with a start and miss breakfast – so it’s a brown rice teabag for me. Tonight’s show is in the hotel, so we’re free for the day. We head to the pretty village of Beaumaris, where we're lured to The Spinning Wheel Tea Rooms for tea and scones.
Our gig takes place in a boudoir-style function room. I’ve learnt a little Welsh – Sut mae? (how are you) and diolch (thank you). After-show antics amount to scrabble in the TV lounge. Brings a whole new dimension to the problem of slurring your words!

Friday October 13
9.30am
It’s a beautiful sunny morning – what could possibly go wrong? Turns out it’s Friday the 13th and we have trouble finding the right road. After a couple of U-turns we arrive at our lunch destination near llanfaelog. Meet up with Fiona Owen, a lecturer and poet, and Gorwel Owen, an eminent Welsh producer who's worked with Gorkys Zygotic Mynci and Martin Carr of the Boo Radleys. He also makes a mean panini!

3pm
We’re late. And we make our way to the George III Hotel, where we're playing tonight. It’s our longest stretch of driving and takes us through the national park of Snowdonia. We find the hotel at the head of the Mawdach Estuary. The owner is excited – apparently he has extra guests tonight on account of the gig. We’re playing in the back room of the hotel which is a warm informal country-style room with lots of wood. Figure it’s time to try out a Johnny Cash song and Katell brings me on to shake some impromptu bells and percussion on ‘Smile’ and ‘Leonor’. Tour madness kicks in!

Saturday October 14
11.30am – Holyhead
Homeward bound. I’ve an hour to kill before check-in and spend it trying to figure out the best way to carry an amp, laptop and guitar onto the boat without drawing too much attention to the fact that I’m breaking hand baggage regulations. The HSS sets into motion, back towards freezing cold Dun Laoghaire and I wave goodbye to our Celtic neighbours. It’s been a thrill and I hope we’ll do it again.
Diolch!b

Ann Scott plugs her We're Smiling album on December 12 at the Ruby Sessions, Doyle's, College Green, Dublin 2