Category: Walking

Dawn chorus

The dawn chorus – we all listen in from time to time, often unwillingly if we’re lying wake, sometimes thinking – one day I’ll get up and get out there and …. just listen. You can’t worry about stuff when the trees enclose you, or the garden’s dew-covered in the dawn, or there’s a big sky and the last stars are losing out. You can’t worry about stuff when all you’re doing is listening. And maybe you’ll identify one or two birds amid all that joyful cacophony.

So one Sunday morning, early in May….

4.45 in the Buckholt beechwoods, the rain not long stopped, just enough light through the trees to see our way along a slippery path and avoid the roots. A tawny owl with a too-woo answers his mate’s too-wit. No too-wit: we only hear the answer. The thrushes give voice to the morning ahead of the crowd: their repeating phrases are mesmerising.

Robert Browning: ‘That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,/Lest you should think he never could recapture/The first fine careless rapture!

Browning was thinking of April, and we’re one week into May. But it’s been such a chill spring, April is still the abiding spirit.

A blackbird starts up its more random and fluting song in competition – as we hear it – with the thrush. For him it just might be competition for a mate, or setting out his territory.

It’s many years since I’ve walked through woods at this hour. Back in 1975 it was the tropical forests of Guatemala, and I remember a firefly that startled me, and listening for a jaguar, just in case. The dawn silence broken as I remember more by monkeys which took to swinging through the trees. My destination then was the vast temples of Tikal, in a clearing cut back from the jungle. My destination today – no more than a bacon sandwich, or maybe a return to bed.

But who needs destinations. Enough to be in the wood, and listening to the chorus. A great tit starts up, easy to recognise, then much too easy, and intrusive when we want space for other birds. Maybe take out the robin as well – which I love but its tuneful meanderings sound out from every direction. Without the great tit and robin, we novices would be able to focus more readily on other species. The coal tit, also a repeating call, but more mellifluous. The wren high-pitched, rapid and loud for a bird so small, so difficult to see. The chiffchaff chiff-chaffing. A goldcrest? – but maybe it’s pitched too high for me to hear – so another bird? But which?

We hear no more owls, but there are wood-pigeons, and collared doves. And by the side of the path Roman snails, tough-shelled and edible and enjoyed by the Romans who introduced them, and found more abundantly near Roman sites to this day. Too early for the adders and grass snakes, but who knows, later in the day, beneath the mats which are put out on the common, where adders find shelter.

‘It is the bright day that brings forth the adder. And that craves wary walking…’ (Julius Caesar)

But this is a dawn chorus walk…

The enemy – the pheasant. (We hear them but they belong on the woodland fringes.) 25 million introduced into the countryside each year, and they’re protected. There’s evidence they eat snakes. Which do we prefer? As someone said, you can see who drafted the legislation. Money of course comes into the countryside from the shooters, so the arguments aren’t all one way.

And habitats – we love our woodlands, but a hundred years ago great swathes would be taken out – clear-cut or coppiced or pollarded. The woods were resources not a place for recreation. And a place of mystery and seclusion, a place apart. There were the working woods, and the deep woods. And the deep woods still stir our imagination. One reason I love Buckholt and Cranham woods is that you can get lost there. There is always that frisson.

We try now, as Natural England does, to re-create the wildlife habitats of a one-time working woodland, without the working population. So we take out the saplings, we cut clear and we coppice – but it’s not easy to re-create habitats when we want them for recreation, not for work.

The chorus is better on bright mornings, than on wet, or cloudy. Better where the mix of habitat is greater – meadows next to woods, or gardens. Maybe. But there’s a magic in the woods at 5am, and at 6am – no sunlight reaches path or canopy (the clouds have yet to break), but the pale green, the bright new green, is illumination enough as I lift my eyes from the path. And to either side, a stretch of woods where bluebells thrive. This is mixed-habitat wood, and meant to be that way – there aren’t the great expanses of bluebells we can see elsewhere. Or wood sorrel. And only in a few places is wild garlic abundant.

