A rebel without a clue.

The earliest and cheapest flight I can get to return to the UK is on Friday from Luxembourg. Never been to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg really, although Glenn and I went through the duchy on our way from Metz to Liege with a BlaBlaCar host. It's another 4 days from Trier to Metz which might be 3 for me if I walk distance and miss out one suggested halt? However the flight isn't until the evening so it'd be ideal to get a Flixbus direct from Metz to the airport and have Thursday night in Metz (hopefully in gites d'etape/auberge set aside for pelerins). So I should slow down the next four days and take it all in! I am tired this evening so I really should have an early night. It is raining lightly and it's deathly quiet on the streets, but I should probably eat. Perhaps not typical German fayre although it might be the best thing to put me into LaLaLand? Here I am a Früh establishment and I don't feel the menu and I've never really cared for Kölsc...

Done by Noon. The end of the Ansonius Weg. Kolpinghaus for rest And to wash necessities But first Kartoffel Suppe And another Fein Herb. Gutsriesling is good Soup is warming my gut. Make it two! Sommerpalais My brain is cloudy And the noise goes up! Misaligned nor adjusted To voices I barely Comprehend.

Walking through the valleys and over the hills in the Hunsrück is fantastic on a day where rain seems only to threaten and not create. Another chunk of fortune fell my way! Nowhere to eat again: indeed I'd not seen a soul until just now in Gräfendhron (which sounds either Welsh or Elvish from Lord of the Ring?). Seeing a sign pointing to "Landhaus" I walked behind the church and on the left there were numerous Transit type minibuses outside what looked like a hostel. Looking in the window I could see a dining room and some people were milling about. I knocked on the window, but I was simply too far away, so I walked behind to where I assumed the kitchen was. One guy was coming out the door at that moment and I told him my predicament! He let me use their WC and gave me a cup of tea. Before I left another guy gave me a lot smoked dried 'rind' sausage(beef) and a holey cheese! Then just now arriving in Berglicht I found a Kneipe which was open. With just...

Well I slept perfect until a flyover around four am - we're close to Hahn Airport here - feeling the persistent pain in my right shoulder I always struggle back to sleep once I'm awake and so I got up around six thirty. Everything is dried and repacked. Suddenly I feel a little weary. This is mental as well as physical: fatigue is a deep weariness. On  The Way I've been looking for some answer around the next bend, but it's impossible! Outside is not where the lack I perceive is - which I've told myself so often (once I recall the foolish notion that anything outside can cure me). To be consistently in touch with being on  The Way  is possible, usually the weather does help - although it shouldn't - but I set off with the forgotten ideal yesterday so almost got myself into difficulty. The difference this morning is I didn't sleep with the misdirection of having to endorse local beer! In Kirchberg, because it screamed local brewery, I was lobotom...

Today was a challenge. From the very first moment the heaven's kept tanking down on me so I couldn't take in any of the Roman remains or little deviations suggested along the Römer Straße. The one village I passed through for lunch wasn't an option as the Gasthaus wouldn't be open until five. When I'd just about lost it, and took a wrong turn, a bus shelter came to my rescue so I could change out of an exceedingly wet base layer. The lady from the Pilgerherberge yesterday did say that there was nothing from leaving Kirchberg until I arrived in Gonzerath, but when she said nothing I kind of thought she meant something, but just not very much! My breakfast wasn't enough and what I brought with me was cold and not enough. Once I'd changed out of as many wet clothes as was possible I'd just about resigned myself to trudging hopeless with yet another storm blowing straight at me! Because I really needed to reach Hochscheid, in the hope it housed s...

Beginning of day five and I'm awake by 5. Had an exceptional night's sleep, except for when I stretched into a full yawn and strained my tendon too much - if that is all it actually is? The pain in all of my arm has localised to a point below the shoulder socket: probably needs an X-ray? Suddenly I'm quite excited by the prospect of following the course of a well researched Roman Road. So few exist above modern roads or are no longer rights of way - as they pass under landowners fields. With a Franziskaner Kreuz around my neck I feel invincible as though it was a amulet with a protective power! Oh, the memories I have of other Camino where I wore it with pride. Although Francis of Assisi became incorporated into the Vatican I don't see that that prevents the simplicity of his original vision, which we very much need in the multiplex layered interleaved world where chaos seems to have us by the proverbials. It's only a wooden semi cross: more like a stylised 'T...

It's telling me to write. Indeed the voice is beckoning me to walk flee disappear. Live rough. Sleep in doorways and beg. Beg food and keep walking. Become homeless. As there is no inevitable end in sight with Leeds City Council and living in hope of a place in the same vicinity as my family what am I hanging on for? Sure I feel utterly meaningless on the eleventh floor, but I do have a roof over my head. Sure I hear the continual traffic noise - bins being emptied at Bagel Nash around five, deliveries being made to the same at another ridiculous hour, sirens from all along the arterial roads (leading up to Chapeltown, Scott Hall, Meanwood) deafening as they flash along Skinner Lane and turn along North Street, but I don't shiver against the lingering cold of a February morning. This is humanities disease: the insane hive. We are forever on our way nowhere to find where we belong. Such speed. Going places at all times. Creating destruction all along the byways and sowing our ...