Camino bore, day 22. Falling over sideways.

Friday 21st May. Cacabelos to Vega de Valcarce.

Ummmmm! Not the best of days. One of those gruelling days, bad night's sleep, then a long, hot, weary day of 23 km, clever people will tell me what that is in miles, but it seemed a lot. The first part of the route was wonderful, a lot of uphill with lots of hedgerows reminiscent of Dorset, but then it was rather spoilt by running alongside a fast road through mountains, but curiously we seemed to walk on a level for most of this way, feeling very hemmed in as we never got a view that looked out from the mountains. (The paper camino for today picks this up.)  No wonder there was an alternative route for fine weather that went higher; but it was a bit longer, and we were weary and so took the low track by the side of the road.

We arrived, worn out, at an albergue in Vega de Valcarce that was run by a Brazilian couple. Despite the hot day, I was so energy depleted that I became very cold and had to wear my duvet and be propped up until I got some food inside me. Our Brazilian host had us wait for dinner until all of us round the table had answered the question of what for us summed up the camino; David answered 'kindness', then we had a lecture on how we had to be thankful - it was at least a sermon-length session - and I hoped the chap would be so kind as to notice that one of us at the table had lost the power of speech and was falling over sideways through lack of everything.

But the morrow seems enticing - a short walk of 11 km to O Cebreiro, but forecast to be 30 degrees F!

Back in 2011, I attended a lovely civil partnership ceremony in sunny Chelsea, punctuating the event by whizzing off to spend 5-8pm at the Tate Modern exhibition of Joan Miro. I saw his pic series called 'Constellations'
http://www.google.co.uk/search?aq=f&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=miro+%2B+constellations
and thought of how this would make a great basis for my illustration of O Cebreiro tomorrow in the paper camino, which has one of the best views in the world of the Milky Way and is 3/4 mile above sea level. But I mused on how the work of this great man through many decades changed, from his depiction of Mont-roig, the rural place he lived in as a young man, through the constellation stuff, to some burnt and splodged canvasses in his old age that had to do with protest at the Franco regime. I wouldn't want that stuff on my wall, I think, but I suppose we just have to accept that art is for many purposes, not always for visual delight in living rooms; as Miro himself says:

"The painting must be fecund. It has to give birth to a new world. It doesn't matter if you see flowers, people, horses, nothing matters as long as it reveals a world, something living... the painting must release the imagination"

We felt hemmed in today.....

and

"I understand that the artist is someone who in the midst of others' silence, uses his own voice to say something and who makes sure that what he says is not useless, but something that is useful to mankind."

Back at the ranch; young Eric, (who says he is no longer 4, but is now 4 1/2), normally stops to reflect on his day on a particular bench under trees by the park (I expect he'll be a blogger one day, in fact he IS already on Twitter). He was asked what was the best bit about his day. 'I ate my bottom!' he said seriously, and elaborated still further on this topic; the kind of thing he gets into trouble for at nursery, and perhaps they'd want to tell Grandma off too for laughing. I hope he never loses this ability to surprise with his original thinking. May his tongue remain forever in his cheek.

On the way, Villafranca del Bierzo provided interesting graffitti and other art. (Incidentally, Wiki says: súcubo [soo’-coo-bo]

noun

1. Succubus, a pretended demon, which, in intercourse with men, took the form of a woman. (m).)  Did the chap who did the sculpture get into trouble at nursery, I wonder?