Near the end of our walk, one crow. Only one. Distant. Too raucous. Round a corner, a field, scouts stirring from their tents – maybe collecting wood for a fire. Takes me back a few years. Then back to the road, and the village.

Fifteen hours later, sitting out on a patio, looking north to the woods where we’d walked. A song thrush strikes up, always inventive, compulsive listening. First bird of the dawn, the last (almost) of the twilight. 9.25 he flies down from the tree to roost. There’s a distant blackbird, and an early owl in the woods, a few seconds, then he’s quiet. And an evening crow. Like the morning just a single caw-caw, and that’s it. Then all is still. 9.30 a single bat flies past. There’s a breath of wind. 9.35, another bat and, a minute of two later, more than a breath of wind. Not only the leaves but the branches move.

All the while I’ve been contemplating a sunset sky which held its colour, its luminous reds, for at least half an hour, and above, alto-cumulus, a gentle bank of grey cloud against the light blue. The sky is as quiet as the land, and I feel I could step off into the woods and around the globe without disturbing a soul. Nearer at hand the oaks and ashes still gaunt in outline against the sky: the day (the 8th of May) has been one of summer warmth, out of the blue, out of the ether, a surprise and a wonder, summer in spring in winter.

It had rained before we began our morning walk, and after we finished. And it will rain tomorrow, then turn cold…

with thanks to Kate Gamez, of Natural England, our walk’s organiser, inspiration and guide

Nature notes from Cranham Common

No more EU, no more referendum, for now.

On a very different tack, or since I’m on land not at sea, on a very different track – the track across the local common, with its glorious sense of space. The valley to Painswick opens to the south and beechwoods lie behind me and to my left and right. And underfoot the closest to a carpet of cowslips that I’ve ever seen. No fertiliser touches this land, and currently it’s grazed on a rotation basis by a few contented Belted Galloway cattle. I can see them often from the bedroom window, beyond the cricket field, each with its single wide white belt.

Last year cowslips just touched the land, now they’ve almost taken over, and I’ve never seen the like. They’re small and they droop, gently, and there’s a kind of mute acceptance, a contendness of place, about them. It’s almost as if they’re apologising for being there, for holding on to one stretch of country when once they covered the fields and meadows of England.

Spring has come suddenly this year. The chestnuts were late, and even now the ash is holding back, no leaf green yet emerging from the buds. But we’re high here, exposed to winds, and Spring is just a little behind the lower country. A few daffodils survive, and the bluebells and wood sorrel are abundant, the celandine reclusive, and the wild garlic anything but. They’re not quite in flower yet, but the smell in places is all-pervasive. Driving back from Oxford last night, passing through woodland, the smell invaded the car, almost as if we had a well-seasoned Sunday roast in the back.

On my morning run, down by the stream beyond the common, by the delightfully named Haregrove Cottage, the birds were in chorus, and it was 9 o’clock – four hours past dawn. How many decibels higher will it be tomorrow when we walk out at 4.30 on an organised dawn chorus woodland excursion? It amazes me how the birds launch into their chorus almost as soon as they stir, sing their hearts out, and then subside into a more occasional chirping and chirruping as the day takes hold.

And here I am writing. Outside she’s mowing the lawn – she turned down my offer. But you can clip the edges she said. So that I will do…

The Lake District – Langdale valley, April, inclement

3pm said the forecast for the weather to go downhill. It’s 1.30 and we’re sheltering in the Sticklebarn pub in the Langdale valley. Only sheep and walkers and rain, or hail and snow and rain, happen in the Langdales. The seasons arrive late, but the weather arrives early.

Climbing up to Crinkle Crag – all hail and snow and gales, all hail Macbeth, and it’s rocky, and I’m wet, but there’s something bizarrely joyful about it all. What – in weather like this – the hell am I doing here?

Lichen, extravagant orange, marks marks grey stone – as if the farmer had thought a stone to be sheep, but his palette, equally extravagant (poor multi-coloured beasts) is red and blue. (And not just the sheep – for tractors his palette is red, yellow and green.)

