A rebel without a clue.

My meat free Sunday failed at breakfast, but lunch was so beyond meat it was going into ears and other parts seldom eaten: pigs tail. I've a solid mass of carne sat in my digestive juices as I sit opposite the Albergue de peregrinos São José de Ribamar pondering the Vinho Verde which is saline and about to assist with the meat load overdose: in badly translated English it was either 1/2 dose or 1 dose of roasted meats. I went for half a 'dose' and it has brought my mortality closer or set me back years in purgatory? Unusual for me but I have a calf strain on my right one. It was obvious coming from Vila do Conde into Póvoa de Varzim. I believe I got it after the decking petered put, back in amongst those cobbles. I can't just walk ahead as every step the angle changes and it's so easy to misstep! But all is good. The restaurant opposite the albergue is calm. Póvoa de Varzim is quite large. From some distance away I thought it was too far for today, but ...

The end of day one and I am in a cabin on the campsite, here in Angeiras (Camping Orbitur - Angeiras 18€), which is for the third time on some part of the coastal Caminho - which I have followed since leaving Lisbon in 2021; and so It's another silence I have to myself beneath the pines. Another December too. I just know the weather of today won't last, as it didn't before I was semi stranded in Óbidos for three days during a deluge and curfew, but the weather broke then too as I arrived to Figueira do Foz on a glorious evening (when I'd walked for ever; for ever without respite passed the huge Aviator paper facility). It isn't 2021 though, is it??? Caldo for soup. Fine. Lovely bread (Restaurante Lima)! If this was from the bakery, which opens at 6:30am, all will be good. Tomorrow I've to switch to modo peregrinos from the 'semi-pilgrim/semi-tourist' mode I simply had to be in since walking out of Porto along the estuary to that gorgeous, but...

Like that morning back in 2021(when I left 'Se' in Lisboa to go to the mouth of the Targa) I am following the mouth of the Douro out of Porto along the Camino Portugués de la Costa, but I've downed tools for Ovos Benedict and a cup of white tea from the Azores. Where am I going today? I simply don't know. Yes I've seen two other pilgrims on this way, but one was catching a bus and the other just said I am going that way; let it be? Walking on the cobbles is a little difficult. I forgot about cobbles. You've got to watch your step?

The cry 'duty free spirits and cigarettes' follows on from the same half dozen of so lottery scratch cards they flog, following on from gift ideas and food and snacks. The book end of the safety features and demonstration of all the means which could save us if the airplane lands on a body of water - which does happen, but pretty rarely at 28,000 feet and traveling at 500 miles per hour... Then to be prepared to land with armrests down, window blinds open and tray tables away ... But it's nearly over as they bring fragrance trolley along the cabin and clear away litter which isn't littering the floors and aisles. My guilty pleasure is a liberal spray of Hermes  passing through the duty free section - there is no escape! At £90 per bottle it's well beyond my wallet (even if it does smell lovely)? So a strange night's sleep. And awake at 5:30am. Quite a lot of snoring and a lot of movement - especially a legion of revel makers surging passed the windows (even with...

The day is here. First of December and it is cold. There was a little snow cover leaving my apartment yesterday morning, and a few flurries while out with Lola, but the chill is continuing The day is here . The final Occupational Health Appointment @ The Light Surgery (the light surgery - I always thought it was heavy man!) Setting off from here in Wby at 7:30-ish and back to Leeds. The day is here? The final backwards and forth doing only one thing? X99, X98 or number 7, to Leeds or Wetherby, daily(once or twice daily). Lola no longer needs me like she did. She's the love of my life, but she's now a senior girl and it's obvious! She's even decided she wants to be in her basket where it was on the sofa or seat in the living room before; bless her? She loves to be nestled and warm. She loves to be tucked up with a throw over her. Once I return really have to connect with the people in England who are there for other 'potential' pilgrims? Through the FB groups, bu...

There are a number of quotes attributed to Jesus which are floating around and around in my subconscious, but one keeps popping up more often... "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened." In an interview I saw with George Harrison and Ravi Shankar this from Matthew 7-8 came out of the blue as a subtle reminder of something I am constantly being reminded of? I've never considered myself to be a Christian, or religious at all, but some things said, or thought below the surface, ring 'True'? The second quote I was thinking about this morning, in my restless state at around 3am, was “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” and I really don't know why I've started considering the words so deeply! The third attributes q...

Well that was a day of two halves... The morning and early afternoon fine - fantastic walk from Wetherby to Boston Spa with Lola and then the late afternoon the usual family affair with our grievances. That was yesterday afternoon. It's gone. I slept well. No nightmare just the final recurring dream of hitchhiking back to the same 'dream' town in France which is a theme of my memories of Les Chemin Saint Jacques de Compostelle - churches, castles, bistrots, gîte d'etape, boulangerie, bastide, bar/tabac, font: I definitely am returning to Le-Puy-en-Velay soon to do that Chemin again (the first spluttering one which only got as far as Cahors). I love the Camino, but truthfully I prefer walking between the ville fleurie in France and the rivers in that region surrounding the Massif Central, and heading to the ocean or sea through the wonderful meanders and turns, while looking at towns and villages clinging to cliffsides, riversides, and steeped in pre-Christia...