D-Day

I've so many aches and pains... Ingrowing toenail and a septic finger. Sore knees and knuckles. And the excruciating pain on the ball of my foot. Ibuprofen at the ready I feel... Antibiotics would be helpful!

Getting to 50 and all the shutters are closing on half day... Give me back youth. Or would that help? Being youthful is healthy, but far too manic.

I am 50 and I've got an allotment... Have I moved into the 5th age of man after the tumultuous 4th, where I was in a spinning frenzy.

Last time I was in Paris, 2016, I didn't care if I lived or died (I was hoping for death to take me). So I was running around looking everywhere for a cheap bed, eventually the Bishop/Priest at Saint Severin allowed me to sleep in the crypt with the homeless.

Walked up to the allotment, before heading to Deerstone Ridge for the 7:30am, to see that all the stuff I put in on Sunday are bedded in.

The weather has changed: cooler and full covering of dull! So hopefully the potatoes will be fine, being fairly deeply deployed, once the cold snap pours in from the North in a few days?

But what can I do? I am not King Canute to turn back the weather. Whatever the weather it will occur whether I am in Wetherby or the Loire Valley? If I place my feet one step infront of the other that is all I can control?

Sober evening, broken by a couple of toilet breaks, mum was up to see me off; fretting as a seaside mist does gathering all around me. Whittering. She's worried for me and my safety in France, on The Way... It's her way: the BBC and being sat all day makes her afraid - hopefully soon her new knee will give her back some freedom?

Managed to reset all my credit cards yesterday and this morning(for emergencies) and washed all my clothes ahead of the big smell. But I definitely need to put some thermals dans le sac so back to 69 for a brief change of what I take with me on this Lenten Pilgrimage.

There is a fine rain falling now as I wait for the X98 to begin the long process of being in place for Chemin Saint Jacques this evening... Should I stay two nights in Paris?

***

Waiting calmly in a hidden corner of the quieter area at Leeds Bradford: there used to be a pray room here but they got rid of it to provide more space for a bar... A chance to charge this phone up. Lemon and hot water to drink. Flapjack and nuts for the brief flight to Beauvais and the 50 mile coach journey to Porte Maillot. So far no alcohol. I am in the other mode of existence... Where I Wii be seated on 21B, between folks, wishing the trip was over. A short hop. Much better than 3+ hours of Ryanair ranting and raving. My usual complaints around this time... But it doesn't matter. We're all on a journey somewhere, we're all experiencing life a little different from each other? There are a dozen Imams departing too so for them the experience might be different/difficult.

The last time that there was a pray room here in Leeds Ruby Wax joined me for a moment's meditation: she's the infuriating individual who definitely sped me on my way to hopelessness... She always struck me as shallow and unreal - perhaps she saw herself one day and collapsed?