A line of trees marking the road heading away down the valley appears to be a natural extension of our mountain path – but we must allow for a 1000ft drop down to….

a drowned landscape – every field waterlogged, patterning the land, picking out the rain sky, and the cloud sky, and the fleeting sunlight.

Screes emerge out of rock valleys and spill down the sheer side of Pike o’Stickle – once fifty years I ran the screes but could I have run these screes as once I thought and if I did how come I’m now alive?  Memory playing false. 

We met two other walkers, one having left at 7 and now wet and joyful and talkative and springing done the mountain, and another on the way up, gloomy, a grunt returns a greeting, a plague on other walkers – dealing with inner demons.

We have no inner demons, but it’s our fear of outer demons, interlacing the gale and hail, that drive us off the summit ridge. You can see the lines of hail on a photo of me, bedraggled, smiling – slow exposure (photo not me) in the gloom.

(Four years ago we were here, and walking down to Three Tarns we met someone who’d climbed Everest the previous year – and all four of us took a wrong path down. It was summer, and a 10-minute mistake. But I’ve always felt reassured that we shared our error with an Everest mountaineer.)

We’re back in the hostel. Once a Victorian baronial pile. Silence and you hear the wind in the high-vaulted roof. Talk and words resound – you hear life stories, and they echo round. Hotels are for privacy, hostels are for sharing histories and exploits.

Youth hostels – almost fifty years on, and we’re all ages, and school-holiday children are belting around, making noise, and no-one cares. Who needs hush inside, when all is gale outside. Or in the morning after the gale, when all is still.

An island of ill-repute

I’m just back from an island of (supposed) ill-repute, Lanzarote – where the sun shines all day and it’s warm, even in mid-March, and volcanoes stride the length of the island (at Timanfaya they simply take over), and up in the north-west there are 2000 ft cliffs – and you climb through a landscape of spring flowers (yes, there’s soil for the flowers to grow in, and even a solitary apricot tree) to reach what you think might be a col or a pass – and there below you is the ocean, the Atlantic, which stretches 3000 or 4000 miles away to the Americas. And you stand there, and you dream. And out east, only maybe 20 miles away, the streets and beaches teem. And you stand there – the two of you, alone.

There are terraces right up to the edge, but sadly no longer cultivated. Vegetables and vines no longer economic. So maybe a touch desolate – but we loved it.

From the cliff edge, taking care not to attempt to take to lean out too far for a better view, you can see, looking north, a small island, Isla Graciosa. It has a village – a port, a few hundred people, and no roads, and though just four miles long it has two volcanoes. You can take a boat and eat in a fish restaurant, and head back the same afternoon – maybe after a walk – rumour has it there are paths. We didn’t make it there this time. Next time.

Sitting on a volcano in the middle of the Atlantic. Yes, that is my idea of fun!!

How to combat the post-Camino blues…

My friend Sarah from the Camino put up a request on her Facebook page. As follows –

“….Do you remember those feelings of loss or low points when you got home from the Camino? …. What were your one or two tips or strategies for beating the Post-Camino blues?…”

I replied with more than one or two – Sarah’s question made me think!

Follow the rising and the setting of the sun and moon, and the passage of the day. They’re there for us now as they were on the Camino – Find quiet in all the quiet places, and the noisy places too – Give yourself space, and imagine, re-imagine – Call to mind the landscapes and your friends, and how wonderfully international it all is, important when there’s so much talk everywhere about closing borders – And keep walking: the Camino is magic, but there are wonderful walks within reach of all (I hope so anyway) of us – And sing as you walk: the songs you sang, and maybe even the hymns 

(I loved singing in the early morning, before the sun rose, and I was on my own, no-one in sight behind or ahead. ‘The King of Glory passes on his way,’ is a line from one favourite hymn – I just liked the idea of God walking – God walking with me. We think of God as sedentary. I prefer a peripatetic God!)

