I have an email from Vice.com sitting in my inbox when I wake up this morning. We will be travelling to Amsterdam this afternoon to shoot the cannabis/Parkinson’s documentary – so much for Barcelona! I email them back requesting the flight tickets, and set about getting ready to leave. My wife’s youngest son and his fiancee agree to look after the dog until we get back on Sunday evening, so I arrange for a taxi to pick us up from Hevingham to take us to Norwich Airport, and pack a few bits and pieces in an overnight bag.
An email from Vice.com arrives with confirmation of our flights, so I check us in online and print off our boarding cards.
We drop off the dog, jump into our taxi and we are soon at Norwich Airport waiting to board our flight. On arrival at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport we are expecting someone from Vice.com to meet us and take us to our hotel. Given the organised chaos that has been their hallmark thus far, I can’t say that I was too surprised to find that nobody was waiting to greet us. A couple of phone calls later, we are directed to walk to our hotel, just a few minutes walk from the airport. All of this rushing around has had quite an effect upon my tremor, which is breaking through on both sides, so it’s a relief to get checked in at the hotel and relax in our room for a few hours. We are due to travel into the centre of Amsterdam at 10.30pm tonight – filming is taking place in a coffee shop, after normal trading hours – so we grab something to eat in the hotel restaurant.
At 10.30pm we are bundled into a taxi along with a few of the Vice.com crew, and driven to the coffee shop. Filming goes on until almost 5am but my involvement is over by 3.30am, and my wife and I are bundled into a taxi back to our hotel to grab a little shut-eye.