A rebel without a clue.

There are a number of quotes attributed to Jesus which are floating around and around in my subconscious, but one keeps popping up more often... "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened." In an interview I saw with George Harrison and Ravi Shankar this from Matthew 7-8 came out of the blue as a subtle reminder of something I am constantly being reminded of? I've never considered myself to be a Christian, or religious at all, but some things said, or thought below the surface, ring 'True'? The second quote I was thinking about this morning, in my restless state at around 3am, was “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” and I really don't know why I've started considering the words so deeply! The third attributes q...

Well that was a day of two halves... The morning and early afternoon fine - fantastic walk from Wetherby to Boston Spa with Lola and then the late afternoon the usual family affair with our grievances. That was yesterday afternoon. It's gone. I slept well. No nightmare just the final recurring dream of hitchhiking back to the same 'dream' town in France which is a theme of my memories of Les Chemin Saint Jacques de Compostelle - churches, castles, bistrots, gîte d'etape, boulangerie, bastide, bar/tabac, font: I definitely am returning to Le-Puy-en-Velay soon to do that Chemin again (the first spluttering one which only got as far as Cahors). I love the Camino, but truthfully I prefer walking between the ville fleurie in France and the rivers in that region surrounding the Massif Central, and heading to the ocean or sea through the wonderful meanders and turns, while looking at towns and villages clinging to cliffsides, riversides, and steeped in pre-Christia...

It's was a very wet Monday Morning walk. All the way to The Spinney and then back to Deighton Road. Not quite an hour, but I asked her if she wanted to go a bit further and she was pretty positive she was happy to return along the other section of the Old Railway lines. Then, after her lunch/dinner, she took me around the back of where my mum lives. The block: from Gashouse Lane to Parson's Green, Walton Road, First Avenue and Burrel Close before the return passed my old primary school on Hallfield Lane. She loves that way as somebody has always dropped something for her to get her nose in and retrieve... Honestly, I let her decide where we are going, but within reason, as I am not going under a car to chase a cat! On the final leg back, York Road, mum said I'd have to come back to Leeds as she was having Lola, and there is nowhere to sleep at the moment if Lola is in the room with me (the single bed isn't designed for one 52 year old git and an 8 year old ginger ninja)...

Yesterday was a fine day. Spent two solid hours on the allotment, before walking into Wetherby, catching the bus back to Leeds at noon. The sun was shining, it was cold to start with, but I soon warmed up on the plot and walking up Quarry Hill Lane was fine. Then I saw a couple of old faces and a couple of dogs I used to dog sit for - I don't know why Lola throws herself at me all the time? Huxley wants to approach, he's just looking at me as a possible source of food? In amongst all the beans I'd found a few potatoes I'd overlooked - we had blight so we cut all the folliage away - and I trimmed some bottom leaves off the Kale which is beginning to look substantial, but something is still devastating the other Brassicas! Must be pigeons: Andy's covered his with netting supported by sturdy poles. I suppose I'll try again in the Spring? The patch of Chard looks healthy still, but there were a few which has run to seed - I grubbed them out of the ground...

After a lovely walk with Lola passing the allotment, up to Ash Dale Lane in Kirk Deighton, west to the Copse and along the side of the railway line before crossing the King Barrow bridge, we sat together in the sunshine on Millennium Field by the wooden poles, which appeared in the summer like some Leeds City Council henge; I have decided to stay by her side. Just to be with her; quiet and calm! On Wednesday I made the mistake of 'feeling', thoughtlessly, I needed to be in town, which is a place I always feel uncomfortable and never calmed. So I won't go anywhere now... Tomorrow morning back to the allotment to start the process of digging for spring. Andy's already completed the task. But he's not just walked 800kms... Lola's eaten her dinner and Emma is collecting her later - so I can definitely go to the allotment on Sunday morning? Weather permitting... As an opportunity to go to Porto on Friday afternoon has arisen I am heading back to walk the ...

On such a maudlin day I don't know if Albert Camus is the kind of author I should have turned to? Existentialism - The Outsider(aka The Stranger) . It's been on top of me for those ten years. The middle days of my life? From 40 to 50. Slightly leaning back towards old age? I've yet to touch 65... Will I get out of the crisis which seems to be making me gloomy, daily, and which is my choice to make? The weather isn't so happy either as autumn rolls on. Most unlike me, but I've come to the Tiled Hall, within Leeds City Library/Art Gallery, for a chapter and a pot of Earl Grey. I thought that the sofas had been got rid of, but they were hiding in the corner (a server in a better mood than I am almost fooled me that they had started charging to use them)! I much prefer to be backed up into a corner so I don't get too anxious/paranoid with people being or passing behind me. A Canadian guy with a girl opposite speaks pleasantly of those things 20somethings find entert...

