Harry, Ultreia!

In search of the perfect Eccles cake, I set off on my ride to the Other Side (of the Humber) and was not disappointed; combined with the quest for fitness and to lose the 3 lb I put on in the Whitby hol, of course.

But a bike trip is rarely totally uneventful, and I was glad that the chain fell off my bike at the bottom of the slope up to the bridge on the Yorks side, as this was when I met a new friend. This chap stopped to help me as I wrestled, even to the point of not being fazed when I started to scream because I had got my finger end caught in the mechanism, and every minute (that's pronounced my-newt) movement of the bike in any direction seemed to pull the finger in further and I worried I would lose part of it. Not a help for an embroiderer.

So then we started to walk up the slope together, and eventually across the whole bridge to Barton. He's called Harry Webster, and you can't get a better and more straightforward Yorkshire name than that. He turned out to be a sports coach, and so I got a bit of free tuition from him in breathing. What you have to do is to develop your intercostal and outercostal chest muscles, and this is how:

Lie down, head on a thin pillow (or you can even do it standing up) and steadily blow all the air you can out of your lungs through pursed lips; really ALL of it, every last bit you can. Then inhale slowly through the pursed lips again, until your lungs are really full. Then hold the breath there for a few seconds, as long as you can. Repeat the whole thing 4 or 5 times to start with, building up to about 12. It will hurt, he tells me, but it is an exercise that has helped asthma sufferers to get rid of their complaint. Worthwhile doing whether you are in tiptop or poor health. 

Thanks for that, Harry, I hope I got it right here.

Harry told me (and said it was OK for me to tell the story too) about a time when he had been at a really low ebb in his life with family and financial problems and had had his sporting life potentially ruined by injuries from being knocked down by a car. He was just about to commit suicide, and had put the gun by the sofa overnight. In the morning, he opened the curtains; it was very frosty, and a shaft of sunlight lit up the garden. There on the grass were half a dozen kinds of bird he had never seen before. Wow! he said.
 He got rid of the gun two days later as a

 result, and his life started to turn round for the better from that moment. He told me the little poem he had written:

"Destined for some higher plane,
my efforts fraught with stress and pain
to conquer failure kept at bay
by thoughts of this another day."


We continued to chat about fitness, and how so much is dependent on doing what you do with good posture; keep your deltoids (muscles in the upper arm) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deltoid_muscle above your hips. And also, make an effort yourself, lots of effort - don't expect fitness to drop out of a bottle of pills.


And so we strode across the bridge together at a good pace. Bear in mind he is 68 and has 2 new hips and a new knee. We continued to talk about fitness, and he asked me if I liked walking; 'Indeed!' I said, and told him about the camino de Santiago de Compostela, and by now I felt he was just the kind of person who would enjoy it, and who would contribute a lot to the group life that is such a part of it.

At the other end, we bumped into someone on a bike who knew him, a PE teacher, and I realised I had joined a new social circle! I took my leave of him, and felt grateful simply for the existence of good people, and for the chain dropping off when it did.


It's a great tea-time, folks! I just opened an envelope which turned out to contain a timely tax rebate of £76 from 2008 (when I ought not to have paid any tax at all)! I'm so lucky not to have an income, as it means I pay none! But at least this can go into my savings-for-the-camino, and it will buy me two or three days, or 45 miles or so. Today was just like a camino day or JLTC as I say. I even understand now why I turned the pictures into funny little strips.

Harry, see this - it's good, I promise!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6az7f1n_HU
and this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QFd_55El1I&feature=related

And some music for the journey:
http://www.amazon.com/Calixtinus-Polyphony-plainchant-instrumental-collection/dp/B000V6RD62

Oh dear, have I had a relapse into caminomania?
Ultreia!

Collagraph printing: Where now?

Kitchen table, first wave.

I began today determined to clear up the kitchen table, and it happened, but then a second wave hit it and that was that. Like the pilgrim rucksack, it contains one's entire life of the moment. The new wave was on return from the Ropewalk with my creations, my first ever collagraph prints. I discovered what I already knew, the difference between relief printing, as in linocuts where only the surface is inked, and intaglio printing, where ink is pressed into the depressions as well as the surface and then sucked out into the paper it's printed on.

Printing plate, pilgrim's progress.

Second wave: my first-ever collagraph prints.

The plates we made today consisted of mount-board, cut into and scratched, embellished with foil, wallpaper, carborundum, permanent PVA glue, French polish, and embossed with sandpaper and cloth to give texture. There's a lot of potential in this technique, it's even quite addictive. There's a lot of control in the preparation side of it, then when it is put through the mangle-press as I call it, there's an element of surprise when the thing is unveiled.

