A STEEP CLIMB

It took me three days to walk the next 36 kilometres, my respiratory system bucking metaphorical headwinds all the way.  I had some great experiences though.  I briefly thought about staying in the open air belltower in Granon.  It has to be the most romantic albergue ever, but I was already coming over all Camille-like, and thought I might actually expire if I stayed on the cold floor with the wind howling through. 

In Redicilla del Camino, I spent the evening with an older Belgian woman who was pulling a travois, with her camping gear, as she was planning to camp out in Galicia once she had finished her walk.  I bought a shrivelled onion and the last egg in a tiny hut lit by a single unsheathed bulb, which is what passed for a grocery store in that little hamlet.  We shared those two items augmented with some rice we had found in the cupboard of the hostel.  Later our bounty was increased by a handsome young Barcelonan who insisted that we try pan con tomate, which being a Catalan specialty was obviously best.  We did not argue, just greedily scarfed it down. 

Things got really festive when the bar downstairs, the only hang-out for miles, it seemed, started hopping.  We ventured down but were driven back by thick smoke.  The place was not on fire, but the mouth of every person inside was festooned with a foul-smelling cigarette.  So we lay on our bunks instead and felt the thud of the music through the floor, and listened to the rhubarb rhubarb of animated, alcohol -fueled singing and conversation that continued until 3 am, at least.  That's when I finally conked out; replete with good companionship and the effects of four kinds of medication.

In Belorado, the following evening,  I was reunited with Harold and his Spanish friend, and shared a convivial dinner with them and some French singers from Avignon.  They sang medieval chansons in return for our bilingual version of O Canada.  We would start a sentence in English, switch to Spanish and finish in French.  I was back  on a roll again, or so I thought.

The next day, I set out jauntily for Villafranca Montes de Oca.  I had wanted to stay a little further on at San Juan de Ortega, where the albergue was in a monastery where the dinner was a communal garlic soup presided over a priest famous for his hospitality and kindness.  In Belorado, the night before, I'd heard that the monastery was closed because the priest  had died the winter before.  Villafranca was 12 km from Belorado, and I was pretty sure I could make it that far, but it was a further 18 km to the next albergue at Atapuerca, and I was pretty sure that was too far for me in my current state.  So I did what every good pilgrim does, I kept walking, and waited for things to unfold as they would.

As it turned out, the headwinds that day were very real.  I could barely catch my breath as I leaned into the wind.  I walked about seven kilometres to Espinosa del Camino where I stopped for a coffee and a think.  I discovered that there was a bus stop on the main road.  The forecast was for nasty weather.  I knew that the landscape on the top of the mountain to come was wide open, and it scared me.  I still wasn't sure what I'd do, until the bus came.  I skipped all that beautiful blooming heathland and the ancient remains at Atapuerca and went all the way to Burgos.

That gives me 33.5 km to make up.

I haven't been walking much.  Both Nick and I have had a few rudderless days.  Social isolation doesn't look all that different from our regular life, but the element of choice has been removed.  So we've been rebelling a bit, eating junk food, and refusing to walk. But yesterday was too nice to waste.  We took a lovely walk through bush and  rough country, which settlers had once tried  (and failed) to twist into farmland.  When it comes to terraforming places like this, beavers do a better job than humans..  We enjoyed the gurgle of  a waterfall down the steep hill we climbed, watched herons scrabbling over prime real-estate in the tops of dead spruce trees above a beaver swamp, and spotted birds and butterflies. 

  So far, I've made up 6.0 km   Only 27 and a half to go. I must try  not to let this self-appointed virtual pilgrimage feel like penance, more like Remembrance of Things Past.  If I really wanted to do penance, I'd set that as a task.

SANTO DOMINGO (ish)

It has taken me quite a while to arrive in Virtual Santo Domingo.  The weather has been Arctic, so I’ve been getting my exercise by riding the stationary bicycle while watching Spanish comedy programs.  It’s not quite the same as walking the Camino.  In fact, it’s not the same at all so I didn’t count it.  Once I finally got back to walking, my virtual journey consisted of a walk to the mailbox and a scramble through the spring woods in the rain.  Nothing at all like walking by a highway under the strong Iberian sun.

Santo Domingo sounds like a nice place, but I saw hardly any of it.  I was much too sick to walk around. I’d like to visit Real Santo Domingo again, healthy.  I arrived in a taxi which I shared with a stringy French pilgrim.  He insisted that we stop the taxi just short of town; I imagine that was so that no-one would realize he hadn’t walked the whole stage.  I don’t know why I didn’t insist on being driven the whole way; likely, I didn’t want to make it difficult for the cabbie to figure out the fare.

