A rebel without a clue.

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!