And so begins the return process, part two. Walked down to the Cam took the obligatory selfie, returned passed King's College, picked up bread, another coffee and a cinnamon twist and I am now on the - waiting for replacement crew - not delayed but now delayed 9am to Peterborough. Let it go. It's just another part of the Decline and Fall of the British Empire. At 9.09am I am heading home! Peterborough then Doncaster then finally into Leeds, where I arrived around 12noon. And I didn't let it get to me. A couple of halves in FoH and Whitelocks and hung about in Brownhill and Co for a while enjoying the fine quality products Richard always sells: it Leeds's Mecca for good quality beer from all over the world! But it's only beer. And the same is true of the beer they sell in Mews. Life is not beer. Beer is a minor character, a bit player, Tuesday and Wednesday were dominated by beer. So much so mother and I got into our locked horned relationship once more: ...

And it's raining. Points failure on the decrepit railway line. Stansted looked dirty: it reminded me of passing through Mumbai when it was still known as Bombay, and hanging around in the airport a few hours. Bombay airport can't be like Stansted now can it? That was 2001... But this is the UK in 2023 where (apparently) multiculturalism has failed apparently - so says a multicultural the sacked (snigger) Home Secretary? To me it's a land where the rich get richer and the poor are marginalised, regardless of ethnicity? What would England be like without the choice of food outlets catering to every whim? Probably a lot like most of Europe... Dominated by a lot of bad local cuisine (as opposed to bad kebab shops)? The world is one in its multicoloured, multicultural, multi-ethnic diversity. Perhaps leaders have failed in this Western democracy as they look to blame everything but themselves for the running down of England? No wonder Scotland desires it's freedom to self de...

Well it was for a lot of the way! Behind me the moon and Venus as companions and Jupiter to the west, but obviously I was walking south to Cabo do Fisterra. After almost falling completely down a flight of marble steps, which I had failed to recall coming to the communal area, I sighed, straightened up, put my boots on and went up and over to the same spot I reached in June 2013: where there was much detritus of the end of the way (as there was ten years ago). A long bus journey, along the glorious coastline, before heading up to the hinterland beyond Noia. Popping into Rúa Nova 7 to touch base an O Camiño celebrity, if you will? Ivar, the guy behind the excellent Camino Forum, who was sat tracking the cosmic alignments of all things relating to Santiago, was there. I recall fondly his YouTube moments during COVID times: when it was only him and Santiago, and a world of pilgrims praying for release... The sun is beginning to fall on me outside Sindueña craft beer bar (36 Rúa Nova )as i...

Randomly weeping again - O Camiño - Just as I was finishing a fantastic lunch (Liresca Restaurante) when I got all emotional about seeing my girl again shortly! While talking to a younger Canadian who I was explaining Albert/Vimy Ridge... Which is also very emotional? Being away so long, with only those days between - looking after Archie - is the longest she's not been right at the top of my agenda all the time. She's the best thing that every happened to me. She had a operation to remove a benign cyst, off her chest and her right thigh, when I initially travelled to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. So she was in 'recovery mode' when I returned and had Archie to do sit for (but we did do a fairly large one, the day before I left to return to León, up on Wetherby Racecourse). But shortly I'll be staring deeply into those beautiful brown eyes: full of pure love, innocence, free of judgement or malice, but with perhaps just a twinkling of cunning whenever she smel...

Even in this moment I can't step back and relax: why am anxious in the rain? I am fully protected wearing waterproof trousers and the aging Páramo coat, and I've the backpack covered. For combustibles I've a pocket full of cooked chestnuts (the ones I picked on the way to Samos).l All my clothes are laundered, but the underpants (bamboo) are not so quick drying! So one pair is on damp and the remainder in a plastic bag for the next chance to dry: wherever today ends. Weary. Albergue Bela Muxía was clean and quiet, but I can't stand those disposable bedding sets: they make me sweaty in bed: I like to be frigid in bed. It was still value for money as the staff were smiley and helpful(€16). Trying to wait for sunrise before doing another days walking: there is a very refreshing fuente below Igrexa de Santa Maria which I want to replenish my flask with. All that anxiety. It's just weariness. There is always one cafe opening by 7am somewhere in the universe? O Xardín caf...