And how does all that leave me feeling?! Time for a local walk, the Surrey hills – corners of wilderness within sight, from Leith Hill, of big-city London. Time for a bigger walk – return to the Cornish coast path, or get back to the Lake District, and Helvellyn, and Scafell.

And… yes, time for a BIG walk – get back on the Camino – the Camino Portugues will take me from Porto to Santiago later this year – j’espere! And then on to Finisterre, that final three of four days, which will take me to the ocean.

For which, see my next post…

Camino – all about symbols

The Camino runs in, pretty much, a straight line, but I love the way it weaves itself into your life, with reminders here and there of that extraordinary heritage into which I tapped last autumn.

We stopped in Ludlow ten days ago, and visited the wonderful parish church, which has held on to its medieval heritage better than most. A palmer was someone who’d completed the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and the palm was his symbol. Ludlow’s Palmers’ Guild was formed in 1284 and with wide commercial interests across the area they became very wealthy – and they put that wealth into the church.

But, curiously, I noted that another symbol of pilgrimage, which appears more than once, is the shell, rather than the palm.

The palm had other symbolic meanings, not least triumph and victory. The shell, very much the symbol of the Santiago pilgrimage, had become a symbol for all pilgrimages.

Once you’ve walked the Camino and knowing how many routes cross-cross Europe you’re always on the look out for the shell symbols. It’s there even in biblical representations of St James with no pilgrimage associations – his supposed burial place wasn’t discovered until eight centuries after his death.

I found one in an unlikely place last week, on a muddy track, just off Offa’s Dyke. It was – a large shell-shaped fungus, of guaranteed impermanence, and a clear case of the symbol being in the eye of the beholder.

Camino reminders don’t only come fungus-shaped.

The chancel of Leonard Stanley church near Stroud has a carved capital depicting Mary anointing the feet of Christ, his hand raised in blessing. There’s a wooden head of Christ at South Cerney, a little further east into the Cotswolds, that’s comparable, and it’s thought likely this was brought back by a pilgrim to Compostela in the mid 12th century. The way the beard curls apparently gives the clue: I love that kind of detail. A curling beard another symbol? (Acknowledgements to David Verey’s Cotswold Churches for this information.)

And finally, guess what I’m cooking for supper tonight – scallops, with bacon, and it’s clear from one or two looks in my direction that it’s time I headed for the kitchen…

Mindfulness – the Ladybird way

Predictably – and happily – I was given Mindfulness in the new Ladybird series for adults for Christmas. Only 54 pages – and sometimes it misses the mark, and sometimes if gets it spot on.

Clive practises loving-kindness meditation – and it ‘finds it easier than bothering to meet his friends and lending them money’.

‘In ancient times Guru Bhellend entered a state of mindfulness that lasted 35 years. During this time he thought about everything.’ When he’d finished he writes ‘the answer on a grain of rice’. ‘He never married,’ it concludes.

(In Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the computer Deep Thought comes up with 42, as the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything, after a 7 1/2 million year search.)

The easy way and extreme way, and both miss the path. The good old middle way.

Though even that may not work out. Last week walking on Offa’s Dyke we took the middle way, and ended up in a field looking east when we should have been by a stream looking south….

Country notes

The early sun below the hill was turning the dawn clouds orange as I ran down the hill this morning. The electric fence has been moved and the cows, Belted Galloways, now graze the eastern side of the common, whereas before they roamed more widely. I have to avoid cows pats and there are big dents in the hoof-trodden earth.

Back Saturday from three days in the Welsh borders, near Oswestry. Oswald’s tree: named for the defeated king and saint from whose dismembered body a bird picked an arm and where it dropped it a tree grew. I’m sure they have dismembered bodies in Game of Thrones, but do trees grow from arms? (Please advise.) We’re back in 642AD, so all things were possible then.

There used in the first half of the 19th century to be a racecourse on Offa’s Dyke above Oswestry, and the stone foundations of the grandstand still sit there, on the edge of the woods, a local equivalent of a Mayan ruin on the edge of the jungle…

Adjacent to the grandstand a common stretches east along the hill, and scattered across it last Friday were the remnants of a multitude, a small army, of snowmen which the locals must have had great fun building a day or two earlier. Now the snow has gone, but the snowmen remain…

I mentioned Game of Thrones. Also on TV, BBC TV, another army will be gathering, the Russian army, to face Napoleon, as the battle of Borodino looms. We’re back in 1812, and it’s War and Peace.

