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.

Hanna Part 2

SHOPPING AND LOSS

Today as almost every Friday for the last 11 years I have gone shopping with Hanna. When she could no longer go shopping herself, she would send me an email and I would get her stuff too. Then when she could no longer send emails I would go and write the shopping list for and with her, and later still I would write it myself. Either way at the end of the day we would sit together and eat our evening meal and chat into the night or watch TV until it was time for me to go home.

As I entered the supermarket car park where we would normally shop, it hit me in the face like a wet fish. She was gone. I need not shop for her, or try and think of meals I wanted to cook for her when she came to visit, or later meals I cooked for her at her home. I was now all alone in the world, had no one to cook for anymore. I suddenly felt all alone and found it hard to continue. What was the point of it all.

When I got home and began to unpack my shopping the door bell rang. It was Natalie, at 40 on the 24 July, Hanna’s youngest daughter. She said I have something to show you. So up she came and showed me a small bunch of dried flowers she had found in Hanna’s bedroom! It had a label on it from 1990. Now you have to know that in Hanna’s first Will written in 1992 she stated that she wanted the many dried baccarat roses, which were the flowers I had given her over time, to be placed in her coffin as they meant so much to her! Sadly as she herself stated in the last Codicil to her Will, these had fallen to the passage of time and no longer existed.

First Flowers after 5 months separation 1990

Natalie asked if she could put these flowers in her coffin instead. Needless to say I gave her a hug and said of course as I knew exactly what the bunch she found represented  for me and Hanna.

In 1990 I was stationed in Bielefeld as a Staff Officer in HQ 1 (BR) Corps and living in a flat in the centre of town. Although Hanna and I had recently become lovers I did not want a permanent relationship, I was not ready. Instead I started an affair with an American soprano in the Bielefeld Opera Company. Nor did I keep it a quiet affair I told Hanna what I was doing and why. The affair did not survive the first Gulf War, as the lady was not best pleased when on my Birthday I came home late due to some crisis or other at the front.

This taught me another valuable lesson in life and when I realised I was foolish and Hanna WAS the woman for me, I just got in my car with the said fresh flowers and drove down to Mönchengladbach. It was a surprise for her when she saw me, but she knew how I felt without saying or asking anything. She just took me by the hand and straight upstairs to bed. The rest as the say is history and this was when the spark became the all consuming fire.

When Natalie left I wept a little. I wept for the pain I had caused Hanna, I wept for the love and forgiveness Hanna showed me and I wept for the joy of the love we shared.

Hanna

 Damascus 2010

Allepo 2008

As dawn breaks I am writing this as a sort of catharsis, my way of grieving, for I cannot sleep. For the last few nights I have trained my body to stay awake while I held a vigil by the bedside of my dying soul mate. So I am used to being wide awake between the hours of 1800 and 1000 the next day.

I have known, in the biblical sense, many women in my life. Some I have loved deeply, others were just good friends or passing ships in the night and at least two were witches which it would have been better not to have known. Hanna who died yesterday was the one shining light, my best friend and worst critic, a great lover and wonderful soul mate, for she really of all the women, really understood me better than I did myself.

When we met 25 years, 3 months and six days ago the last thing I wanted was another relationship with a woman and certainly not with one that was almost 10 years older than me. I was on my way to becoming a misogynist for one of these witches had just crushed me. I had nothing to laugh about and was content in my sorrow, yet Hanna found the key to make me laugh at myself.

For quite awhile we were just good friends, she was someone I could talk to and neither of us were looking for a relationship or had the wish to “know” one another. But when we did ignite that spark it became a roaring fire which consumed our souls and made them one.

She was a great support and hostess during my service time, when I was required to represent the Crown and had to entertain to encourage better understanding between our allies. And what was pleasing for me, was that she was well liked and respected by those interlocutors I had to deal with at that time. Without her support I could never have managed to sail alone around the world, or find my feet when it ended. She was there for me when I needed it most with advice and critique, though the latter was not always appreciated by me. She had the ability to ask the pertinent questions that nearly always pricked the bubble of my enthusiasm, much to my annoyance. So she kept my feet firmly on the ground, but also knew how to encourage me to follow my dreams. She made me a much better person than I was before.

We shared many passions, such as language and a thirst for knowledge of new cultures and religions. We loved travel and meeting people and exploring the ancient rubble that exists in our world. And we loved taking photos, though she hated me taking hers. Whereas I loved being in hers and we would laugh about the photos she took of me in the left, right, or in the middle of her pictures with a photo smile on my face.

So I am a little lost at sea at the moment for my soul mate has sailed over the horizon and is gone from me. But I know she is there still, just like the ship sailing on the ocean, and she is in my heart and will continue to guide me through the rest of my life.

May God grant her eternal peace and ever lasting life.