A rebel without a clue.

Bages and a pleasant odour of jasmine(or was it acacia) fills my morning thoughts with peace. Fourteen kilometres before a break. A natural and coffee break. Just prior to 10 and another 2/3 hours will deliver me to? I will need lunch, then locate the hotel. Back to the Boulanger on the main street for a bag of a local flavour La Rousquille as elevensies at ten as the breeze stiffens from the west off Canigou. Last leg of today. Just over 5kms to go. Heading to the Tech river then west to Le Boulou. Too early for repase at midi in the last village: but the Brasserie doesn't serve food anyway... It's a pleasure today in the sun taking all the cobwebs away that have hung heavier and heavier, weighing terribly on my body and soul. Don't kick dogs, especially French German shepherds. Is it going to rain? Doesn't matter. The second half of today was so off the scale as I followed insignificant paths with no clear way to the destination I was going. A proper random Camino day...

The start of another week. Got through yesterday in one piece. Slept soundly - it's peaceful around this neighborhood. I've always felt France is a very quiet place on a Sunday night/Monday morning as they still adhere to Sunday opening times(no shops as such are open) so it's very much a family day. The bars are open until early evening and a couple of restaurants are open too. But it's hard to find. After I'd calmed the demons of fear yesterday - once more - telling myself it costs nothing to walk, I've paid for this evening already and have enough (cough cough) for what today throws my way(42€). As I don't get PIP until Wednesday I was hoping I could get to Tuesday without dipping into Credit Cards for a day. €70 per day on the Camino seems expensive, but this is not a widely used path, it's not in Spain - yet - and it's during a time of increasing inflation, etc. I'd like to be on my way by 7am as that's prior to sunrise over the Mediterr...

Exhausted. Nervous. Ready to collapse, but not yet. Food. La Famille - nouvelle cuisine. Nice but Petit - but it filled a hole. On the main bohemian area Carrer Paratilla. Not yet. Good vibes. It's very windy. Coming off the Pyrenees. Outside the airport I hastily removed shorts and put on joggers. It stopped me getting a chill. Lovely in the sun. There was/is no buses on a Sunday between the station and airport so I will need to plan something on Sunday for the return ... That's another story. Now I have a demi blonde biere as I struggle with the French language, again, and find my right eye missing more and more - I almost fell when I went inside the restaurant rather than get chilled on my legs. Tomorrow I am fixed for a night in the Abbaye Saint Michel Cuxa and I don't have to walk too far: 22kms, but I have fears about falling again. Doubly careful. I don't know if I will go the same way as two years back: Gerona isn't too far away. I think the Bistro opposite ...

Sleep deprived as I couldn't stop worrying about the time I would be waking - the alarm wouldn't go off or it would be silent... I had a similar problem in Murcia, with Glenn (who wasn't fretting), back in February in a frigid room, close to the station, as I wasn't 100% that there was a train back to Alicante at the time it was being suggested on Google. After that tumultuous night it appeared that there was an early train, but we couldn't book online! It was a commuter train which had a very difficult system, with no advance purchase, to comprehend. Fortunately an elderly gentleman helped us to get the ticket we needed so we got to the advised stop prior to Alicante. Once we arrived at the bus stop, just prior to the airport, the shuttle bus passed us by without stopping - panic set in again (why do I get so anxious?) - it was full to capacity. Very luckily a worker also going to the airport, who lived close to the stop, was also stranded and decided to drive us t...

Funeral of a friend. Mark has been laid alongside his father (Dennis) at Saint Chad's here in Far Headingley. A lovely service on a beautiful spring day. It's getting greener along the byways and thoroughfares. Here is another end and also a beginning. A lot of people have turned up to wish him a safe journey onwards. Glenn played his heart out on the guitar: one a Sting composition Fragile and the last his own in remembrance. Now the bar in the Church function hall is open. And everyone comes to partake. Mark has been put under an oak tree, away from Chartreuse, the east end of the church, but he's in Garmisch drinking Asbach and eating Weisse Wurst if the truth is known...

Retreating east, slowly. Got off the direct train to Manchester at Oxford Road connecting my feet towards Oldham Street and a return to Oi Polloi which appears to have moved from where I recall it being back in the early naughties. As I really need a replacement for the worn out Paramo Halcon, but perhaps not willing to pay £400 again as I don't have the money coming from looking after Emma and Neil's dogs(they're in Southern Spain pursuing all things 'flat'). Yesterday I tried to get what I needed from Adapt, but the midlayer was too small (medium size - I am definitely a large). But I was out of luck there as the stock had been removed as they have been taken over by JD Sports... Just like Hip Meanswear was?

Liverpool is a suprise. It's really interesting ... I've no idea why I've never visited here ... All my life a 'Liverpool FC' fan (having only been to Anfield once; damn it!), a Beatles fan and a culture and history vulture... I have to say better late than never. Apart from the piles of litter, which is a British problem and not Liverpool's sole responsibility, it's been a weekend I will treasure. Fine I got a little carried away yesterday, after my left foot flared up again and I dragged myself through Cain's Brewery (awful) and sought The Belvedere (where Alysha was very warm and an elderly gentleman gave me a potted history of Liverpool (warts and all)) I crawled into my upgraded room 505 and woke up with a stomach upset. Possibly from too much beer, wine and a slice of much too tempting Victoria Sponge... Upgraded as the initial room, 301, had mould in one corner of the room hidden behind the bunk bed which probably hadn't been moved since the H...