Coming down off the eucalyptus plantations I saw two peregrinos returning home the old way! One solo, to Italy, on the Camino del Norte and another with his dog (he wasn't conversational), but it was lovely to see their dedication... Then on the final few kilometres the old war wound was making its presence felt - shooting left foot pain - so I slowed down... Then I saw a Jay playing amongst the wood shavings so my mind went elsewhere for a moment: charming to see. *** After I'd checked into the Last Stamp hostel (top floor private €38 - very low ceiling, but a comfortable double bed) I went and ate caldo and chipirones accompanied by a couple of glasses of local vino(Rias Baixas and Rebeiro Sacra) in La Tita (a very popular, but small, eatery) then sought beer. A couple of Imperial Stouts later I was weeping at the futility of O Camiño. *** On only two occasions was I approached by people to beg money from me. Once, outside the cathedral, and just now in the bus st...

There are too many James's! I should know which Iacobus I am walking over these leaf strewn paths towards? It's James Zebedee bouncing on his joyous spring through the woods, still in the mist... It's not James the Just. So many ghosts in my mind pulling and pushing me away from the clarity which is always present. Prejudice is one such conceit. I simply want to let them be, but something projects all my hatreds onto something I have created: these images are pictures I have made to imprison my mind. Part of the walking was always to kill this irritating being totally. I get overtaken by it in so many instances.

The further from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port the more uptight I've become: some days I have been less wound up, but over the duration I've definitely become more and more like a coiled spring ready to release all its tension in one moment of expiration - with a bang and not a dampened whimper! It's as though the closer I get to reaching the goal the less happy I am to cross the finish line? During the second part of this Camino Frances I have had a couple of mind altering moments, peak experiences? Reaching Galicia on that tough day and then seeing echoes of home on another tough day... But otherwise empty? Buenos Días. It's foggy. There is a guy called Raphael who has walked from his home on the other side of the Sistema Central north of Madrid (Sierra de Guadarrama), along the same route I walked in December 2022, before the old war wound of the left foot broke my step coming into Segovia! This is his '100th' Camiño ... He's done loads! But that...

Slept in, well passed the 6am alarm call, as the phone was off, but I am relieved as I was awake alot in the night: just too humid, no curtain cover with a street light pouring in all night, a very bright emergency exit illumination and, unbelievaby, a bleeding mosquito in November! But I am slowing down today - only two more days... What do I feel. Apart from weary once more? I'll consider it on Chocolate con Churros. The bin men finally woke me at 6:45am. Municipal albergues. A wonderful night's rest in Palas de Rei is followed by what I am struggling with all the rest of the time. Fair enough the albergue room was sparsely populated, but the snoring carried, as did the usual toilet visits... I am a little oily too from overheating - 20°C in November in Galicia is definitely wrong? *** Spain's sworn in PM is younger than me! Oh no! I've reached the age when not only footballers but now MPs are kids! Pedro Sanchez Presidente. Slim margin... *** Two more day...

That helped. Don't feel like hell warmed up this morning. Will keep going. Was tempted to get away from the hordes but they're everywhere. And it's my walk, pilgrimage, thingy? Three more days. 9 days since I restarted this two parter: with Archie the other Vizsla having a great time between and 24 since leaving Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port on. Three more days. 4th October into the Pyrenees ending on Friday 17th November? The holgates: Holloway: following a hollow way; and I am such a hollow man? I was always hateful of hollow, even in my combustible youth!  And to the first place you come to el paso! Those who are crying out that it's the best food for miles, shout 'poo to you with knobs on' and, taking my erstwhile advice, walk on for many many miles as it is the last place you should go to to eat quality cuisine... Around Delirium Café in Brussels remember this advice? With so many options how would that dishonest person know? Carry on! Walk on by. Walk! Don't...

Tired this afternoon. Drifted away from the way into anxious waters ... Wondering how far to go, looking at the phone for answers, scratching the same scab I've had since July 2022. Please leave it alone hands. I am almost unconscious of the action; almost. Eucalyptus plantations remind me of the morning coming into Santiago back in 2013: quick growing, but easy burning, a paper crop. And also passing the colossal Aviator paper manufacturer near Figueira do Foz December 2021. At the road side eatery, where the host gave me the food gratis, he asked me to reach Santiago for him and his family as he couldn't make the journey: that was at the back of another wet wet day. This one got this way after lunch. O Canto das Rosas, N109. This man. Such kindness. In three days I will reach Santiago for him, at least ... If not for myself? 16th December 2020: I must return to Figueira do Foz to continue towards Porto, that way to Santiago? It's in the possible futures. A sho...

