Into Santiago and other things

Serious self-reflective piece to camera [you may want to skip this bit and look at the pretty pictures - or click on the link for some nice music. Django

Ok, we have left the hotel. We are heading towards the AP-3 and SC-20, both using the available gaps in the terrain to head north. Crossing them we are going into one of those modern suburbs which are now to be found around Spanish towns. Restaurante O Tangueiro is offering Padron Peppers for 6.50. Lidl sometimes do them and if you have never had them fried with garlic then life is now even better as there is a new excitement to look forward to.

I enjoy the contradiction of being about to sit down for hours in an archive but not being able to sit still at home. I can’t remember when ‘walking’ - this is small w walking, not ‘W’ walking - which involves Kendal Mint Cake, a stick and a desire to experience nature in the raw, well, at least nicely curated by thousands of years of farming, mining and other human activity. I think I first noticed this liking of walking when it occurred to me to get the bus to College took an hour and a half. Walking involved an hour and you got the bus money to spend on D&D, cider and reenactment.

walking has been a mix of the urban serendipity of mooching across London, especially the City on a Saturday and discovering so many nooks and crannies and of more rural pursuit of vanishing byways and inconvenient hedges. Generally the walking slipped away as work and family became more time consuming and not being somewhere with many footpaths assisted this. Then came lockdown. The first week you couldn’t move for people rediscovering the joys of rural strolling. I developed an established route, into the village, out across the fields to the church and back. About the same time Apps appeared suggesting that while you were squelching along by a drainage ditch you could, in fact, measure how far you had got to Mordor with Frodo, gardener and the grifter he met on the road.

In the Mid 90s the Middle Ages came to visit. Christopher Grayling’s visually exciting ‘Strange Landscape’ blended with Eamon Duffy’s ‘The Stripping of the Altars’ - with a bit of the Divine Comedy to season to create a picture of a world which had a strong supernatural dimension, to add to the usual ones we potter about in. I wanted to do the Camino. Occasion never presented itself.

By now we are zig zagging through the suburbs the older buildings become more common and it is time for a sit so let us enter Bar Londres. It gets 4.6 stars. Generally people leave 5 stars and move on. A month ago Reuben said ‘We had some beers and the service was excellent. Good atmosphere and good music, little more can you ask for.’

The Apps gave me the idea and the excuse. Maybe not the excuse. A beloved friend said ‘why do you always feel you need to give yourself permission’. I don’t know. Maybe because I have about ten lifetimes of projects in mind and maybe I need to justify why the less important are getting priority. Maybe it is just a focus for something. This is a sort of ‘Slow Food' walking. Usually under 4km a day, with the opportunity to look at things that you would wizz past normally.

We are crossing the N-550 now. This, for me, marks the start of the city proper. Suddenly the number of gift shops will increase. Should you wish for a miniature walking stick, gourd and scallop shell then this is a city that can supply that need.

In some ways the early days of this undertaking proved the idea at once. A new discovered Roman road; an unexpected toll bridge and a lightning struck 18th century pillar at the centre of Roman Britain were great discoveries. In other ways it was a dash for France and foreign fields that led me on. I now have a better grasp of where Pegasus Bridge is and how depopulation has affected much of rural France and Spain. What is clear is humanity, or parts of it, have a need to review things - even motorway bridges. We are just passing Dr Mortiis Tattoo Clinic. A month ago Carlos said ‘It is a real pleasure for me to have met these two machines, Mortis and Andrés. Andrés left me my last stamp of the road.’ https://www.drmortiis.com/

When I started my walking career in the 1970s there was just me and my mind. I thought a lot. Much of it of no consequence. Some were less important. The invention of the ipod was transformative. Books and podcasts poured into my ears wherever I went. At last I had some chance to keep up with all the things I never had any chance to read.

We are passing La Oficina de Rehabilitación e Vivienda We won’t stop. http://www.santiagodecompostela.gal/ Manuel gave the only review, ‘Good treatment, family atmosphere, cozy environment.’ 5 stars.

Sometimes the inevitable is only that in hindsight. The crowding in of negative thoughts; the first proper dyslexic meltdown by too much out of control input. Last October I got an e-mail from a cherished old friend who I hadn’t seen for almost thirty years. The past knocked me side-ways and the present and future pilled in, sensing an opportunity to get the attention they felt they deserved. Lets call it a breakdown as I haven't got a better term to describe it. Even at the time I stood to the side looking at what was happening with mild curiosity. The need to up the thinking time meant longer walks; the words that needed listening to were replaced with music that magnified the mood. Sleep became more optional, certainly more curtailed.

Two things happened in December. I shared that I was undergoing therapy and I came out as Non-Binary. The latter had been planned for ‘sometime’ for well over a year and only coincidentally came about at roughly the same moment. If I identify as anything it is probably being British and I am uncomfortable with being the object of strong displays of public emotion. People were magnificent. I can not begin to say how much the support and love I got from my friends meant to me. Abigail had to put up with an awful lot of me working and reworking things as I processed through how I felt and what it meant. Nothing I could write here would be adequate to express how I feel about her.

In many ways this was the best thing that could have happened. So many things which had crowded in were swept away in the tsunami and I am putting it all together again. I am not niave enough to assume there won’t be aftershocks but we are heading to a better place.

There are many ways in which you can do your young adult life. One of the ways I did it was going for the ‘Over Serious’ option. I rejected ritual as a thing that replaced the proper thing. I am less harsh on it these days. The equinox is that moment where the light side of the year replaces the dark one. I decided to make for Compostela on that day; a symbolic end to a journey but also coming out into the light and starting a new phase. It is also the half of the year the events season begins I get to see the people I treasure so much We are before the cathedral. Tomorrow we will go in.

This isn’t the end. It has been fun so I am heading for Santander next. A new phase, a bit like the old one but in a different direction. During recent times I am reminded of Melanie’s ‘Psychotherapy.’ A song sung round fires, the memory made more poignant by the recent death of the artist. I will leave you with that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx0foCV9WvI

ps As i write this it is cloudy and 12oC in Santiargo and 11oC here. It does, incredibly, seem to be wetter here.