Paths not taken (Richmond Park)

The cold sun cheers the soul and the hard ground make good terrain for running, so I was off for a long and steady run round Richmond Park yesterday, with the jackdaws and rooks and jays all busy, and many people walking and chatting, and the occasional too fast cyclist on the Tamsin Trail, and all those wonderful tracks, it felt like thousands of them, made by man and deer, scooting off among the long tufty grass and the dead bracken and bog.

And all those quiet places too, where the tracks take the deer and rarely take us humans, though mad runners like the wilder ways.

Several times I stopped and wondered which path to take, each time a path not taken, and in Robert Frost’s words, that could have made all the difference. Each turn dictates all later turns, and along each path different thoughts, and different times for getting back to the carpark, and getting back home – and for lunch. And every other junction, another decision, and in one, and in every, instant, your life can – and will – change. Avoid any notions of permanence! We are all creatures of serendipity. So keep your mind empty – something I’m very bad at doing (one reason why I meditate!) – let the dao take you where it will, and best to ride it, and not seek to break the flow.

Camino day by day

Text messages home (just a little edited!) Wednesday 30 September –  Tuesday 26 October 2015

[St Jean Pied de Port – Logrono walked 19th-27th June]

30 Sept   Arrived safely (in Logrono), hotel fine but bed v short…. Weather forecast going downhill – Fri and Sun don’t look good. Earlier today in Bilbao – 25 degrees at 8pm! Still summer – just!

1 Oct   Wonderful day for walking but a groin strain hasn’t helped – and it’s been a long long day. But the sun has shone brilliantly all day, and the wind blowing an almost gale. Friendly folk but no more than a few pathway chats. And the hostel (Najera) – all others full – crammed with beds and people! So a mixed day – and there’s rain to come tomorrow. Might just snug up in the next town in a hotel! BUT I’m on my way – and that’s what matters!

2 Oct   Off at 7.45 arrived Santo Domingo de la Calzada 12.15, bright start, shower just after I arrived. Time now to recover! My bocadillo de jamon and cerveza have just arrived. Better hostel – last night 90 crammed in one room!

Carlos [small teddy bear, gift from Hazel] hid, like me he didn’t like the snoring both sides of me… Daytime he’s there peeking out – I see you’ve got a hitchhiker one guy said….

3 Oct   Lovely sunrise this morning above Santo Domingo. Stomped along well all morning, at Belorado by 12.15, been chilling out, lunching, talking, writing … Only problem is – left my adaptor behind in the dormitory gloom this morning –  should have enough charge to see me through to shops in Burgos, we’ll see!

4 Oct  Bit of a miz day! Crosswinds and rain and we’re up at 3000 ft. In the oak forests it’s sheltered and rather lovely but in the open it’s a bit wildcats poncho v useful.

… ‘wildcats’? …. should read ‘wild and’! Carlos sought shelter in his rucksack pocket all day. San Juan de Ortega bleak so walked on to Ages, which is a little less bleak but nowt to do. I’m walking well, so that’s good. Tomorrow Burgos, and will be warmer! Glad I missed the rugby! [England beaten by Australia]

5 Oct   Arrived in Burgos about 1pm, wet bedraggled and windswept, as was everyone else! Now in search of a USB lead for my phone …

6 Oct   All the way to Hontanas today, with a detour to see a monastery, about 21 miles, much of it on the high meseta, up to 3000ft. Strong headwind but great when the sun took over late morning. In fact a brilliant day! Hontanas a lovely village, and a great little albergue. Supper at 7!