The pilgrim returns

Naturally my subject-matter was pilgrimage, but fortuitously I forgot to reverse the image I used, based on the paper camino representation of the metal sculptures on the Alto de Perdon. Thus, like it or not, the pilgrim is on the return journey! Going W to E! But on the plate, the pilgrim is still progressing. In many ways, the plates are more pleasing than the prints, as the shellac varnish gives a lovely warm tone to it reminiscent of Samuel Palmer's prints. It's a start anyway.

Having a little time left over, I worked very fast to scrawl out whatever came to my mind, which was 'WHERE NOW? which is the predominant pilgrim thought a year on. Perhaps it even says something about the mood of the moment we live in. I don't feel very optimistic, do you? Does anyone? Is it just me, or is there a mood of gloom about just about everything? There are plenty of blessings to count, but somehow the bigger picture seems sort of sad. The back garden view analysed is a picture of calm, all stately horizontals and verticals, and no riot of colour to disturb the peace. But things never stay the same, do they? I can't help but feel that the world is waiting for the next thing, and I'm apprehensive, and to me the picture looks menacing. What has happened to my hula-hoop moments? My pink-brolly mood? Reader, if I have ever made you laugh, help me out now.

The back garden through a kitchen window pane

Such simplicity.....

A closer look

The "mangle-press"

I can't be cheered up tonight, not to pink-brolly degree anyway. But two things seem to embody hope. Firstly the wonderful "mangle-press", smoothly feeding the plate and paper through, with a handle heavy and Victorian in feel. Even better still is the simple way in which the prints were held in the drying rack. Just look - see how that marble drops and gently holds the paper without causing any claw-mark or buckling. Just the force of gravity combined with the brilliance of the human mind in thinking up something so simple, effective, and above all elegant. Someone must have invented it, probably way back in the mists of time, with no name now known to us. Will someone be telling me that this unassuming piece of technology was first used in war? I do hope not.

I thought about why I felt like this; am I just being a Luddite, or a computer dunce with a tendency to favour the mechanical and the physical? Or am I right in thinking that it is 'simple ideas [that] change lives forever', as the charity Practical Action proclaims? http://www.practicalaction.org As it says on their website:

“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.” – E.F. Schumacher

Camino bore: What the camino has done for me! Plus household hints.

That word! Camino, I mean! I said I wasn't going to mention it! But up it pops into my thinking again, and while in the bath I'm getting all excited at the thought that 'the camino has done its work' - some of it - and that maybe it is 'hidden', even from me! Oh I do HOPE so! Aaaaaaanyway, I was thinking of doing a page of household hints based on my own experience as a BBP. That's Bohemian Bi Polar. You will need a definition of Bohemian to go on, and in my case it is something I heard some time ago:

"Bohemians are people who wash up before a meal rather than after it." 


Simple, isn't it! I hope you know just what it means! Of course, it is about much more than washing up; this is just an example of the kind of behaviour that comes naturally to me. I was going to include a pic of me eating the main meal of the day in the bath at 2.30pm, but in the end I decided that poppadums didn't play well in the bath, so I got out to eat.

Anyway, my discovery is that I have achieved full and total acceptance of my condition, which is BBP. I'm going to work with it rather than against it. I say! I find that depressive people, as opposed to the manic depressives now re-named bi-polar, tend to be very sniffy and see me as a person with what they call 'mood swings'; the way I see it, I'm pretty much like THEY are, except that I'm not miserable ALL the time.

OK then, what is the first household hint? It's about vacuuming. I recommend that you have one of those see-through ones, a Dyson. That way, you can see how much dust & fluff comes up each time you use it, and preferably you will not use it very often so the amount will be substantial and very satisfying. Added to this, you will never have to say 'My vacuum cleaner has worn out'. This hint is suitable especially for bi-polar people. Did you know that they, we that is, tend to favour writing articles rather than books, because we need constant and regular feed-back, preferably saying how marvellous we are? Thus, if you write one article a week, you get a lot more out of it than writing a book every 18 months. Writing a blog every day, well..... I must say, I am OVERWHELMED by the support I receive! (Ummmm!) Anyway, this really IS about housework, as with one of the see-through vacuum cleaners, you get that reward of actually SEEING the dirt, without which it might never get sucked up at all.

The second hint for today is that you make a resolution like I have done to do about half an hour of housework a day, on top of the washing up you do before a meal. As much as that! I'm afraid so. But you will do much more housework if you plan to do half an hour of it rather than an hour, because then you might actually get started.

