to Catalunya and Junior.

I want to be alone.

And I need to be alone

Be absent from these ones

The sounds of spring

Remind me like the chimes

That there is more to solitude.

Listen to those songsters 

Warbling their hearts most high

I am not alone, we're one.

I belong here hearing you.

***

Several days later I got alone...

From Queralbs to Núria I saw not one soul. And I tested my foot. The wound hasn't absolutely vanished, but it's very nearly healed up. 10 miles up to 2000 metres. It took me two hours after I stopped for a entrepane around nine. Some of the path was straight up the gorge and ravines, or across a boulder strewn landscape, where my foot falls were considered methodically; I wanted no repeat of Vinça where I learnt a lesson plunging down a torrent's pathway, between large boulders,:and battered and bruised (probably broken) but alive and laughing my head off.

It's Wednesday, but feels like Monday. Yesterday was a Sunday... Calm and alcohol free. The same can not be said of the preceding day. I will never learn. Not to mix my drinks. Wine with lunch. Beer and tapas in the sun watching the boys play football below the plane trees in the Plaça Major. Then wine with the evening meal which I genuinely was going to pay for on the morrow, but the reception was firmly closed as I set off for Núria around 7am.

The last time I climbed so high and so trepidatious was on Majorca, where I was definitely suffering some form of vertigo as a result of the fall in Vinça a little time prior, and there were plenty of muddy places and rocking stones to catch me unaware this time; so I paid attention to the moment: now and never thinking what was around the corner or when I'd reach the summit... But we never reach the summit, surely (one more wafer thin mint), there is nothing to reach out for in all this striving mindlessly?

***

Yesterday was an excellent day. I feel I am almost over the wound as only once did it sting during the 37 kilometres to Igualada from Cervera - there is no Neuroma. Una etapa! And pinxos and fine wine. But I guess I spent too much here?

Although I hated the crowds on Montserrat it was the first time I relaxed - once those maddening folks had piled back, to be welded together, into the buses, cars, funicular the place descended into peace. The sound of birdsong was all which remained... And there has been no flat out searching for breakfast as it's the first Alberg with hospitalers out of the three I've slept in. Although I was still awake at 3am I crawled back into slumber until the bells clanged for the first office of the day - lauds - around 6am. Yesterday I bought bananas, yogurt(sheep's milk) and Zamo(coffee) - as I spotted an Italian hob top cafétiere - which means I am civilised (not a drop of a hangover) for the meander down to the chaos of Barcelona...

... And I meandered out of it too. I'd not been for years, and almost made the mistake of booking into a pension in the main square(plaça reial), but something said no as I queued to be assigned a room. So I walked to the two backpacker I'd stayed at prior, then to El Born where I caught the train out of that money trap to Blanes from Arc de Triumf. Now I am about to step out into Tossa de Mar and the sunrise...

***

And relax! The morning after the longest day. Flying back at 21:35 and sleeping fitfully on those uncomfortable cattle-class seats, but arriving early and just being on time for the final (non-coinciding) A1 flyer...

That was a good break.

*

Last time I visited the Nuffield Hospital I saw, when coming back to catch the bus, human footprints. I was surprised. I might see dog prints or perhaps fix prints, but not the soles of a human foot impressed on the paving stones... Just now I saw a bedraggled individual, an Indian individual tramping up Eastgate. As I was on Westgate when I spotted the foot marks it was potentially him I was surprised by?

***

A week since the long return began in Tossa de Mar. A week since I felt freedom. A week since I began to feel less alone and back in the trap. I want to be those bare footmarks on the bare rock. Alone. But I am currently in-between places: the large empty housing estate between old Thorp Arch and Walton which huddles conspiratorially around the prison and football training ground. It's quiet and it's a blot on the landscape...

***

Bed hygiene. Last night I washed all the pots and put away. Got into a cat free bed with Junior at the bottom of it asleep in his small shadow space. The cat played with me a while, stared outside and then left the room, so I closed the door to her.

Junior is crying downstairs to come upstairs as I get ready for the day ahead...