I didn’t get much of a welcome at the Casa de la Cofradia del Santo, though I did get directions to the local clinic, where I waited for hours while those with appointments were served; a rather nasty doctor insisted that ‘en Espana, habla Espanol’, though I’m quite certain he spoke English.  With recourse to my Spanish/English dictionary, I haltingly outlined my symptoms in all their gory glory, and received four ,count’em, four prescriptions.  A little astonished by this aggressive treatment plan,  I immediately went to an internet café to check for interactions amongst them before heading to the farmacia. 

The doctor also prescribed rest, but the brotherhood at the albergue were having none of it.  I could stay one night only.  The monk at the desk gave me the card of a woman who rented rooms at the edge of town, but by then I just wanted to sleep, eat, and leave this inhospitable place.  Once the drugs kicked in, I slept alright.  But twelve years on, I’m still holding a tiny grudge about the way those two men treated me.  I should learn to get over it.

I have three strong memories of Santo Domingo. The first is being horrified by the state of one Japanese pilgrim’s feet, torn by the leather strap of her highly unsuitable Doctor Scholl’s wooden-soled sandals.  We met again a few days shy of Santiago, and she was now walking in flipflops!   A testimony to her perseverance if nothing else.

The second is seeing the silhouette of a dog through the closed glass door which led to the private quarters of the keepers of the Cofradia.  It was the German Shepherd belonging to a Spanish pilgrim, who I had met earlier that day,  now cuddled and cossetted in special accommodation.  I remember thinking that I was being treated worse than a dog. 

The third memory is auditory.  Santo Domingo de Calzada is the site of a medieval Camino miracle,involving two roasted chickens who were resurrected as a sign that a wrongly accused, hanged pilgrim had also miraculously come back to life.  You can read more about it herehere.  Down to this day, a cock and hen are kept in the choir stall in the church.  But when I was there, they weren’t because there was construction going on in the building.  I felt a bit cheated. 

But later on in the afternoon, as I was lying in a bit of a fever dream, I heard the cock crow;  a sign of good luck.  I rolled over and went back to sleep, a little mollified and heartened by this sign.  Still sick though.

My real walks of late have been more difficult than I would like.  But like that Japanese pilgrim.  I will persevere.  It has to get better.

THE EASTER BUNNY IS REAL

The Easter Bunny is real; at least in the mind of my always creative neighbour.  He was the most extraordinary sight on my walk to virtual Ciruena yesterday.  In the real world, I know this particular walk so well, that it's easy to be blasé about it.  I spent my time shooing away early blackflies, thankful for the swooping swallows intent upon receiving them into their open mouths.  There were other pilgrims out there on the road trying to keep from going stir-crazy in this time of self-isolation and social distancing, I spent my time crossing the road to avoid on-comers and, when overtaken, crossing the road to remove my self from the slipstream of  potentially infected, though clearly asymptomatic breath.  Crazy.

I worked diligently on my gait, still trying to rehab my injured leg.  It's been nearly four years since I fell out of the front door, trying to carry the front end of my dying, 100 lb German Shepherd, and pulled about every attachment in my left leg from the hamstring on down.  Since then, my steps have become much shorter than they should be, and I tend to stump along, bending my knees less than I should.  So yesterday, I did a kind of Scout's Pace between roadside features.  Long steps from the mailbox to the next driveway, short steps from there to the stop sign, and so on.

By the time I made it to Virtual Ciruena, my whole body was feeling the strain.  And today, I've had to resort to an anti-inflammatory cream.  I don't think I'll make it the next five plus km to Virtual Santo Domingo today.

I took a Google Street View walk around Ciruena; it is the quintessential sleepy village.  The main road passes sheds and houses of mixed orange brick and grey river cobbles, with the odd bit of timber framing showing through on adobe upper storeys.  There's a church, the ayuntamiento, a health centre and not much more.  The map shows three albergues, testifying to the extreme popularity of the Camino in the days before Covid-19, but it took me a long while to find the only bar in town.  That virtual coffee was mighty good though.

Another 5.5  km to Virtual Santo Domingo de la Calzada along rural tracks....art imitating life.  Hasta la vista!

VIRTUAL CAMINO MAKE-UP STEPS

Since COVID-19 made a hash of my plans to return to Portugal for another Camino, I have been revisiting previous trips in my mind, making photo-logs and re-reading my journals.

A friend sent me a link to virtual fitness goals; climbing Everest in your apartment building and the like, so I thought I might walk a Camino in my neighbourhood.  I started with that intention yesterday, but wasn't really sure which Camino or why.