All this takes me back to me as a newly-married dewy-eyed young housewife, doing my best. One day, t'owd man (t'young 'un, then) told me that he really didn't like women who were 'obsessed with housework'. I can claim that ever since, I have been the perfect wife in this respect! I admit I started with a challenge, which was that shortly before marrying him, he had his stuff sent home from uni by means of one of those large trunks you see in films (his dad was a railway man, so it was cheap). The last time it was sent anywhere, he had packed it with some marmalade and some soap powder. What he didn't know was that when trunks got to Durham station, they were sort of rolled over and over like barrels. Thus when the trunk got to us... I don't need to explain why some of our books still have their pages stuck together with marmalade and smell very clean.

Look, no pictures today! I'm dashing off now in my other role as furniture woman, driving a big van.... Oh, OK then, the big van....

Camino bore; a lake and some trees.

Monday 14th June 2010: A lake and some trees.

It didn't occur to me at the time on the last afternoon before we caught the overnight ferry from Rotterdam to Hull: that time was spent by a lake, under trees http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delftse_Hout where we'd been many times before, and looking back I see reminders of the garden in Genesis 2-3, and of the disciples being with Jesus on a lake shore; places where encounters and learning happen.  (I realise that neither of these biblical pictures normally include bicycles, though perhaps somewhere there is a Dutch version of Stanley Spencer, who would probably include them.) We lolled about in better sunshine than we'd had most of the time in Spain, hearing occasional cheers from the distance where there was some football match going on that seemed important to those cheering.

There's no record in the Caminella of this day - no entry at all, just a complete blank - and all I remember is lolling about on the shore, and probably we had a conversation saying, 'Well, this is it - time to go home now', and wondering just how we'd find life back at home.

Some members of the Ruth group at coffee time. New carpet!

Back in 2011, it's been a busy week; last week we were wandering in the mountains, and today I did a session on the book of Ruth, having finished going through the text verse-by-verse, I attempted to give a picture of the book as a whole. There were some moving stories about how the book resonates with our own lives.

On the way to the lake in Barton.

Tomorrow I do an illustrated talk on the Psalms for our Mothers' Union in Barton, so I have a bit of midnight oil to burn for that. It's my fault, as I spent Sunday on the lake, not walking on it of course, far from it, and this meant one less session available to me for working. But you know how it is; I don't like to waste a good little wind, and like the Satnav says 'recalculating' in that Dalek voice often, I say this about my timetable when I fancy deviating from it. Tiredness is the only penalty, and is well worth it. Anyway, it's not really an illustrated talk, it's illustrations with talk. Life flows in to fill any spaces.

But how quickly I can forget that yesterday's blog was a cliff-hanger! I was wondering what I could offer in the way of some 'enlightenment' gained as a result of the camino, and now that doesn't seem at all important, which might in itself BE the enlightenment I wish for. The book of Ruth is a good one to set alongside the camino, because people can have expectations of what a book in the Bible might consist of, just like we might do about the camino. Both of them turn out to be about very down-to-earth aspects of life, about washing socks and having enough to eat, and feeling secure or 'tucked in' as I call it. God is mentioned rarely, and alongside God there is chance, and most important is a community which cares about its members and doesn't let rules be 'rules-is-rules', but rather, life is lived in the context of rules and not ruled by them (a bit sneaky, eh?); see the SCM Queer Commentary on the Bible for more: there is room for, indeed the necessity for, human initiative making rules work for us if tricky situations are to be resolved for the good of the participants; navigating our way skilfully in systems where the norms aren't always humane if they are made into 'oughts'). And anyway, to polarise the issue a bit, who would you rather be married to, righteous 'I-do-as-I'm-told' Abraham, or Jacob the devoted schemer?

The Psalms Skirt and book.

I did wonder today though if I had turned into a Wise Woman, just a bit, or even had been all along, because we have a new carpet in the church hall, and there has been some worry about it getting stained. I thought about my own approach to red wine stains on carpets, which has for a long time been to see them as little mementoes of a jolly good party and so to be celebrated. We have a dent in our dining table caused by a candlabra falling from on high one Christmas, of which I am similarly fond.

But where was I, in 2010? By the lake, in a garden with trees. Then the book of Ruth filled my mind today in 2011, and that was the best thing that could have happened; two days ago was eldest son's 32nd birthday, yesterday was anniversary of Dad's death, and today the last day before home in 2010. Plenty of up-and-downiness to cope with. As in Ruth, enlightenment won't help me get through life so much as kindness, nous, staying-power, courage and a bit of audaciousness.

