A rebel without a clue.

The things which don't exist until I step out of the flat's nighttime sleep into awakenedness: the long return to another reality. The neverending real blandness of the yo-yo ping-pong of getting my shit together for the trip to 42 Braine Road to take Lola for a couple of walks. *** Wednesday morning. Archie decided to sleep on his bed beside the unlit fire in the front room so I slept until 7 without any real distractions. We both needed a little extra sleep because on Monday evening his guts were churning and he was shaking his ears a little at the base of the bed. There was some tapping in the night, which I realised was rain on the velux windows at the back of the house, when I initially thought it was Archie coming up to the top floor. Yesterday I managed an hour at the allotment, the first visit since the icy frozen the week previous and my final walk in Spain of 2022 the ten days prior. Christmas gathers it's force with the hyper annoying ornamentation and awful over...

As I sit waiting in Gate B20 waiting for a call for the return to Manchester I am reflecting back on the 7 days of the Camino de Madrid and whether it did what I need from the Camino Experience and I think it did? Really I wanted to reach Valladolid on foot if I could in time, but the pressure on my foot seemed to be saying enough, as it came and went during most of the monotony that the Meseta was offering... I know the Meseta (the south area from the Camino del Sureste) is genuinely barren without the distraction of woods, rivers or hills of the likes leading up to the Sistema Central... so can cope with it. But the ongoing issue with my left foot is becoming more than an irritation. As I am on the usual NHS waiting list for a clinical assessment of the problem I guess next year I will restrict the distances I cover per day? 

Back the way I came from Saturday - renfe Avant high speed train linking Valladolid, Segovia and Madrid Chamartín in one hour. Wearing a mask is still obligatory on public transport it seems? As my flight back to Manchester is scheduled for 8:15am I feel it would be best to stay close to the airport, not in central Madrid so I don't have to get up at stupid o'clock (5am) the airport is close to Barajas - the first bus in the morning is around 6 and drops at terminal one around 6:15 which should be sufficient so after we arrive in Chamartín I am heading directly to Barajas on metro 8. I left my walking boots to dry for two days, since I arrived in The Book Factory Hostel, but they are still pretty damp from all those puddles along the Camino tracks through the pine plantations between Coca and Alcazarén. Last night the room I was in stayed pretty quiet - the two other occupants weren't long after me climbing into their beds. Two other individuals I guess upgraded as they qui...

In me is one more day? Should do because 7 days isn't so bad with the physical challenges since the mountains (weather and body)? Booked two nights in Valladolid anyway to be a tourist in the rain... Slept pretty well after the fridge stopped leaking water: I turned it off due to the continual vibrations but it decided to defrost... The room was a little damp but not particularly cold. Now I am across the park having a cortido after tostados con tomate pondering my day forward as rain is forecast in the very region I am walking through and on the seventh day I am quite tired, surely the seventh day was a restday? *** On the final leg of today's suggest Etapa and completely bored of pine forests/plantations: this area reminds me of Les Landes in Gascony, but perhaps not quite as relentlessly uninspiring? Left foot is playing up once more, but so nearly at the end of the walk so I'll manage - 5 hours straight, almost, with one village since Coca, which I tried to hitch all al...

The path is the destination? No matter how much I look forward to the end of these physical difficulties I am sure that it is just 'the moment' which exists and I am just in this moment at the crossroads? It's like the Power of Now... Today I left the Albergue at 8 walked for around half an hour before I missed my turn so had to walk straight over planted, ploughed and fallow to join the Camino for an hour: but does it really matter where I am going or where I came from when I am just here without any conception my reality? It just rained torrentially all morning. It is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception this Thursday, thank you Spain, but my maths suggests that Jesus must've been born in August or he was literally like a sack of wind ready to blow in less than three weeks ... Logic says that the Roman feast/Christmas is just a superposition, but in a quantum universe no one knows where any two pintxos transects so perhaps this son of God is outside of physics and p...

Enforced hermitage isn't a bad thing. Here's me well rested, after deep dream filled sleep with no disturbances, of my own construction or exterior, but I am not 100% sure on my left foot. I am going to hobble the 10 kilometres to Santa María la Real de Nieva, get breakfast and then decide on what I should do: I will be on my way just prior to sunrise, around 8am. As the bar was locked up at seven thirty I turned in. My stomach rumbled a little without supper but a little enforced sobriety and fasting can only be a good thing to help cleanse the body which may help the foot pain ease? It was pretty chilly in Añe last night with clear skies above so I slept in the Longjohns I packed just incase I needed them coming through the Sistema Central: they are not my preferred pair (merino) which I couldn't locate while packing, but they're aimed at skiiers so they kept me blissfully unaware of the cold part of the Albergue: oh and the radiator works too and that, with a thick w...

