A rebel without a clue.

The joy of ripe rosehips. Where today? Heaven not hell Manufacturing in the valley Sore mill no excuse As an arrow, young, points ahead I ask if I don't move will it cease? Or walk-on not knowing And non-stop Pushed and pulled; apart Argued, not agreed Divided inside and outside When there is only within. *** Day three begins in earnest, after a proper scrambled egg, ham, cheese, yogurt, croissant, OJ and coffee(€6) with one bottle Vichy Catalan(€2): bliss! Leaving Pamplona which I don't recall from 2013 at all. But what day is it? It's now. But could also be considered Friday in Pamplona - which should be avoided as though the plague is sweeping the land and the four horsemen have full saddlebags. Nearing Puente La Reina and I recall nothing of passing here in 2013 and I probably wasn't here although my body, and a very heavy sack, was. Where my mind was is anyone's guess. A wee lassie from England said I would drink that water as I scooped to try a trickle from a ...

Another early awake for me. But there is nowhere to go ... and I don't know where next. I didn't yesterday after arriving either! It feels like a little piece of a jigsaw puzzle, so long looked for, has finally been rediscovered as the section of the Camino Frances between Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and Roncesvalles is now in my memory as being accomplished. Previously I was forced, during winter, to use the other route when I was coming back from Pamplona to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port to complete that section of the Camino. I could leave all these newbies, or I could carry on to be around them as some of their conceits vanish and are replaced with another... it is a rites of passage for anyone the first time. In the night some persons definitely threw up. Either their supper, the beer, the wine or all. I hope it wasn't Song, the lad from Seoul I spent the an excellent supper with in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and who seems to look up to me ... it's quite nice to be the village ...

Awake at 5. Nice afternoon/evening. Free flip-flops. And a nice supper with a young Korean gentleman on his first expedition in to Caminoland. Sunrise isn't until 8 am so ideally another hour of Lalaland ... At 6 I am going to the bakery after meeting a Spaniards from Valencia, two Argentines(both Amigos), one Hong Kong lady and many Korean individuals and drinking coffee and eating ferme yogurt. Two plus hours with an American ultra-marathon 36 year old. Who I let disappear into the most as we approached the physics student from London Ontario... nuff said. Solace. Just passed Orisson and they're at the bar. I will leave them there?  They went for the sunrise, but of course the pass is filled with low clouds... oh dear? Forgiveness is a patch to help the healing over what never seems capable of forgetting. Eating and drinking my fill at the Hostal, where I am tempted to sleep - even though the refugio is €14 as I am frightened of the two North America guys... I lost them then ...

Outside Le Gare De Bayonne a crowd gathers for the bus to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. To be surrounded by so many people and voices is so unusual. An experience I haven't had since 2013. Does it fill me with fear or with love. *** Depends on the conversations. I was wedged between two American grad students and one, almost American, Canadian grad student at the back of the bus. Some kind of rock and a hard place. After the initial helloes, which brought our Canadian cousin to my left front into the midst, I wanted off the bus to mind my own thoughts: nowt like a physics student reducing me to a Turing Machine to make me wonder. I kept quiet quite long enough until he used the term computer to define me! But then he wasn't having a real experience at all? As he conjured up his sex life with these two sisters from DC as a programmed happening ... It's just not me! But I am in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. That was insane. I've not stopped, but now I relax by the stream climbing d...

Well I am straight into the cluster of folks around the breakfast table, but I am absolutely shattered from yesterday. It's wonderful to hear them all speak their French tones, four are from Quebec, and to be glowered at as I arrived after 1 am, because they weren't operating  the Tramline after 21:30 due to scheduled works - and I was on the slow bus stopping at each and every blasted stop along the same route - but the challenge of the endurance and not falling into drunken slumber (because that was impossible). The sounds of the Camino... now I know I physically cannot begin on 6 broken hours sleep, on the back of yesterday's mammoth day back from Wetherby, mum and Lola. Where to this morning? Dax or Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port... the train departs at 10:19 so I will stop enroute at Marche des Capuchin where memories flood back. Flipping a coin I decided to head to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, €42 - which was most of yesterday's allowance - so I will start from Saint-Jean-Pi...

So far so good. Good morning with Lola. Two walks and a ton of cuddles as I depart for the haul over the Pennines to Manchester Terminal 3 on the slow train, via Halifax(£9.80), etc, then the tram to the airport. It's the cheapest option at around £12. Traveling to go walking ... flying to find some space to be ... it can never be done? Arrived and find it's a replacement bus service instead of the Tram and it has to stop at every tram stop. I should reach a bed by 1am? They know I am coming, but I am sorry to wake the hostess at La Maison Du Pelerin. It's not cool. And I feel jaded! But I have been on the go since around 5:30am. Walking tomorrow? Yes, but not 34.5 kilometres.

Another day of self hatred before a restful night's sleep. It's Monday the 2nd October and is this it? The end of the previous period of my life, if life my can be divided up into Epochs, eras, periods? But a change has to come, and I can only think of one way to get the ball rolling, which is by walking away from the same temptations I see all around me. In 2013 I felt the same, ever decreasing, situation, as I lay between the late shift and the early shift at YO! Sushi when I felt nothing was real in what I was doing and where nothing meant anything to me! Then I felt why go on? But there had to another way to that obvious conclusion to which I thought death was about to pounce. And yes there was, is and will always be. To turn in to the path of lightness, being, truth, and not abide in the doorway of uncertainty, where I waver forever, back and forth, around and around, with no direction and no purpose; be fearless and find what was always there to be found. *** Pilgrimage h...