The camino has not ended now, in 2010 or 2011, but it is high time Viv just let the camino 'do its work' all on its own, undisturbed by me prodding it all the time to yield something. But if I learnt something about myself, it was how much I enjoyed writing the Caminella; reflecting on the day's happenings was something that began while I was 'being a pilgrim', and is perhaps the best way to lay a day to rest. It's time I was tucked in too.

Camino bore: the last Sunday

Sunday 13th June 2010: Maria van Jessekerk, Delft.
Another Sunday on the continent, the third language, after Spanish and French. We'd been in Leon, Santiago and Chartres on previous Sundays, and so when in Delft we wondered where to go. We didn't fancy the big rather dour Protestant barns, and thought we'd continue with the Catholic that we'd got so used to, and so went to Maria van Jessekerk in Delft centre. On entering, we heard the notes of what was clearly a very fine organ indeed, which was what we needed to hear. After the botafumeriro, one gets a bit of a taste for the grand version of everything, which one might as well enjoy while it is there. There was an air of expectancy, people kept looking round towards the back of the church. The Caminella reads:

"...and then they came, streaming in through the square-topped doors just like in the poster from Santiago, and actually much more like the poster than anything in Santiago ever was. They were of all ages, some with rucksacks, all had lit candles, and there was a bishop leading. Seems like there was some big pilgrimage from several places around, and I think I felt a little stab of envy at not being in the pilgrim procession, as I do remember seeing the poster of Santiago and romantically expecting that we would process into Santiago cathedral rather than scrambling in by a side door, and bagging a place leaning against a pillar. But all pilgrims have to be most of the time the host church welcoming pilgrims in."

There must have been hundreds of them, and it was a very moving sight; we sang a Marian hymn over and over to a tune we started off not knowing, and in the end were joining in in Dutch. The language thing was interesting, a kind of reverse-Pentecost experience. We were onto the 3rd language of our time away, but as the eucharist is of such familiar shape, there was never a sense of not knowing what was going on even if one's attention drifted away from persevering with one's schoolgirl French or phrasebook Spanish (D of course had 'A' level Spanish). It made me think that we could do with more Latin in our services rather than less, since it acts as a kind of Esperanto punctuating it, and we might as well make the most of a common language.

Maria van Jessekerk, Delft.

We returned to this church later for an evening service of benediction, having been wowed by the morning eucharist, its music and pageantry. It was one of those 'God's little joke on us' services, since the parish priest turned up 15 minutes late, having got the time wrong; and the music... well, it was led by this group of young people with a guitar played by someone with very little aptitude for it, apparently having had about 2 lessons, and I had a tone-deaf man to my immediate left droning loudly. They ended by singing a chorus-ditty in Americanised English of the kind that we had not encountered in the whole of the camino. This was the last bit of religious music we heard on our trip to the continent. Ha!

It's not England!

Back in Delft, a normal Sunday with footie fever in full swing. (We were pleased that both Holland and Spain got to the final, then we didn't mind who won. But for Spain to win in its St James Holy Year was pleasing.)

Writing the Caminella within tent.

Then, as now, I devoted an hour or two to recording where we'd been and what I'd thought. And now, I pause, because I think 'What DID I think?' and I don't know. Since I'm fairly introspective, I didn't find any new thoughts bubbling up during the camino; only ones I'd had before: ideas that might help me do some housework, or how one can achieve a lot in small bites, or how attending to basic needs is what life is about - the usual kind of thing, the stuff of new year resolutions. There really was no revelation that you might not be able to get more cheaply and without blisters from one of those tear-off calendars with little nuggets of wisdom printed at the bottom of each day's page. I didn't come home transformed into a Wise Woman.

Crikey, can't you SEE my desperation? Tomorrow in 2010 terms we come home on the ferry - just one more day to go - and I'm still lacking 'enlightenment' a year on in 2011! The other day I thought what a good idea it would be for pilgrims to sew a small loop onto every garment one takes so that it can be hung from one's travelling ruck-sack washing line with no danger of loss of a sock. Where is the longed-for Big Idea, or the attitude change that would mean I'd sail through life from now on with a seraphic smile exuding calm and tranquillity wherever I go? Be honest, it isn't going to happen in the next 24 hours is it?

The paper camino.