First true Albergue of this outting and what a relief. Away from condescending bar staff who often fleece me at every opportunity - pig tails indeed - it's 99% bone and 1 percent skin, sure Lola would wolf it down, but then she's related to one (and I am sure she carries just one too many rat genes as she goes noising around). Back in the early 1980s what I recall was my first Chinese take-away experience included lots of bones, in batter, deep fried and called sweet and sour - inedible! Truly I love those people who cater to every possible need in their positions, but I am completely on my own with the usual surroundings of an Albergue. Simple and comfortable, and next door to the bar where the hostesses were very hospitable - I had no money, as I rarely draw any out these days because all the ATMs add a arbitrary charge, and they don't take bank cards but the younger señorita suggested I send them the cost of their excellent Menu del Dia and the evenings accommodation via...

My left foot is bad. And I am stopping before the suggested etapa/pause which is a little further up ahead after Añe. The bar is open and so is the Albergue. Really i need a 'half' day so at 2pm that's all this day: twenty three kilometres to a bowl of lentils, pork tenderloin etc... And at now filled up, unlike yesterday's day without respite. Different kind of relentlessness: Meseta... Am about to head for a well earned siesta. It was so warm on the plains I had to change into shorts on a crossroads, but I saw no devils awaiting!

Clambering up to the pass was kind of fun, and the turrón definitely kept me stepping, but the long come down to the ruin near to the road has put a great of pressure on the old war wound on the left foot. Not much further to go until the abysmal lameness sets in. Luckily no rain, just heavy mist going up. Afterwards a few breaks in the cloud and I could see the Meseta ahead. My pace now is trudging... The last few kilometres(10ish) was absolutely brutal on my foot, but now I am sat drinking Albariño and eating tapes pork tail, burnt paella which I specifically asked for (the rice which gets stuck on the pan - lush) and dinky pork sausages -  and watching the locals cheer on Spain against Morocco (0-0) and I am ravenous. But looking at the route today it looks quite some distance and I don't know if there is an Albergue open - the symbols on Gronze suggest not - and suddenly I am worried that the cost of accommodation is too much for much longer for me when I can't self cater e...

Pondering tomorrows ordeal: bought energy wayfarer fayre: higo secco ( la alpujarra granel ) 500 grams and turrón de Jijona de Alicante  300 grams. Plenty of energy and more weight to carry up those mountain paths in the blessful rain? At the Hostal I discovered a bath to ease the tiredness I felt from the day behind me. It wasn't so far, but I walked as fast as I was capable in the rain. My coat resisted the majority of the rain, but, as it always does with Páramo, it finds routes through the coat (usually on the shoulders and cuffs). Lunch was copious and I don't know if I can eat another solid meal, but can't set off tomorrow morning with an 'English' breakfast... in Spain? But this is a tourist town so somewhere may offer it? The final place ahead before I leave all hope behind is Casa Cirilo  and it's a bed and breakfast so it may offer me a copious breakfast - I should call them to inquire? 1% says eat pasta 99% says go to bed and eat breakfast in the morn...

At 1500 I am in room 19 @ Hostal La Maya after a very, very wet day. Luckily I stopped for a lovely sopa in Navacerrada served with the warm afternoon glow by the proprietor, cook and chica from Venezuela. She made me smile, they made me smile and the bean soup made me walk into the pulsating rain as the path took me up behind the town - I wasn't expecting that! Meson Jarvis, he was my English teacher back before university and the chica made walking in a sulking weightbound morning, with only suggestions of mountains, and me gathering rain enough to sink a ship, worthwhile. I'd looked into a posh establishment  once prior to it and felt cold stares - colder than the rain I'd gathered in several hours. Actually I sat down but the frowning cold shoulder of the people who  welcomed' me into Nava Real made me decide to trudge on in the downpour - they really couldn't care that I was soaking - they were more concerned I was dripping wet on the carpet. They almost failed...

