A rebel without a clue.

Yesterday was a fine day. Spent two solid hours on the allotment, before walking into Wetherby, catching the bus back to Leeds at noon. The sun was shining, it was cold to start with, but I soon warmed up on the plot and walking up Quarry Hill Lane was fine. Then I saw a couple of old faces and a couple of dogs I used to dog sit for - I don't know why Lola throws herself at me all the time? Huxley wants to approach, he's just looking at me as a possible source of food? In amongst all the beans I'd found a few potatoes I'd overlooked - we had blight so we cut all the folliage away - and I trimmed some bottom leaves off the Kale which is beginning to look substantial, but something is still devastating the other Brassicas! Must be pigeons: Andy's covered his with netting supported by sturdy poles. I suppose I'll try again in the Spring? The patch of Chard looks healthy still, but there were a few which has run to seed - I grubbed them out of the ground...

After a lovely walk with Lola passing the allotment, up to Ash Dale Lane in Kirk Deighton, west to the Copse and along the side of the railway line before crossing the King Barrow bridge, we sat together in the sunshine on Millennium Field by the wooden poles, which appeared in the summer like some Leeds City Council henge; I have decided to stay by her side. Just to be with her; quiet and calm! On Wednesday I made the mistake of 'feeling', thoughtlessly, I needed to be in town, which is a place I always feel uncomfortable and never calmed. So I won't go anywhere now... Tomorrow morning back to the allotment to start the process of digging for spring. Andy's already completed the task. But he's not just walked 800kms... Lola's eaten her dinner and Emma is collecting her later - so I can definitely go to the allotment on Sunday morning? Weather permitting... As an opportunity to go to Porto on Friday afternoon has arisen I am heading back to walk the ...

On such a maudlin day I don't know if Albert Camus is the kind of author I should have turned to? Existentialism - The Outsider(aka The Stranger) . It's been on top of me for those ten years. The middle days of my life? From 40 to 50. Slightly leaning back towards old age? I've yet to touch 65... Will I get out of the crisis which seems to be making me gloomy, daily, and which is my choice to make? The weather isn't so happy either as autumn rolls on. Most unlike me, but I've come to the Tiled Hall, within Leeds City Library/Art Gallery, for a chapter and a pot of Earl Grey. I thought that the sofas had been got rid of, but they were hiding in the corner (a server in a better mood than I am almost fooled me that they had started charging to use them)! I much prefer to be backed up into a corner so I don't get too anxious/paranoid with people being or passing behind me. A Canadian guy with a girl opposite speaks pleasantly of those things 20somethings find entert...

And so begins the return process, part two. Walked down to the Cam took the obligatory selfie, returned passed King's College, picked up bread, another coffee and a cinnamon twist and I am now on the - waiting for replacement crew - not delayed but now delayed 9am to Peterborough. Let it go. It's just another part of the Decline and Fall of the British Empire. At 9.09am I am heading home! Peterborough then Doncaster then finally into Leeds, where I arrived around 12noon. And I didn't let it get to me. A couple of halves in FoH and Whitelocks and hung about in Brownhill and Co for a while enjoying the fine quality products Richard always sells: it Leeds's Mecca for good quality beer from all over the world! But it's only beer. And the same is true of the beer they sell in Mews. Life is not beer. Beer is a minor character, a bit player, Tuesday and Wednesday were dominated by beer. So much so mother and I got into our locked horned relationship once more: ...

And it's raining. Points failure on the decrepit railway line. Stansted looked dirty: it reminded me of passing through Mumbai when it was still known as Bombay, and hanging around in the airport a few hours. Bombay airport can't be like Stansted now can it? That was 2001... But this is the UK in 2023 where (apparently) multiculturalism has failed apparently - so says a multicultural the sacked (snigger) Home Secretary? To me it's a land where the rich get richer and the poor are marginalised, regardless of ethnicity? What would England be like without the choice of food outlets catering to every whim? Probably a lot like most of Europe... Dominated by a lot of bad local cuisine (as opposed to bad kebab shops)? The world is one in its multicoloured, multicultural, multi-ethnic diversity. Perhaps leaders have failed in this Western democracy as they look to blame everything but themselves for the running down of England? No wonder Scotland desires it's freedom to self de...

Well it was for a lot of the way! Behind me the moon and Venus as companions and Jupiter to the west, but obviously I was walking south to Cabo do Fisterra. After almost falling completely down a flight of marble steps, which I had failed to recall coming to the communal area, I sighed, straightened up, put my boots on and went up and over to the same spot I reached in June 2013: where there was much detritus of the end of the way (as there was ten years ago). A long bus journey, along the glorious coastline, before heading up to the hinterland beyond Noia. Popping into Rúa Nova 7 to touch base an O Camiño celebrity, if you will? Ivar, the guy behind the excellent Camino Forum, who was sat tracking the cosmic alignments of all things relating to Santiago, was there. I recall fondly his YouTube moments during COVID times: when it was only him and Santiago, and a world of pilgrims praying for release... The sun is beginning to fall on me outside Sindueña craft beer bar (36 Rúa Nova )as i...

Randomly weeping again - O Camiño - Just as I was finishing a fantastic lunch (Liresca Restaurante) when I got all emotional about seeing my girl again shortly! While talking to a younger Canadian who I was explaining Albert/Vimy Ridge... Which is also very emotional? Being away so long, with only those days between - looking after Archie - is the longest she's not been right at the top of my agenda all the time. She's the best thing that every happened to me. She had a operation to remove a benign cyst, off her chest and her right thigh, when I initially travelled to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. So she was in 'recovery mode' when I returned and had Archie to do sit for (but we did do a fairly large one, the day before I left to return to León, up on Wetherby Racecourse). But shortly I'll be staring deeply into those beautiful brown eyes: full of pure love, innocence, free of judgement or malice, but with perhaps just a twinkling of cunning whenever she smel...