7 Oct  18 miles, something like that. Feet said – no further! Now in Boadilla – think that’s it! – texting in the sun cos it’s too cold everywhere else. There is a lounge with a heater… But this is Spain!! Walking over the meseta amazing, big landscapes and big skies, mostly sunny. Maybe warmer weather is on its way… Great hostel, inc garden, cafe, except for bunks which are muy basico!

8  Oct   Wonderful day walking in big landscapes, and several wonderful churches. But cold out of the sun – reminded me of the high Andes! Now in Carrion, which has churches but no albergues with their own cafe/restaurants, and they’ve been great ways of meeting people. Now done nine days (eight walking, but I’ve gained a day on my schedule), almost 1/2 way if you count my days in June!

9 Oct   Hard walking across endless hedgeless fields, big horizons, mountains far to the north. Bitterly cold but moon, Venus and Jupiter beautiful in the predawn sky… Got here at 1.30  after lunch – bocadillo de chorizo in a nearby village. ‘Here’ is Terradillos de los Templarios, halfway point on the Camino Frances! A black cat on the Camino today, walking the wrong way – all it wanted was attention, not one of your scraggy anthropophobic (good word that) cats!

…. Anthropophobic … Spellcheck having fun! Sitting here now with Swedish, German and English friends … Sun brilliant, but weather will be going downhill a bit tomorrow. Not following the news,

so wonderfully out of touch!  Good conversation over supper – some inspiring people on the Camino.

10 Oct …. Phone call home [from Calzadilla de los Hermanillos, municipal albergue]

11 Oct   Big contrast today, after lovely friendly communal meal in Calzadilla last night. Wet morning, walking about 16 miles across rough paths in the middle of nowhere, friends Tim and Sarah keeping me company. Crazy early lunch at the Bar Elvis in Reliegos, blues and R&B and bocadillos. Lovely albergue, small, playing Enya when we arrived… but town (Mansilla de las Mullas) in Sunday shutdown, and weather cold damp and dreary. So miserable afternoon – after I’d got my clothes washed. Hard even to find a decent place for a beer! Tomorrow Leon, which should be wonderful. Will probably take an extra day. Weather wet tomorrow am, maybe Tues too, but forecast looking v good after that.

12 Oct   Chilly in Leon. Wet overnight, rain held off walking here – only just. Albergue crams in lots of people but as one of the first to arrive have a bottom bunk. Lovely people running last night’s albergue – got hugs from husband and wife on leaving! Leon cathedral wonderful – finest stained glass I’ve seen anywhere in the world – every wall has vast windows, full of colour, and three rose windows… Was planning to stay tomorrow in Leon, but weather won’t be good so think I’ll move on. Will be on my own for the first time in four days – looking forward to it! Think you have more sun and warmth than I have…

13 Oct.  3.30 and just settling in to my own room – ! – in Hospital de Orbiga. At least 24 miles by the country route from Leon, and I think I’m ahead of almost everyone else. So could choose. 15 euros. Rain? Stunning day … 5 degrees when I set off about 7.15, now mid 60s and a deep blue sky!

Hard to get warm here, and only one bar open! Also much much quieter than Leon. Main feature the wonderful bridge. Feet aching but only a short distance tomorrow, and the sun will be shining! I didn’t stay in the Parador in Leon – thought about it, but v expensive. Looked amazing in the half-light this morning! For another time?? Could you send your electric blanket over?

14 Oct   Shorter walk to Astorga, some beautiful woodland en route and the city on its hilltop, a bit like Orvieto, is impressive. Weather sunny – and chilly. But a little lonely – friends have all moved on or gone back home – so Achilles’ tendons permitting I’ll move on tomorrow rather than stay here. Still an amazing adventure! Up to 5000ft the day after tomorrow… Now more than two weeks since leaving home.

15 Oct   Will phone after Vespers at 7.  Wonderful day! [Rabanal. Sated at the Albergue Gaucelmo, run by Confraternity of St James, and v English!]

16 Oct  Wonderful walking and up to Cruz de Ferro with my friends, but since then on my own. I go faster! Much of the walk at 5000ft but now down at 2000ft and warming up – but still autumnal. Will speed up if I can [cover three days in two] – loving it but think I want to get to Santiago a bit more quickly. Rabanal yesterday was a special place. Big country! [Today Molinaseca, another municipal albergue, but beds not bunks!]

