Category: Uncategorized
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You have been summoned
I always wanted to be picked first, or second, even third, when team captains chose their squad for school sports. It was a vain hope. I usually waited in that anxious cluster until the final few. When I reached adulthood, this mysteriously changed. I always found a spot on the B team squad when I…
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Knitting for Gina
I’m not a very good cook. Following all the precise steps in a recipe is quite stressful, and I can never manage them. So, picture the scene when I first met Gina. It was 2008 and we were invited to the Daish-Gorge house for a Saturday evening dinner party. A dainty woman opened the door…
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Enough already
One of the prayer cards I collected along the Camino path at the Iglesia de Santa Maria in Los Arcos, calls for God to watch over and guide the steps of each pilgrim so that they might not only complete their journey to Santiago but be ‘strengthened with gratitude and power’ to return home safely.…
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That Final Vista
The slow revelation of the final vista has been one of the joys and challenges of our daily walking. First comes the anticipation of a fresh horizon, then the dawning comprehension of the terrain involved, followed by a calculation of the physical resources required. Susan and I are both wearing watches that track the distance…
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Stamp collecting
Before we embarked on this long walk we found the Pilgrim’s Office in Bordeaux. Here we registered our intention to undertake the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela and were presented with two options to describe our motivation. We could walk with ‘Christian devotion’, or with an ‘attitude of search’. Consenting enabled us to collect the…
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The things that I carry
My backpack attracts a fair amount of comment on the trail. The vast majority of packs on the French Camino are by a ubiquitous American brand. Every other person has one, and the bright colours add a festive element to the trail. Mine is made by a small New Zealand company. It has an unusual…
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Body, mind, and soul
When Susan and I walked into Mansilla de las Mulas we were soaking wet. Our eighth day walking on the Meseta, an elevated plateau in North Central Spain, had already been long and hard before the rain set in. A few days prior, we decided to walk this alternate route because the trail took us…
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The Essentials
Nestled in the hillside just before the isolated village of Moratinos, about 69 km from the city Leon on the Northern Meseta (population 59, back in 2018), stand a series of ‘bodegas’. Signs inform passing pilgrims that these structures are not hobbit-holes, they are historic infrastructure that was essential to the wine culture of the…
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Dietary Requirements
Eating well is important when your body is under the constant stress of walking, but this isn’t so easy to achieve when living a nomadic lifestyle in rural Spain. We are walking between 20-30 kilometres each day, for around 5 days, then taking a rest day. Our schedule is designed to enable relaxation and recuperation…
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Be bold, start cold
Although every pilgrim walks at their own pace, our rhythms also intersect throughout the day. This routine starts in the albergues, which expect us to vacate before 8 am. Early risers are rustling through their backpacks before 6 am, preparing to make a pre-dawn start, so there’s no need to set an alarm. Susan and…