It’s almost that time again.

It’s Friday morning and tonight we will be in Norwich where I’ve heard there are an unfeasibly large amount of bands and people turning up to rock Ian and Rosie’s house - check the Norwich Unlit episode out here.

My friend Josh Weller – Norwich’s favourite son – will be there with his hair and twinkly toes, eyes a-sparkle and guitar jangling... and our new road-mate for the next few days, Sharon Lewis...

... formerly of the band Pooka, Sharon possesses one of the sweetest souls and voices I’ve ever come across. She will be adding her female touch to the previously all male environment on Maya (the name we’ve given our tour bus).

There are several local bands and Ian and Rosie have a beautiful home. To say we are excited is an understatement. Next day we will be driving seven hours or so to get to Abergavenny for the second of this week’s official Unlits, which will see a local banjo and fiddle duo, and other local musicians play alongside my guests The Wireless and the singer and bassist from the band Semaphore. They are both traveling up from London for the experience.

The films of these nights will be up next week; the film of our first Unlit in Penzance is now finished and will be up later today, or so we’re told, on Myspace TV. You can view it on the Orange Unlit MySpace page.

Meanwhile last night, seeing that we’d dropped in to Brighton to pick her up, Sharon had organised a beautiful night of music in an elegant seafront first floor flat in Hove. Not only was it a great space for music, it was also a legendary house concert venue having seen hundreds of them take place over the years thanks to its owner Mark, and to the house concert visionary and extraordinary improvisational singer/songwriter Paul Chi who has been putting on house concerts since 1993.

I had heard about Paul for a while, so it was a real privilege to meet him last night – both to see him play (he really just sits there, and every time he plays he just makes it up from scratch, completely believing in the purity and truth of being in the moment) and to talk to him on the balcony afterwards about his life organising house concerts. Sharon had organised a bunch of interesting musicians and amazingly for us our visit coincided with Natasha, her ex-bandmate from Pooka, making a rare visit to Brighton from her hometown of Manchester.

Their little reunion set at the end of the evening was one of several musical highlights in the night. And finally I was able to thrash my guitar a bit more, seeing that I had me new nails on!

So, we’re packing up and are out of here... got many miles to do to get to Norwich in time. May the vibes be with us. We hope you’re enjoying your tour so far. Bear with us as we try to upload the many magical moments and songs to the site and troubleshoot to make sure it’s working as well as possible... and be sure to check out the first episode of our show “The Road We’re On” which will be up today or tomorrow. Grab the widget if you do that sort of thing, so more people can see about the tour and write to us and tell us if you want to play a song on the bus, or you have some adventure or other we could go on together... we’ll try to get back to you as soon as we feasibly can, but the boys don’t like me checking my emails while I’m driving! See ya! xjont

Any musician reading this out there, or indeed artist, poet or writer, will know that it isn’t always easy to keep on believing in what you do, and keep on trying to get stuff out there, especially as when you are first learning your craft there can be lots of false dawns: deals that almost happen then fall through, business or band relationships that don’t turn out how you thought they would. Everybody knows that it is difficult to keep believing in yourself all the time.

Well, I’ve been very lucky over the last few years to have a few people out there who have never failed to be supportive and show belief in my music. None more so than Pete Fincham and his wife Michelle.

He’s been coming to my gigs since 1998, owns more recordings of my songs than I do (I don’t know where he finds them) and constantly badgers me at gigs to play songs I can barely remember the words to or that I had hoped everyone had by now forgotten about!

Over the years he has become a good friend. I played at his wedding in Portsmouth cathedral and you can check out the first Unlit we ever did in his house earlier in the year, if you watch the first episode of The House We're In, which was the series of films we made during the first ever UK Unlit tour.

Anyway, we were passing through Portsmouth again this week, so it only seemed right to pay Pete and Michelle, and their gorgeous kids Gracie and Freddie, a visit.

Gracie had started playing songs on a small pink guitar and even making up strange surreal verses... and as night drew in, a crowd of friendly folk made their way round to Pete’s.

The band The Visitors set up in their Kitchen, and their pedal steel player Ed Hogsdon and I jammed until late. There was Port and cheese, and we collapsed weary and happy in bed at some late hour.

Music clips coming soon to the Performer's Gallery.

We had the best breakfast ever this morning with DJ Johnnie Walker at David and Lizzie's B&B.

Fresh fruit (like mangoes and pineapples and things) and miniature patisserie that were totally addictive. I had a proper gourmet Full English Breakfast too. Mmmm, full...... English.

We discussed cereal...

The poached eggs were off the HOOK!

Johnnie encouraged Jont to make the most of the leftovers on his plate. Waste not want not and all that.