17 Oct  Wonderful day. Started over an hour before sunrise, with head torch on. Checked out a still functioning Roman cistern at 8am, in the dark! Ponferrado – light rain, by Cacabelos sun was coming out, and afternoon was walking through vineyards, hills all around, mountains beyond, blue sky and warm sun. I loved it – happiest moments yet. Bounce in my step! 20 miles…. Hope tomorrow can compare. Now to explore Villafranca del Bierzo. [Family-run Albergue Leo, best yet.] Have maybe an hour. We must try the Bierzo wines.

18 Oct  Strange but good (I think!) day. Took mountain route out of Villafranca, went slightly wrong (Pradela if it’s on your map), then all the way to O’Cebreiro. BUT drizzle turned to light rain and I’m over 4000ft and in cloud and there’s a cold wind, and O’C is a primitive stone village. So I took a room, bit basic [damp sheets], but v hot shower, and now 5pm and into my menu peregrino. Forecast tomorrow bad, but after that looking good. Max 7 maybe 6 days to Santiago. Over 20 miles and prob 4000 ft of climbing today. My feet amazingly are holding out well! … Vast plate of meat has arrived. Now for the vino.

19 Oct   I’ve just arrived in Triacastela, after walking in steady rain for 5 1/2hrs. I’m very wet but will survive!

20 Oct   A complete change, glorious weather, sky so blue could have been in the high Alps. Took a tour of the great monastery at Samos, and still walked 18 miles or so – now about 3 miles beyond Sarria. Met up with friends en route but no-one’s made it to Barbadelo, where I am now. A swimming pool here – with a cold wind no surprise that no-one’s in there swimming.

21 Oct   I’ve slowed right down in the last hour – bruised heel. Will have to see how I go. Now Portomarin, heading for Palas de Rei – but may not get there tonight! [Stayed in the Casa Molar albergue in Ventas de Naron]

22 Oct   Heel (where it joins the sole) swollen this morning, got out of bed and couldn’t walk. Was thinking – crisis, taxis etc. But we Colliers don’t give in. Started walking with a limp – and 16 miles later I was going quite well, arriving in Melide. Went much more slowly esp this morning, and enjoyed it. Day made in heaven, that helps. And God would have thought he’d done pretty well with the Galician countryside as well. Two days out from Santiago. Only question – how will the foot be in the morning? Have I pushed it too much today?

Meal tonight polpo – octopus – local speciality! Walked back with a slow limp. Yet, somehow, I will be walking tomorrow!

23 Oct  For a bear with a sore foot today was ridiculous – walked all the way from Melide to Pedrouzo, over 20 miles. Didn’t want to walk so far but in the end no choice. Only 12 or so miles tomorrow. But after 4 days of wonderful weather looks like tomorrow may be damp even wet. But will be special to reach Santiago. Tonight not in an albergue but a small ‘hostel’, v cheap – but my own room.

24 Oct  ARRIVED IN SANTIAGO !!! just over 2 hrs ago, missed the midday pilgrim mass by a few minutes – I’d been walking over 4 hrs, but hotel is snug and v close to cathedral. I have my certificate. Big anti-gov political rally going in plaza in front of cathedral when I arrived, so not quite the right mood! Will return later and reflect. 400 miles since 1 Oct, av 17 a day… But in 4 words WOW I MADE IT!

25 Oct   Wonderful day here, hobbling at first but kept bumping into friends from way back on the trail all day, hugs and goodbyes. I’ve been a lone walker – and yet I’ve made great friends! Warm sunny day – drizzling now. Midday mass was wonderful, with the great botafumeiro censor swinging its vast arc at the end of the service. Originally intended to fumigate pilgrims – I’m ok but not sure about all my clothes. BUT I’m a-comin’ home tomorrow, all being well flight into Heathrow early evening. Almost four weeks away….