Fão from well!

Last night I went to the sack early (just as the hostess was preparing ribs for supper (the divine smells of garlic wafting upstairs)) because I was feeling something in my head, nose and throat (and a slight ache in my bones), but I can't imagine where I have caught another ague from?!?

Recently, on the Camino Frances, I had a wee sniffle - but there I was in mainly Municipal Albergues where there wasn't much separate between bodies... Something was going around, but it was'nee the Plague.

...

Back in late February of 2020 I was heading out to the Jakobsweg between Fulda and Metz, just as COVID19 was rearing it's head.

After flying late to Köln and then heading to Frankfurt on a packed Flixbus, where I had to share with some very unhealthy sounding people who were returning from a ski trip in Italy, my film maker friend Michael (The Walk) took me to Bad Vibel for a couple of nights.

After I had set out from Fulda (3 days after the coach trip) I was already pretty poorly, but I had no way of knowing what it was I was carrying, and I just kept my distance (which is impossible not to on any Camino, except when eating, etc)?

I was bone weary all the way, and my senses were all over the place: colours looked wrong (very washed out - which remained with me for a while) and my senses of smell and taste (but I've never had good taste!) were odd.

For some days the weather wasn't amazing either, with a little snow or sleet falling, and once I got soaked even though I always have enough layers to make sure I am toasty warm and dry (but dry is not always possible).

Physically I just about managed to cope along the way: twice I didn't leave the bed once the Hospitalero let me in and in Metz I felt truly awful.

By the time I had reached Luxembourg, and I was getting out of Europe and back home via the most direct I could find, I felt it necessary to warn the people running the HI Hostel, down in Grund, that I was running a temperature.

No one was really sure what to do at that moment in time, as no government had yet made a statement, so they put me in a room alone! Between hot and cold sweats, aching joints and that sinking feeling I just about got rid of whatever ague I was carrying for those strange two weeks passing through Mainz, the Rheingau, and Hunsruck: it was nothing to do with the Apfelwein!

Like then I am almost always on my own. There is no one to be surrounded by to pass on an infection... And I always keep my distance; it's just who I am (and it's why I can be happy in my own company). Some of the best arguments have been with myself! Even now! It's 6 am and off I go to make coffee and listen to a podcast?