Monday morning cradling a café largo after tostados con tomate from the sullen faced proprietor of Hostel La Pedriza, who speaks no English. It's a day tripper town and I guess on a Monday morning he's worn out from being polite to his clients over the weekend? But it's OK. It's raining outside: not heavy, so I put on my waterproofs prior to the grand depart for Cercedilla on day three - already day three. By day four Madrid will be over the Sierras and beyond me. I've either another 7 or 10 days from today as those are the windows of opportunity through the rail strikes next week across England.

When I depart I drink coffee and when I arrive I drink wine, but in between I sweat gloriously! Turned in after a second Chorizo in Cider and bread. Found the bed a little too short for my length and the curtains even shorter - they don't exactly keep out the street lights, but it was silent until a couple of cars disappeared along the road, towards Madrid no doubt, just now. Breakfast isn't available in the Hostel until 8:30am, but I am awake around 7am... If I can drift back into sleep then I will? A helpful host in the Hostel said that today would be more interesting than yesterday's last leg - it was interesting after Colmenar Video before going under a road viaduct... There was a serrated edge of some peaks which would've been more interesting to cross, but the route went around them after crossing a medieval bridge - the Camino walked along the base of these bare mountains, because perhaps there was no accessible path, slowly increasing in altitude. This area remi...

Heading up above 1000 metres and need to gain sustenance... They always put these towns perched on top of the hill looking south, back to Madrid. An old folks kitchen, but they let me eat a couple of tapes of eggs and potatoes! Centro de Mayores... Which was wonder fuel! *** Here I am. Started joyful, because eggs and chips are skill, but then bored on the saddle before a switchback - looking forward to the turn in the monotony - and into Manzanares el Real. Into the Hostel Pedriza, sopa(not a patch on yesterday's white bean and pork wonder), but I am enjoying the Godello vino until I heave towards the dormitory: all of Madrid's day trippers are hanging on to the edges of the Massif rising dominating above the town. Tomorrow I turn my attention west before I have to go over this thing? Final vino. Looked at the castle here which is definitely a folly or remade and just a made-up thing on top of an original thing. It's a pile of organised stones which looks like a castle: b...

Day two dawns and I am awake around 7, but slept soundly and unbroken throughout the evening, after people around me in Hostal Tres Cantos*** had stopped running water... the sound of which carried along the corridor and between the wall and my space. Yesterday I had a great shower after two nights in Madrid when I didn't bother. This morning is fresh clothing too. It was trying to rain last night as I walked along the boulevard to see what the 'features' were of this planned satellite of Madrid (a Spanish Milton Keynes) but nothing really was reaching the pavement - it was a rain illusion and a warning against complacency. The main feature was the width of the central square/rectangular tree lined avenue and it's distance away from the train station and town hall where the Camino de Madrid carried on without coming into the town. Yesterday I thought to keep going as 25 kilometres isn't so long, but the sleep deprivation was getting to me so much better a quiet nigh...

The 1st of December arrives and I've checked in for the shortish flight to Madrid this afternoon (1715) from Manchester so will begin the journey there around noon from Leeds Station. Not getting to T3 the suggested 3 hours prior to departure Ryanair are suggesting - 2 hours has to be sufficient? As usual I will take the longer route: Northern Rail via Hebden Bridge to Manchester Victoria then on the Tram from the interchange in Victoria to the airport (around £12). Leaving the flat for a short trip to collect a free hot chocolate from Caffé Nero on Albion Street and onto the 10:12 to Manchester Victoria to begin the long day hauling to Chueca, Madrid for the first of two nights in that other area I stumbled upon over Christmas in 2019, before the phantom of COVID became a reality in February 2020. An afternoon in Manchester before the 13:55 from Oxford Road to get to the airport. It's a good city. I walked around it before eating in a Wagamamas on St Peter's Square and fou...

The sun is shining high in the sky, leaving me shortly to go to the other side of the block of flats. It was a big orange disk of a sunrise be behind the tower block which faces me in Mabgate: and I don't know which block it is, but it sits solo alongside York Road. Yesterday, after the guy from Mears fitted the Cooker, I went to the Light for my GP appointment to see yet another GP who knows nothing about my 'real' history and expected me to begin the 'pointless' process of accessing mental health counseling again. He was worried I spend so much time on my own... But I like this! I am not someone comfortable around crowds or clusters of people. I am good one-2-one isn't that good enough? Taking myself to Tharavadu for their brilliant lunch express veggie option I was in a very negative mood. The GP had upped my Venlafaxine dosage and indicated the website which has come along to replace IAPT(shite)... Leeds Mental Well-being Service? Mum made lasagna last night...