I've been reading the book of Ruth for a study group I'm leading. It's a story about a community where nothing very extraordinary happens. Sometimes putting one thought against another does something, which is why I made the paper camino, to arrange the days in a spiral leading to a partly random final page when it is spread out, and to see themes and new juxtapositions. It's just a page of depictions of food and drink, a sore foot, a washing line, a group of children, a well-designed staircase, a light under the door, huddling by a fire; it's very ordinary stuff. What happens if I think about the book of Ruth next to the paper camino? I shall take that thought to bed with me......

Camino bore: being a pilgrim; being alive.

High jinks at Schev: No, it isn't me, and I don't want to do it either

Saturday 12th June 2010. Scheveningen.
At this point last year, we were feeling very much that the camino was almost over; we were 373 miles from home, a shorter distance than we'd walked from Roncesvalles to Santiago. We'd bought our 'Jacobs schall' (scallop) on the pier and taken photos of sandcastles and kitesurfers and all the jolly things happening at a normal Dutch seaside town. Perhaps there was even a feeling of the imminent cutting of an umbilical cord.

In 2011 an email from some travel firm came to me offering 'easy days on the camino', a trip described thus, and showing a pic of someone with a limp i.e. almost empty rucksack:

"French Way - Section Easy days 100km - 11 Days/ 10 Nights - 111 km - From €816 -
From Sarria to Santiago de Compostela

Our "Easy Days" trip makes it possible to absolutely everybody to experience the Way of St James / Camino de Santiago and reach the world-known Santiago de Compostela. On an  "Easy Days" trip, walking days are shortened to an average of 2hours/10 kilometres. You can also decide how to organise your day, starting at the time you like with no pressure about starting too early. The daily walk will fill a half day, leaving the other half free. With this walking holiday, you will have a chance to walk the last 50 kilometres to Santiago de Compostela and still experience the feeling of being a pilgrim of modern times.


Everyday, during the walk, you are guaranteed a high level of comfort and gastronomy. The Camino is clearly marked with the “Scallop Shell” showing you the way. We have split the stages to short distances, so daily walks are of 9 kilometres on average, which means there are accessible to absolutely everybody."

I've highlighted the bits in bold to illustrate where D and I are likely to harrumph. I'm all in favour of people with difficulties finding it possible to complete the camino. What sticks in the craw (oh I love that phrase) is that there are perfectly able-bodied people who set off with the intention of finding ways to make it as easy for themselves as possible. Perhaps 'twas ever thus. Sigh. Is 'experiencing the feeling of being a pilgrim' the same thing as to be a pilgrim? (Full marks to the travel company anyway for respecting the difference.)

A witty friend writes in response:


"He who would valiant be, come join the party; 

our way is slow and free, let's all be hearty; 

there's no impediment, the brochure's eloquent, 

just pay the travellers' fee, and be a pilgrim."

I miss it

Today in 2011, we have arrived at Pentecost. For reasons... reasons, we did not have the incense I expected at church today, and I was rather disappointed. Holy fire! I'd never describe myself as a 'spiritual' person, but  I am 'religious', as I find religious ceremonies and practices rather useful. I like the things I can see and smell and touch. I like to think of my prayers rising like incense, and incense rising like I hope my prayers do. The returned pilgrim likes to be reminded of Santiago too and of the idea of 'perfuming the world with our deeds'. It seems sad that it is OK to be noisy about finding incense offensive, when there are some of us who find its omission at least disappointing. 

Other things went wrong today, like trying to pick up friends from the station... but I went to the wrong station and so missed my post-windsurfing bathtime and evening prayer. I felt overwhelmed by my own medicority, and made a mental list of the many things I can do but poorly.

Windsurfing wasn't too brill, the wind was poor, and it rained... but I found that I didn't really mind the wet (how could I?) and the other windsurfer on the lake today described at length the progress he'd made since starting windsurfing just 18 months ago, then said that the rain lashing on his face 'made him feel alive'. There were many mornings on the camino like this; it'll do for me. Thankyou for your thought, fellow-pilgrim.

Camino bore: In the Netherlands and the Lake District.

Saturday June 11th, 2011. Home from wandering in the mountains.
Now of course I'm going to tell you why being in both the Netherlands AND the Lake District is 'Just Like The Camino': just about anywhere can be JLTC if you manage to be single-minded about the day's goal. I make a 'to do' list most days, and on a good day I stick to it and at the end of it it feels like arriving at the albergue. On the camino, there is no real choice BUT to make sure you arrive, and that is why camino living is so easy and in many ways not at all a template for normal life. Decisions in normal life are often a bit more complex than 'Shall I have a shower or a beer or a nap first?'

