A new adventure!

 

It is just over a year ago, it seems since I wrote a Blog! It’s not that nothing has been happening in my life, far from it. Life is treating me kindly. There have been some small adventures. The majority have involved me and my ebike. But by far the happiest and most satisfying for my soul has been my little patchwork family. I find myself the grandfather to two single mothers each with a son. Being around these boys and watching them grow and learn is wonderful, and I am establishing a good relationship with them. Their mother’s don’t know yet, but I shall be using my bad influence to have many small adventures with these boys.

Be that as it may once my knee recovered from the operation I felt a need and a desire to walk one more Camino. From Lisbon to Santiago and the End of the World was my desire.

I started my training by buying new hiking shoes and not boots. Initially this was a disaster because I had some prescription insoles made by a firm in Willich called IOS! They just crippled my feet. Three times I had them remade, but to no avail! The initial shoe too proved to be too wide at the heel and I had to tie them so tight it hurt! I took them back after four weeks and got a different pair. As a Gold customer with Sport Check, they took them back without a murmur. 

I also worked hard to reduce the weight I had to carry by weighing every item and choosing what to take on weight alone. I also invested in a new lighter (under one kilo) rucksack and so imagine how pleased I was when I got the weight done to just over nine kilos!

  

I think though I need a new set of baggage scales as the airport scales showed me even lighter!

One of my “daughters” took me to the airport where my adventure began! The boarding pass on my phone did not have the Gate number on it but said that the safety check in was to be in area C! Went through there. Interestingly my artificial knee did not show on the scan!

Once through the security check I went on through passport control which was on the left, but should have gone to the right before it! I now learned that my flight was leaving from Gate A39 and had no means of getting there but to return through passport control as if I was arriving from abroad and go out into the arrivals hall and start all over again! 

By the time I got to the gate there was no time to do any shopping which was probably a good thing!

Then they changed the gate to gate A49 where we were able to see our plane arrive.

And watch my Rucksack being loaded. It’s the yellow bundle on the conveyor belt!

My seat was 5D, but stupidly I sat in 6D. When the owner of my seat came I found a woman now sitting in my seat so went sit in her’s which should have been 4D! Apart from these musical chairs the flight was uneventful. We were served with a dry bread roll which contained plastic cheese and ham. 

The good part was the leg room on the flight, there was plenty of it. So well done TAP Portugal.

On arrival it was a long walk to collect the baggage and then a long wait to get a taxi!

Our hostel is on the eighth floor of a high rise building which we are sharing with some chaps from Brazil. Thanks to Google translator we are able to communicate with each other. 

Initially we were allocated a top bunk, but I played the artificial knee card and they changed the bunks! The Bears are now happy.

I took a quick walk round the block and ended up getting wet as it rained. It is windy and colder than when I left good old Germany, but otherwise I have no complaints!

It's official

Yesterday as we predicted Alan walked into St Jean to find a place to eat and to have an initial look around town. The very first thing he did was to go into the Eglise Notre Dame du Bout du Pont, which is the largest Gothic building in the Basque Country next to the cathedral in Bayonne. Here he said prayers for a safe Camino, for his family and for some friends that are poorly and sorely in need of God's help. This act alone he felt made us true pilgrims at last.

Then he wandered around town, stopped at bar for a beer and wrote in his diary, walked on looking at the sights until could sit in a restaurant  and order a meal.

It was while walking around town that he bumped into the Frenchman. They stopped to chat a bit and then parted. In the restaurant after another beer Alan ordered the pilgrim's menu.  This consisted of soup, chicken and chips and a crepe all to be washed down with 25cls of red wine and 50cls of water.

As he was eating the hot, filling and tasty vegetable soup the Frenchman reappeared, so Alan suggested he join him.

His name, now introductions seemed in order, was Jacques, he was retired and came from Strasburg. Imagine if you will an Englishman with very poor schoolboy French and a Frenchman with very poor schoolboy English and you have an idea of how the conversation went. Jacques ordered the same meal, but drank cider instead. After the meal the men went their separate ways.

This morning we all overslept, but as we were not going anywhere it didn't really matter. Breakfast was very French and we shared a table with a French couple. Large cups of coffee served with croissants which one dipped into the coffee.

After breakfast we walked into town to get our pilgrims' pass stamped, which you see above, so now it's official that we are on the Camino.

The route tomorrow follows Napoleon's route into Spain and is thus called the French Way.

Our route is the red one on the left above and the profile of what we have to climb is as shown!! We are only going as far as Orisson tomorrow which is some 10 kilometres from our pension, but we have to climb some 2100 feet to get there. The highest point on this first stage is quite a bit higher than Snowdon! But even then it is not the highest point on the route to Santiago.

This you can see from the sketch above is over 1400 metres or 4200 feet! This is also where the Cruz de Ferro is, the iron cross where pilgrims leave the stones they carry. But more on that when we get there.

Alan is off out again to find a place to eat and to buy some victuals for the journey.

Buen Camino.

Have stone, will travel!

Progress is being made and the sun shone on it today too. Hanna would be pleased. We just have to get the marble slab with Hanna's details onto the grave now, by the end of next week I hope, and then some flowers can be planted and I will buy some from the money people have given me.

I met today with a friend who is coming to the USA with me, to discuss our plan and what still needs to be done before we depart. He kindly gave me a book by Bettina Selby entitled "Pilgrim's Road. A Journey to Santiago de Compostela". Selby did it by bike from Vézelay  in France, which as luck would have it is the way I want to go. My map of the routes through France also arrived in the post today! If autumn is nice I might try and do the first leg by bike from here to Trier  before Christmas. It's a bit ambitious, but one has to set goals or nothing gets done.

