Camino 22

 Time wanders on.  It is over three weeks since I got back, the knees still ache, the shoulders are not yet talking to me, but the road weariness is lifting.  A small prayer has been answered. Yes, it looks like I get to be Mary and Martha both - we are in touch with a Ukrainian family that will fill our house again with the commotion of life. Undertaking this adventure is no less worrying than setting off from Zamora destination Santiago. Then I knew my knees would swear at me, I knew my shoulders would take offence, but it was a training exercise I felt I needed and wanted to undertake - training in the discipline of trust in his guidance.  Of guidance on the camino I have written. This new adventure too I know will not be easy. We have had the experience of sharing the house with a family of five, a long time ago, when our own family of five included three children under five as did the other family.  I recall the pain of what I still refer to as "teapot trai...

I am home. Looking back, and rubbing my knees thoughtfully, I am again mildly astonished that I had the temerity to attempt the camino. So much could have gone wrong (but didn't), including what I had actually feared most: that I would start walking and discover that I didn't want to be there, that the memories of that first camino that called me back were false, or that I had changed, or that the camino had changed, that the presence that I had felt so close to ten years ago was simply absent.  It was all there, the same joy to be out and walking first thing in the morning, the same transient but deep friendship with others sharing the way, the same sense of walking in that presence, guarded, encouraged, cared for and sheltered. As before, I felt myself not so much walking alone but walking with the silent company of all who had ever walked the way, one with a huge fellowship of people, but not feeling crowded out or intimidated or unwelcome.  My memory was not wrong. I am gl...

Written (mostly) the Saturday before Easter.  Anticipating the camino I oscillated between two extremes: astonishment at my arrogance in presuming that I was still up to the challenge of walking a third the diameter of Spain and contempt for my fears that anything could go seriously wrong. The whispering in one ear: You're nearly 70, your knees are dodgy, your shoulders aren't good, a third of the albergues are still closed, the camino will be terribly crowded and you won't find a bed, the camino will be totally deserted and you won't have anyone to talk to and you'll go mad, it will be too hot, it might be too cold.  The whispering in the other ear: Even a nearly 70 year old woman is not in fact risking anything very great in attempting a camino sola. This is modern Spain, civilisation is never more than a few stone throws away - even in the remoter parts you usually cross a major road once or twice a day, a phone call and a taxi will take you within the sphere whe...

 It is Palm Sunday. I have declared it a half day holiday, and I am studying a cup of tea, seeing how long I can make it last. I am feeling a little lost. The half day holiday has meant saying good-bye to six men and a woman whom I had not met this time last Sunday.  I know most of their forenames.  I know none of their surnames. One is German, three are French, probably three are Swiss. The other woman and her husband are walking the camino together, two of the men, a man and his brother-in-law had also planned to walk this together, the rest of us are all solo. For all that our acquaintance has been short, it feels like saying goodbye to long time friends.  On the second day of meeting together in the evening I was beginning to wonder whether we would become friends at all. The men were sitting enjoying beers and crisps, a very self contained lot.  I had just discovered the only chance of shops and a meal was a kilometre back the way we had come. It was clear ...

This comes to you from a bar in Granja de Moruella. It has been an easy day.  My Camino companions have just left after an extended lunch. There is a complicated and loud game going on at the next table, seven men, something to do with cards I think.  It was an easy day, 12k, thanks to a conspiracy of several hospitalieros. I had arrive at Zamora thoroughly metagrobolised by the combined efforts of Ryanair, a convoluted metro crossing of Madrid, and several hours of hanging around Chamartin train station because all earlier trains to Zamora were fully booked. At dusk I arrived.  The door opened, this hospitaliero was of the old school, welcome, come in, take off your boots. There were some covid modifications: a fever scan, hand sanitising rituals. El credenciel. That is the record of one’s progress along the Camino. The first stamp in this record is Special.  It was a homecoming for me, home to Casa Camino. I struggled to find words, and not just because the words n...

This is a technical post.  I must figure out how to post a blog using a keyboard that folds in thirds to something the size of a postcard.  If I can’t do this at my own dining room table, I surely will be unable to do it on the run. This is all part of the Camino, as surely as arrival in Santiago will be, if I get there, as purchasing the tickets was, as setting off for the airport in the dark of Sunday morning will be. Testing the kit.  Packing, repacking, borrowing kit, filling in online forms, collecting documentation, anticipating all manner of trouble in the hope that anticipated troubles, despairing of their full potential for wreaking dismay through that forethought might give up and leave me in peace. So is emptying the fridge. The menu gets stranger as time grows short.  Suffice it to say that I had a lot of onions for supper, and will have a lot of slightly old Brussels sprouts for tomorrow’s lunch.  The curious consequences of the Camino slowly taking...