I had a day off the journal yesterday. Not that I hadn't plenty to consider, but I was busy with the visual effects of the day as I approached Portomarin, checked into a private albergue, with a fully functional kitchen, ate a lovely lunch, made a lovely dinner. Drank some wine, etc. Awoke at 2pm. Had an hour of struggling to get back to sleep wondering if I need to start examining my life? The unexamined life isn't worth much. This Camino is the one where answers are to be revealed and I definitely saw hints of serendipitous ponderousness happening after I stopped for coffee and cake mid morning... Those pump clips. The second time I cried tears of joy and happiness... Because I see things I don't see elsewhere: where I have peak experiences which fill me with hope, I keep going. But they are vanishingly Illusive/allusive as l sit down for yet another cup of coffee, orange juice and aceite y tomate this morning .... Such pathos. Ten years ago I bega...

A goal was reached yesterday. The third since I left Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port that morning. Walking the main route from Saint Jean, walking all the way to Burgos and entering Galicia on foot. Another 'goal', actually a source of fear, Sarria where the few become the many. Yesterday I received my first 'compostele' token. And the hunt is on. Walking through a canyon, after a large lunch, the dogs are scenting the quarry and I just hope it's not me or another bit of pilger meat? I think I am on the wrong side of the torrent of hounds running through the chasms. *** I decided to carry on when I might've stopped. For some reason I want to be in blasted blinking bleeding Sarria on Sunday... Another seven days since León on another Monday. Sunday is a day of rest so it's pretty quiet out. It has been since I stepped off the plate around 7:30am. But there was no rest for me *** A good menu del día in Triacastela, and I almost stayed in the co...

I ate well. Making a soup and a spaghetti dish from the various vegetables and the chorizo before hitting the hay. Asleep in no time. Now I am drinking tea on top of Kefir - tea on an empty stomach is a no no - as I await the percolator to produce java beans in the ground floor dining room of Albergue de la Piedra. It's not yet 6... Meandering around town after 5pm I was looking for a couple of pairs of replacement underpants as these three are developing difficulties in the gusset area: there isn't any material left, but the benefit is that they're airfree/carefree. All clothes are freshly laundered this morning. And I've a pair of Spanish, Astorga, Lana socks to replace the thread bare Smartwool™ ... ***Three hours then a break for coffee, burnt chestnuts and raw burnt hot potatoes*** which may have consequences? There were none. Coming into Galicia I literally cried. The food carried me all the way up to the final stop, prior to leaving Spain to walk into another wor...

Good morning? The very first hangover of the Camino ... too much Mencía. I threw up. Then I dry retched this morning. Not sure I over did the vino. I am sure I mainly cooked with it, mainly! Too many chica. Too busy. It got to me. Yesterday was pretty tough coming down into Pontferrada and after the first glass in Molinaseca, with the very lovely caldo(broth) I got vino crazy. Today's destination is the centre of the wine area here, el Bierzo, but I'll just look? I will not touch ... I should do some washing, sleep well and climb into Galicia on Saturday morning? *** And stop. A bit boring, straight ahead through suburbia but perfect with a slight hangover. Back In the church square of Pontferrada I had two coffees, two orange juices and a croissant (a little burnt) and it did the trick? With 1% battery and 1% energy I stopped opposite a Church, again, in Cacabelos and ate a hearty menu del día which helped to solve most of these problems! After a visit to the local fuente to r...

On the Camino I often have totally bewildeing dreams which seem to reach a satisfactory conclusion: like a snake eating it's tail. Just now was the same as I awoke to begin another walk. Outside the albergue the wind howls and the temperature anywhere but in the dormitory has fallen to 'very cold'. The toilet is at the back of the albergue, which is attached to the church, so there is a mediaeval chill to the structure. For the first time in my knowledge I've been woken by a Korean snoring, but it was the snoring of a duck, if such a creature snores in an albergue!?! It's really time for me to get up, and that would be an excellent prospect as the bed I am in is simply too short for me: either I am sleeping crunched up or perennially hitting my head on the headboard or my feet on the footboard. Last night I was exhausted so I ate pasta across the road and retired, but I would've liked to join in on the long table discussion, the supper table, I've not been s...