A Spanish friend has recently given me the film of the trip with Martin Sheen as the pilgrim called, "The Way". If I have time I may watch it this evening. My Spanish friend who has done it too, also mentioned that there is one place along the route, where pilgrims place a stone they have carried from home. A nice idea, so yesterday I picked one up from off of Hanna's grave. Good thing I did, as there are none there today.

So have stone, will travel!

The Next Step

Today is the third Sunday since Hanna's death. The first, friends kindly had me round for a meal; the second, I was away and staying in Helpensen. So today was the first Sunday alone, but I did not fall into a hole. After a leisurely breakfast on my balcony, with fresh bread rolls which I had got from the baker on the corner, I visited Hanna and changed the burnt out candle.

Now you have to know that Hanna and I had become creatures of habit over the last 11 years. Sundays was our day when we would take off somewhere armed with our cameras. After our expedition we would retire to my place for Tea and a check of our booty. We would also sit and watch TV, nearly always ZDF at 1930hrs especially as they had a programme about history and culture. This would be followed by a kitschy love story, which we had dubbed "Herz und Schmerz". After a short siesta we would then sit, over a meal I would cook, talking into the night and generally in the summer until the sun came up.

So after telling Hanna what I was going to do and armed with my camera, I set off for Nideggen in the Eifel. I had learnt that in the Burg there was an exhibition about Pilgrims and the Jacob's Way.

Just some of the pictures I took today.

The exhibition gave me a better feel for what it will involve walking the Jacob's Way. I was also able to buy some literature and a small Pilgrims' prayer book. The drive, there and back, gave me time to reflect on my intentions and to allow certain ideas to coalesce. 

I shall always plan to be in Mönchengladbach on certain days of the year, 

23 April          Hanna's Birthday

24 April          Anniversary of our first meeting

30 July            the day of her death

1 November   All Souls when the family visit all the graves of the departed members.

The rest of the time I shall do as I please, but certainly travel or be walking the Pilgrims' Way. I have come to the idea that I will walk the route from home right through Germany, France to Spain. In the beginning I shall walk in stages coming home at the end of the day and as I get further afield in weekly bites staying where ever until I reach the Spanish Border. Then I shall do the last 800 km in one go. A further idea is to walk on to La Corunna and take a ship to England and then walk the Pilgrims' Way to Canterbury. I have to get back after all. 

When I got home, I did as we would have done. I got out my best china and had tea and read a little in the literature I had bought. Checked my photos, then had  a siesta. I sat and watched our normal programmes, cooked myself a meal and instead of chatting into the night I am writing this Blog. So as you see my life is slowly coming round to being normal again.

What to do with the rest of my life?

When you loose someone close to you, you are also reminded of your own mortality. If I keep myself fit and baring accidents I estimate I have a good 10-15 years of travel time left in me before I need to go into a care home. I am not being morbid, but trying to be realistic so I can have a plan and not just drift through the rest of my life. I also need to have a firm plan for the end of my life as there is no one who will care for me as I cared for Hanna, and I certainly do not want Hanna's daughters wiping my bottom nor even my own sons. But the least said about them the better. A home is the answer and I will try and find a suitable 2 or 3, since when I make that last leap there also needs to be a vacancy. But that's in the future, what about now.

Well I've decided to go back to my roots. I am the son of an infantry soldier and I was an infantry soldier too. As a youth I loved the out doors and walking and camping. As a subaltern I was also a mountaineering instructor and loved climbing. I would have continued doing that, but after one short expedition in my own time, the wife at the time said, "me or the mountains"  and foolishly I threw my boots into the corner, instead of packing my gear and heading for the hills. Being realistic I am now too old to go climbing, but not walking. If I can combine walking with ancient rubble and foreign lands then that is a bonus.

What immediately sprung to mind with this idea was of course the St James' Pilgrims way to Santiago de Compostela! But there are many other paths too. Hadrian's Wall for example. Well the first thing I did then was to go out and buy myself a new pair of hiking boots. I also bought a guide book on the St James' Pilgrims Way. 

This afternoon I put the new boots on, strung a pack on my back and out I went. As I left the house the very first thought that hit me was, it felt so right, the years rolled off me and it was as if I was 45 years younger. "I can do this," said I, I feel young, fit and energetic! Well I am none of those things really, but the feeling of having a good pair of boots on my feet and a pack on my back did really transport me back in time. It felt so natural. 

I walked to Hanna's resting place and chatted with her about my idea. She might have called me "crazy" again, but I think she would be supportive. My Dad would be leaping for joy and saying, "go for it" as he wanted to do just that in New Zealand when he retired, but my mother wouldn't let him even try. 

I spent 3 and half hours walking in what amounts to the wilderness here the other side of the cemetery towards Viersen. I gave the boots a good workout. Took them up and down steep inclines, through mud and wet grass, over stony ground and sandy soil. I broke trails through chest high nettles and brambles. And what pleased me most I was alone. I love solitude and the peace of the woods. I got as close as 2 metres before the Hare took off. I could also have rescued a damsel in distress. She had let her bike fall over in the woods and the rear mud guard was bent so badly it was touching the wheel, but sadly I did not have my Leatherman tool with me and my fingers were not strong enough on their own.

I returned to the cemetery in the pouring rain which let up as I got there. After checking with Hanna I came home to a shower and tea, feeling tired, a little sore round the ankles as I have not worn boots for the last  23 years, but the feet were fine. 

So I have a plan. It starts with getting fit enough to walk 25 km per day with a pack on my back. Then we will see where these boots take me. They were made for walking after all and as we all know a journey of 1000 miles begins with one step. I have taken that step today.