We had a LOT of fun meeting up with Jim on Monday! We caught a really early train and got to Manchester by half nine and Jim was waiting on the station for us both and gave us each a hug and then we went for a coffee and a catch up and then decided what to do next - we did briefly consider the football museum before deciding on the art gallery. we wandered for a while before we found this.
There is a chance that we may not have been taking the pictures seriously as Jim spotted Boba Fett in one and I saw a guy with an R2-D2 hat in another!
Then it was time to eat - we had been considering pizza or Chinese before Jim saw a place doing Pho and raced into it! Having ordered our food I reunited Jim with an old friend - for his birthday last year a fellow Pilgrim, Don, had presented Jim with a rock and told him that it was an Australian tradition that the birthday boy/girl must have a picture with their present a year later to show that they liked it. The rock had weighed at least a couple of kilograms and so had been left behind a lot nearer to Leon than to Santiago but I printed out an enlarged picture and gave it to Jim to have a picture taken with instead! I also gave him one of my 'don't stop walking' badges.
We had a great time talking about the Camino and our lives and our future plans and seeing Jim leave this time was as sad as it was on the Camino - when you walk the Camino you don't simply make friends, you add to your family.
There is a chance that we may not have been taking the pictures seriously as Jim spotted Boba Fett in one and I saw a guy with an R2-D2 hat in another!
Then it was time to eat - we had been considering pizza or Chinese before Jim saw a place doing Pho and raced into it! Having ordered our food I reunited Jim with an old friend - for his birthday last year a fellow Pilgrim, Don, had presented Jim with a rock and told him that it was an Australian tradition that the birthday boy/girl must have a picture with their present a year later to show that they liked it. The rock had weighed at least a couple of kilograms and so had been left behind a lot nearer to Leon than to Santiago but I printed out an enlarged picture and gave it to Jim to have a picture taken with instead! I also gave him one of my 'don't stop walking' badges.
We had a great time talking about the Camino and our lives and our future plans and seeing Jim leave this time was as sad as it was on the Camino - when you walk the Camino you don't simply make friends, you add to your family.
Jim and his rock .. sort of!
Pho - a Vietnamese broth with rice noodles, onion and spring onion in with chicken (the meat that we all chose to have in it). Then you add beansprouts, basil and another herb to your liking as well as chilli and lime (I had neither of these though). We would never have tried this without Jim's suggestion. (Excuse the bad picture!!)
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