See mini-St James, bottom R H corner

Ah, Santiago....!

This weekend last year was our last on the continent, and we were already very near home as the crow flies. We finally succumbed to buying a scallop shell on Scheveningen pier. Why did we leave it so late? Don't know. But it seemed 'right'. On the continent, such shells are generally labelled 'St Jacques', and we were soon to return to the land where they aren't; and where the camino is little-known, and even less understood.

We'd spent a good day in the   http://www.catharijneconvent.nl/
the museum in Utrecht devoted to religious art and artifacts. There was no shortage of exhibits to remind us of the camino, our comfort-zone. If I'd been organised I could have told you what these pictures were of, so you'll have to - like I do - just enjoy them now without note of their provenance.

Square sand windsurfers at Schev

The Dutch of course are brilliant at sandcastles, and so I was very taken with the one shown here, of windsurfers. They have to use special sand. Square sand. You don't believe me? It's not the stuff on the beach where the castles are built every year, which is round sand. No, they have to bring in special river sand, which has square grains and so sticks together better. There you are - that's why YOU can't build a castle like that.

Where every need is met

But this was the Netherlands, and June 2010 football fever, and so here is an illustration of a scene in which almost every need known to man was met; some men anyway. The one with lots of orange. Be  glad I have not shown the grey thing in use. It'd never 'appen 'ere!

Catbells. Er - we're here - and how am I going to get down THERE?

Skiddaw. I know - the camera angle exaggerates it a bit.

But in 2011 we are back from a few days camping near Keswick in the Lake District. http://www.castleriggfarm.com/ I am reminded about the entertainment value in a bit of fear (see camino day 2). Some scientists once put a load of monkeys in a room where they were shown films that were frightening to monkeys. The monkeys were trained to operate the thing and could choose whether or not to watch the frightening films. Without fail, when the film came to an end, the screaming monkeys opted to watch it again. Thus we did several nice walks, and the mountain called 'Catbells' provided me with some of the slightly screaming-monkey-moments; not quite to crag-fastness, but on arrival at the summit of this cute little 1500-footer, my first thought, as ever was '...and how do we get down?', which I think you can tell from the pic here. Huge flat and slanting slopes of grey scree have a bad effect on me too. [Go on - click on the pic and make it bigger, and you might see what I mean.]

There are ways of getting round fear, though; this one I haven't tried yet: A friend of D's was doing the Lyke Wake walk back in the 1980s; he was very much prone to vertigo, didn't feel safe on cliff edges etc, got the leg wobble. So what did he do? He made sure he was fairly drunk for most of the time. I refuse to make a sexist comment, but the temptation.... My own best way was to hope for mist, and then you just can't see what's down there. I also tried to divide the awkward bits into small squares and think how you only have to do one bit at a time.

Almost at summit of Skiddaw, where hail prevented further pics

 But I end with a pic of a pattern in the hillside made by the passage of humans. I love the spirally green ribbon of grass between the places to plant the feet following the example of others. Add your own bit of soulful metaphorical nonsense, I've had too much beer. Ultreia!

Camino bore: Back on the camino in Chartres

Saturday 5th June: To Chartres.

Council of Europe camino sign.

Arriving at Chartres for a 2 day camping stay, we thought the camino was behind us; but walking into the city, we were delighted to find that the campsite on Rue St. Brice was actually on a camino route, and there in front of us was the familiar Council of Europe sign! This made us very happy. But then, Chartres has an ancient place in camino history, possibly earlier even that Paris, which has records of the existence of a Confraternity of St. James dating back to about 1295. It is possible that Chartres' connection goes back earlier, and that it was there that St. James with emblems of pilgrimage was introduced into French art in the first place, so my 'Shell Shell' book informs me. So it is hardly surprising that if there is anywhere a study centre devoted to matters Compostela, there will be one in Chartres.

So the happiness we felt seeing these signs shows just how much we were going to miss the camino. Even now in 2011 we can be like lost souls now and again, and when we find a St. James pilgrim in a church, a scallop here, a staff and gourd there, we fall upon it as though it is a relic of some lost kingdom to which we once belonged. It doesn't seem too healthy to me to have that sense of longing, it isn't a state I would choose; but I have just had an email from a friend who has been to an institution of a rector in Inistioge in the Republic of Ireland today, who wears a Spanish beret to remind him of his camino (I'll get one for David immediately). So there's a lot of it about. For a long time afterwards I didn't feel 'at home' at home, maybe until now, when I seem to be moving back into my own life. There's a curious sense of dislocation when you get back: all the weeds, having missed the apple blossom, people getting on very nicely without you... a bit like having died really (I AM selling it to you, surely??). It takes time to readjust. Perhaps a year and a week is long enough; it jolly well ought to be.

