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The Battle of the Ebro

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ACT I – A Pincho Too Far. Setting: Casa Alberto, Tudela. A dim, narrow bar smelling faintly of bleach, Rioja, and fried cartilage. The counter is cluttered with half-drained glasses, pinchos under glass domes, and a small handwritten sign: “Menú del Día — Oreja de Cerdo.” The lighting flickers slightly, unsure whether to flatter or expose. Characters: DANIEL (The Peregrine): worn, wry, a pilgrim of mixed conviction. Sandals dusty, eyes alert to absurdity. ALBERTO: the barman. Mid-forties, dead behind the eyes but efficient. Moves like someone who stopped listening years ago. THE SHADOW: a gaunt man in cheap sportswear, glassy-eyed, perpetually hovering — left, right, forward, back. His presence is an itch that won’t scratch. THE PIG’S EAR: glistening, stubborn, and silent. --- [Lights rise. The hum of the fridge. A muted TV showing a bullfight rerun.] ALBERTO (flat): Oreja de cerdo? DANIEL (hesitant): Sí… why not? ALBERTO (shrugs, disappears into the kitchen). [THE SHADOW appears, circ...
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Camino Jacobeo del Ebro: Paso a Paso

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Part One. Coming up out of Leeds in the mist. Up Through Horsforth towards the flight to Reus. My final pilgrimage of 2025 as the season changes into Autumn. A spectacular Saturday afternoon gestating Leeds at its insidious worst. The entrails of Sunday discharged like afterbirth along Albion Street and Boar Lane. Part of me wants to follow L'Ebro to the Delta and the other me wants to walk with pilgrims westward towards Logroño. *** LBA. Minus the human carnage, it's stunning up here overlooking the runway at Leeds Bradford Airport. Out of the mist and into the azure beyond where my feet keep on keeping on: where I am not being forced into a smaller and smaller box by circumstances: mother, mental health, Lola's aging or Wetherby's hostile pressure. In Leeds Bradford Airport there is a new departure lounge. It's still an airport cluster-fuck, but it's a vast improvement on the restrictive space after Duty Free; it's a meditative space if you can survive the...
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above the Pyrenees.

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Why do I consistently chose the problem when I know the answer? I am consistently choosing the problem! Even in the midst of the answer I eventually choose the problem again. All the time. I am afraid of myself, my brothers and everything else. Where did my fear come from? It's debilitating. I do not fear the unknown, but the known - how very true? At the end of the walk I was failing to achieve what I needed from the experience. After Cortes I would say I was distracted from being on the path. From Zaragoza to Cortes I was fixed in my mind. From Cortes to Alcanadre it was a chore; a yawn; a lack of peace or sufficiency. By the time I had reached Tudela my mind was struggling to find true quiet. 
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Ruby, Wetherby, and the Small Town Weight

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I came back to Ruby with hope, as I always do. She is seven now — a wriggle monster, bounding joy, a creature of dens and quiet contentment. Lola, born in early May 2015, is just past her tenth year. Her paw, her breathing, her seventh year heavy with love behind her — all of it reminds me that her time is finite. I’ve given her everything, and one day I’ll have to learn to give some of that to myself. My mother remains a shadow in the story — her world narrowed to the television, her words barbed, her praise absent. I meet her needs, but the cost is silence and cuts that leave their mark. And then there is Wetherby. Polished, small, soulless. I walk its streets with Ruby and remember: this town is too little for me. It folds in on itself while I’ve known wide horizons — rivers at dawn, pilgrim roads, markets where even strangers feel warmer. Here I find Andy’s chatter, Ian’s aggression, people clutching their dogs away as if joy were dangerous. No, Wetherby is not a pleasure; it’s the...
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Cutting.

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Ginnel Betwixt Stone and divine, Division. Cutting you from me and them and us. Just us? Grit and grind. And spittle Ash, grime Me, them and us? Maybe Unjudged? Unjudging free.
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