Today, things became a little clearer.  The first time I walked the Camino Frances, 12 years ago, I missed a few sections because of illness, and risk aversion.  I decided to make up those steps.  I want to see if I can find images of things I missed, and to replace those images with experiences had closer (much closer) to home.  My spiritual intention is not quite so clear yet, but I suspect that will come as the number of steps mounts up.

My first gap in the Camino Frances of 2008 occurred at Azofra, in La Rioja.  I'd been sick, first with a sinus infection, and later with what medieval pilgrims would have called the "bloody flux" since the very beginning of my trip,( thanks to some suspect whipped cream).  I had started to feel really ill  in Najera the night before, and my new Australian friends, with whom I'd been walking on and off for four days had taken good care of me.  I had vowed to keep walking, but by the time I reached Azofra I knew that I couldn't make the 16 kilometre walk to Santo Domingo de Calzada. 

This was annoying because I had heard this was a lovely stretch of countryside, which I always prefer to walking on or near roads.  But it couldn't be helped.  I hung around the lovely courtyard (and bathroom) of the albergue in Azofra for a while, trying to decide whether to stay here and rest, or try to find a doctor, or to pack it in and go home.  In the end, I took a taxi to Santo Domingo de la Calzada where there was a big health clinic, and got some drugs and a bed.

I look at images of this stage online and find I'm not too sorry to have missed it.  It's very open and exposed, and, as I recall, it snowed a bit that day.  In my weakened state, it would have been an error to have attempted it.

My make-up kilometres have been spent in the immediate neighbourhood.  The sun has been shining and the weather balmy.  I hurt a lot more than I did 12 years ago. My dodgy knee is even dodgier, and my muscles and tendons are a dozen winters  less springy.  I still love to walk though.  It will always be my favourite mode of locomotion.  You have time to see, to listen, to feel, and smell.  You can stop anytime something catches your eye or your fancy.

So, what are the highlights of this virtual stage?

Coltsfoot blooming in the ditches; willows at the height of rising sap, stalks glowing  a neon chartreuse. Blackbirds bravely chivvying crows from their patch; all manner of birdsong, backed by a chorus of frogs.  A majestic loon in solitary ambit of his own personal bay on the lake. A culvert taken over by beavers keen on making their mark on the world. 

Most spectacular so far has been the sight of a pair of bluebirds flitting away from me, cautious but unhurried.  That flash of heartstopping blue is better than any Spanish sky, any day of the year. 

Though only just, mind you.

4 more km tovirtual  Ciruena, where I will have a virtual cafe con leche, before heading onto Santo Domingo.

FREE AGENCY

It's April 1st, 2020.  The first day of my so-called free agency; or in other words, unemployment.

There's also a global pandemic, but this is not the reason I don't have work.  I allowed my contract to run out over an ethical problem I encountered with my never-to-be-named employer.  Appeals to the powers that be fell upon deaf ears, and that made me as mad as hell.  I certainly wasn't going to take it anymore.

So, here I am, stuck at home with a full tank of gas and nowhere to go with it.  Luckily I live in a great country, where we are doing our level best to slow this juggernaut down.  And you can imagine, in fact you know, just how helpless we all feel in the face of that inexorable power.

So what am I doing with my first full day of freedom, you ask?

I'm making masks.

It started to help my daughter control her anxiety over giving Covid-19 to my mom, with whom she lives.  Until two weeks ago E had not one, but two retail jobs, one in a busy mall, where she was in a high risk of contracting the virus from unwitting vectors.  She has kept to the basement at Gma's house since then.  Her two weeks are up today, but a couple of days ago she got a cold (let's hope that is what it is) which sets her back another two weeks.  She really wants to go outside!  Once her symptoms are gone, she can do that, and on the off-chance she is anywhere near another human, she can feel a little less like Typhoid Mary when she goes for her solitary walks through the neighbourhood.

The experts say that the main benefit of wearing a mask is to remind you not to touch your face.  Even with all that handwashing, you might touch a surface with the virus on it and transfer it to your mucosa.  Eww...hate that word.  A mask, properly used, can stop that from happening.

For E, it will allow her to feel less worried about the simple act of using the kitchen at Gma's house, provided she washes her hands before and after, and wipes down every surface she has touched.

So, on to the masks....

A friend sent me a pattern by Dean Renwick, a Saskatchewan designer.  They're quick and easy to make.

Instructions are here: Mask Patterns and Instructions

Dean Renwick has a video tutorial to help you.

I decided to make my masks with a stash of Liberty prints, with a muslin lining.  I adapted the Renwick pattern by encasing a pipe cleaner along the top edge.

They're nice to look at, and fit well.  They may not make a fashion statement, but they're a bit less scary-looking than a surgical mask, and for all we know, they may become de rigueur for the next few months.  In any case, it's good to have something to do.  You never know, it might help.