Staying in a communal municipal albergue is always a test for me. It's not the bodies I guess? Although it might be going from a personal solo peregination to a cluster of egos fighting to be the head boy and head girl in a pursuit I have very much outgrown. Back to solo. Predawn and it's the birds, dog walkers and a couple of peregrinos I let go ahead: I dislike the repetition of the noise of walking sticks on the trail: it's a clock ticking reminding me of an order in chaos. Being amongst people, crowds, after the sweet solace of solitude opens up a compendium of tricks to spice up my fragile mind. Thankfully I've no one behind and just two,  equally spaced, peregrinos ahead as I pick herbs with their sweet bouquet to return me to the tranquility. After the wonderful lunch stop, an hour for vegetable soup, pigs cheeks and natural yogurt (1/4l vino Blanco, and most of the cracked flasks water I helped myself to on the same route past the church on the hill, I walked up...

Read all about it! But it changes from moment to moment. The news was being broadcast once more as I stepped back on to the path heading towards sanity? And then it was a nice meander, up and down, then over the top - after the lovely café on the cusp which was a place worthy of a coffee with oat milk, lovely doggies for company too: La Casa De Los Dioses. Not a long morning walking. Arrived at the albergue at 1, after walking to the Cathedral, buying some Tiger Balm, finding the albergue San Javier closed, having a Spaten pilsner beer in the 'Oirish' bar, in the same plaza, with complementary snack: Astorga. I didn't like the experience of the busy albergue. I normally don't. This time I almost got my stuff together and walked into the dusk... Instead I went back to the Oirish Bar and ate pasta. Then I returned to the albergue tried to make something edible from the ear of corn I'd picked on the morning. But without a pressure cooker I think the grouts ...

No judgement. Only love/just love. Love is everything so there isn't anything else. Everything else is an illusion which I have projected upon the world. In itself the world is none of the attributes I might give it. Those concepts are only ever in my mind. By itself it is innocent of the projection I think upon it. In it's self: a very simple concept which is hidden behind or buried beneath a vast array of meaningless untruths I have made in my mind to blind me tenfold. Today I attempt to see beyond the thick lens I have placed upon the world. I will attempt to see what is actually here rather than what I placed before being in its essence. *** On the Way(el Camino) so much has been written on the various surfaces available to passers by. And also so many folks have taken a step back to add to a pile of stones which has become a mound/cairn through the action of time. One of these actions had formed a huge arrow up to the road which then went over the 'flyover', with t...

A man cannot live by stale bread alone, alone, so I stopped for tripe and chickpeas in a picante pimiento sauce at the only bar betwixt there, here and beyond. With a slice of bread and glass of white wine in my gut I continued through the relentlessly straight way ahead: Meseta, but I can see mountains ahead so the end of Meseta is not far off now. On the plus side the maize in the neverending plantation is ready for harvest ... I've now two cobs in the pocket which replaces the bread I ate between somewhere, nowhere and anywhere else: now all I need is a pan to boil its golden nuggets turning them into nourishment... Another day I guess as the medieval bridge finally presented itself, but the Parroquial albergue was cerrado which means I wondered lonely as a cloud until I could ask anyone where might I sleep this evening: I am very weary after the unending Macadam bashing after the garbanzos y callos: a bed for €13 at Albergue La Encina at the end of the f...

Did my usual getting to know you in León central yesterday - it has a great labyrinth of tapas bars, méson restaurants bars and other human wonders, but was back before 4 to chill out: the final bar was the best serving cecina (smoked cured beef).  Slept a lot until the Canadian lady began her snoring festival alongside me. Oh the joys of communal albergues for the imperfect night's sleep you don't need for the day ahead. At three I was verging on screaming. But she did subside for a little while and I just awoke to find it's a quarter to 7 when breakfast is available here in the Saint Franciscan monastery; I just require coffee. Virtually two whole days to get to the path once more and is it ever worth it? I think so as I keep doing it looking for the elusive answer to my question. Why does everyone keep leaving so blasted early and why do all the twentysomethings keep looking for their 'mate' on this trial of penance? The Koreans are on a UNESCO walk and the young...

Returning to Wetherby and I've seen the gulf between it and me extend into new territory. Those faces I observe going through their routine of accommodating death and rarely pushing back against its seeming inflexibility ... But it's got to be in me to see it another way? That's always the case. It's a safe space in which to weed the garden. There is little chance that rockets are going to fall on our sleeping restless heads? Arrived an hour late to Santander as Ryanair had to change aircraft in Dublin. The Boeing was a newer 737 (Max 8200) with an additional two emergency exits and a different arrangement of toilets to the rear, indeed the plane seemed longer and narrower, but that's probably an illusion ... Dropped off my bag at Pension Anglines and went to get a late night dinner and then crashed out. A bit restless at first as I wasn't sure what to do this morning, after the BlaBlaCar host cancelled the direcft trip to León, so I put the alarm on for 6am and...