Another surprise on our walk into Chartres was the Frenchman who jumped out of some bushes and gave me a smacking kiss and got D to take our picture together. I don't know what has happened to his trousers, they don't seem to come to where they ought to. Perhaps he does this kind of thing every day.

Of course, D took pictures of Windows in Chartres; how can you not? And carvings on the cathedral doorway, which had a wonderful depiction of the jaws of hell, along with what I presume are pictorial suggestions as to how you might ensure getting there. Of course, I had to lurk in the doorway in a silly 'at; the camino has not cured me of that kind of thing. I noticed too just how better dressed are the people of Chartres than those in Santiago. And the trouble I had just finding a SKIRT in Santiago to wear on the Sunday! I had visions of finding some grand thing made of thick and crunchy black lace....

But I digress from the serious things that this blog has come to represent.

Sunday in Chartres cathedral felt very 'Anglican' compared with the Spanish experiences in cathedrals in Leon and Santiago. The music, the congregation, many of whom had a Cotswold-y look.  We were getting nearer to home.

And so in 2011 a week of wandering in the mountains is planned. Perhaps we will have time to think together about what work the camino did. We'll be able to see the film 'The Way' too, and can harrumph together at any inaccuracies or misrepresentations as well as delighting in the 'been-there' feeling.

When I crossed the 50-years-old-mark some years ago, I began to think that the part of life to come is one where you have to use yourself up; no more hoarding of any kind. Doing the camino has reinforced this thought. There's no exclusive secret-of-how-to-live that comes out of it. The only way to live is to get on with it, and you don't need to do the camino to know that. But there were still some more camino surprises to come, and there was a sense of rounding off on June 13th in a most unexpected way.

Camino bore: hula hoop moments (2)

Friday 4th June, Cherves Chatelars.

"And did those feet?" (Yes)

I suppose pilgrimages have ended like this from time immemorial, feet in a bucket of something, in this case the best eau de France (actually this pic is of Chartres 6th June, the tent guy line a giveaway, so it isn't strictly in order). The Caminella reports me 'lying down a lot' too. I've said a few times before that there is just (for me) 'one pot' of energy which can be used by brain or brawn, but once the daily amount is used up on one of these, there isn't any left for the other. Thus it happened that 4th June 2010 was a bit of a hula hoop day, and the Caminella reports 'interesting new ideas come unbidden', just as they did today in 2011! in 2010 an explanation of My Life's Work emerged onto a Caminella page, and it goes a bit like this:

You know how when you have visitors, they look around the house and look at ornaments and all the bits of junk that you keep, and ask you 'Where did this come from?' or whatever, and you say 'Ah, well, there's a story attached to that'. It came to me that the Bible is full of stories etc, and that I could make (and already did make)  objects that could be attached to them; simple as that! I was glad of the enlightenment, and it gave me a much-needed something I could say when people ask me at parties 'What do you doooooooo?' Thus there is the Ecclesiastes doll (= 'Cloth Q'); the Psalms skirt; the Ruth 'object' (work in progress); the Sarah and Hagar.... (work being conceived). The Paper Camino must be the object attached to the camino, I suppose - so far.

Tree wearing a skirt

In 2011, I went for a stroll around the garden and saw a tree, the walnut tree, and it appeared to be wearing a skirt (I hope you can see it too), and so that was my first 'good idea' of the day; a skirt made of some tree-bark-like cloth, with lime green Golden Hop leaves appliqued on, as well as Himalayan Musk roses, and round the bottom maybe the blue flowers of the Green Alkanet.

I can explain everything!

Then I thought about other 'good ideas', some of which have been simmering on for a while, but they seemed to bubble up with new urgency. Thus, I'm thinking about the Psalms Skirt, and how the idea for Psalm 23 came last summer, and here it is. I can explain everything! While in Najera, the pot of energy was not being used for walking as I was invalided out with the foot, and I wrote a camino-slanted commentary on Psalm 23. Thus it came to me that the textile thing for Psalm 23 must be the Council of Europe camino sign on its blue background. It's a watery background because the idea came when I was resting after a session of windsurfing (as I am today).

 Santiago Holy Year 2010 poster

There's a space waiting for Psalm 24, and this one has been simmering in my head for over a year now. Please be patient if I say that there is something deeply camino-ish about this psalm, and I'll explain. I'm indebted to David Clines who points out somewhere that there is a lot of 'de-construction'*  http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/virtualit/poetry/critical_define/crit_decons.html
going on in Psalm 24; the worshipper or pilgrim is expected to have 'clean hands and a pure heart', and yet the hands of Yahweh are covered with blood, he is 'the Lord strong and mighty in battle'; this reminds me of the two faces of St James we see at Santiago: there is James the gentle with his hat and scallop, and there is Santiago Matamoro, 'Moor-slayer'. One gets the feeling that 'Lift up your heads, O ye gates' will be to allow both Yahweh and the pilgrims to enter, and so ever since early on in the camino we saw this poster, I have thought how it made me think of Psalm 24. Thus the textile piece for Psalm 24 will contain some visual reference to this poster, and I really want to get it done very soon. What is more, Psalm 24:6 says, 'This is the generation of them that seek after him, that seek thy face, O [God of] Jacob'. Words in brackets not found in the Hebrew, and 'Jacob' is Hebrew for what becomes 'James'. I know, I know, the psalms were written long before Jesus and St. James, and long before Santiago de Compostella, but that is not the point... (See more on this kind of comment). Incidentally we never managed to buy this poster, so we asked in the pilgrim office where we got our Compstelas, and they gave us it; thus it is priceless. To be framed next.

* "Deconstruction is not a dismantling of the structure of a text, but a demonstration that it has already dismantled itself. Its apparently solid ground is no rock but thin air." Or as in Psalm 24:2, the earth might seem to be on solid ground, but 'He hath founded it upon the seas'. (Clines again.)


It was ascension day two days ago, and we had exactly the right preacher for the occasion. She spoke beamily (I invented that word - I hope you know what it means) about how Jesus was taken up to heaven in a cloud, and afterwards told us how she, a Methodist, thoroughly enjoyed the clouds of incense & music which wafted about St. Mary's during the service. During the gospel reading I had already in 30 seconds come up with the sermon that I'd have preached (on Luke 24:44 where it talks about the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms being fulfilled; I'd have said that the psalms were not written as prophecy, but since they dwell on both suffering and victory, then they can be said to be fulfilled in the life of Jesus). Smiling Enid's sermon was just what I needed; she appeared unconcerned about what might have led the gospel writer to describe Jesus' ascension as he did, and I wouldn't want to suggest that she never thought about that. But I'm not aware of any theologian having come up with a convincing 'explanation' of 'what really happened'; thus, some of us sometimes quite like just to be left alone to think of the picture at times like this:


http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ascension+%2B+art&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=aab&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=sHXqTdDqEtGEhQfS1bW6Bg&ved=0CEcQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=615

Why spend good sermon-time telling people what you don't believe? Tell them what you DO believe, it takes much less time, as someone once said.

DO judge a book by its cover

What is really taxing me these days is how it came to be that St. James comes to be depicted as a pilgrim to his own shrine. We have this lovely book on the scallop shell which looks like it might address this question, written in 1957: 'The Scallop. Studies of a shell and its influences on humankind' by eight authors, ed. Ian Cox. Published by 'Shell' transport & co (they would, wouldn't they).

The camino map arrives home

Today I went out to collect one of the several things we're gradually having framed that are to do with the camino. Today's offering is a reproduction of an antique (1648) map of the camino and the routes it takes through France. Oh I LOVE living dangerously!

Paper camino complete

The Paper Camino is complete, and just needs to be properly flattened out for a proper pic, and then I'll fold it up and it won't take much room up. It probably needs a small container making for it decorated with a scallop shell. You enter the camino by the middle square in the 3rd row from the bottom. It depicts the Portokabin we stayed in (turn your head 90 deg clockwise). To continue the journey, follow the squares going clockwise (go up three and turn right, and so on, ending at the square top left).

Paper camino folded

'Good ideas' (oh dearrrrrr!) went on and on today, including looking out of the back door and thinking how much I'd love a back door that opened onto a garden, and so could be left open to let the smell of roses waft in. You can see that this back door is not one of them, despite there being a lovely good-sized garden that could be opened onto from the kitchen, full of many 'old roses' like the one above that is growing into the walnut tree. (Vicarage architects of the early1980s, not moved out of the 1960s, lost opportunities, don't get me started...)  (I can't leave it open either as leaves gather there, ideal cosy place for mice to lurk.) For us, the camino 'began' at that Portokabin in Roncesvalles, but in the end we, like most pilgrims, arrive back at the door into and out of home. But not yet in 2010.... we still had unexpected parts of the camino to come!