On the Camino

Ready for walking some of the Pilgrims' way to Canterbury I've designed a Pilgrim's passport for me and Dad - there's no where official to get a stamp but there are Youth Hostels in Dorking (Tanners Hatch off Ranmore Road in Surrey, 1km off the route) and Canterbury (54 Dover Road) as well as several in London. In addition most post offices have their own stamps (they are rather plain but they were always willing to stamp the passports me and Dad made and used on the Coast to Coast walk) and you may find other places as well with a stamp or who will be willing to write the name of their shop/pub/hotel/restaurant etc and date your passport. The pictures below show how I put the passport together (this is a rough version that I made to see how well it worked hence the pencil lines on it). The box of the second from the right page is ready for the Cathedral stamp in Canterbury - as the starting point for the Pilgrimage for Rome they are used to stamping passports ...

In a bit me and Dad are going to be walking some of the Pilgrims' Way so here's a re-post of some information on the route and St Thomas a Becket who was martyred in Canterbury. The Pilgrims' Way is about 190km (120 miles) long and runs from Winchester to Canterbury or London to Canterbury depending on which route you take and what you think of as being 'official'. The route from Winchester to Canterbury and can, from Farnham, be walked along the North Downs Way. The Pilgrimage can about after the death of Thomas Becket (canonized in February 1173) and the site is now considered to be the most holy in Britain. Becket was born to Gilbert and Matilda into a prosperous family in Cheapside London in 1118 and was educated at Merton Priory and then Paris and London before entering business and was soon a part of the retinue of the Archbishop of Canterbury (named Theobald) and went to Rome and studied canon law at Bologna. In 1155 King Henry the second mad...

Happy Saint James' day!! Today in Santiago is celebrated with special Church services, exhibitions of art by artists living in, or born in, Santiago, concerts and theatre shows and traditional dance shows. There are also fireworks around Santiago Cathedral. This year is unfortunately not a Holy Year though (when Saint James' Day falls on a Sunday) so the Puerta Santa (the Holy Door) isn't open - the next time that it will be is 2021 (last time was in 2010 when this picture was taken and before that in 2004, 1999, 1993 and 1982). The door is currently walled up and will be opened on December 31st 2020.

St James' Day is coming up so here's a simple idea that you could put on a card - a Pilgrim owl, he's really easy to draw so have some fun drawing him! If you have a gift as well here's a wrapping idea: Wrap your gift in brown paper, tie with a ribbon (blie or yellow would be better but I don't have anything but white in!) and attach a couple of stars (I used a craft punch but if you've got the patience then you can cut these out by hand).

Saint James' day is coming up soon on  July 25 th and is celebrated with special Church services, exhibitions of art by artists living in, or born in, Santiago, concerts and theatre shows and traditional dance shows. There are also fireworks around Santiago Cathedral. Most of us though won't get a chance to see fireworks though so how about celrbrating the day in another way? Maybe you could have some Spainish food? Or how about making a little peg person pilgrim as below?

Becky made us an amazing paella last night - it wasn't quite the most amazing paella I've ever had (that was just before we arrived in Leon last year when our 'Camino family' clubbed together to buy the ingredients and one of the guys made it) but a very close second! Paella (from the Latin patella for pan) itself is a Valencian dish (although viewed by most as a Spanish dish the Spanish themselves see it as Valencian) and there are three main types: seafood (with rice, seafood, green veg and seasoning), Valencian (made of rice, chicken, rabbit, beans, green veg and snails along with seasoning) and mixed (a combination of sea and land animals and veg). There are in practice many different recipes and I recently saw a book written by a Spanish Paella Master which had over 100 recipes! Thanks Becky for a great meal

'Well, I'm not going that way.  It's too rocky.  This way is much easier.' So says C3-PO in Star Wars shortly after arriving on Tatooine and a similar problem can be faced on the Camino - should you take the shorter path or divert to see something different? There are many possible diversions on the Camino - some require a bus journey and others can only be reached on foot: there are castles to be seen, Templar Churches, sites of historical or scientific interest ..... So, how do you decide whether or not to take these extra sites in? Partially it has to be time - do you have the time in your schedule to spend an extra day going to say Samos (the only diversion I have actually taken on my Caminos so far)? Then you have to consider just how far the extra distance is - three or four kilometres may not sound far but at the end of the day it can be a long way to go or it might not be that much more effort at all. You also have to consider if there is a...

I seem to have been going through a period of not taking any pictures of albergues as there is no picture again I'm afraid. We stayed in the municipal albergue here where the beds are in tiers of three but only the bottom two were being assigned. I had the upper one which was a little difficult to get into. The showers were adequate. A good, large kitchen with a large (if not well lit) dining area attached to it. If you stay here then take the time to look at the ruined Church next door - the wall paintings are beautiful. There's a good cake shop in town.

Two days ago me and Becky went fruit picking and then made jam from what we collected.   This reminded me of being on the Camino in September/ October when we've picked blackberries from the hedges just outside Molinaseca. There hadn't been a lot of berries but there we were, backpacks still on, picking the fruit and eating it before we walked on. There are many things that are great about the Camino but it's the little momentslike that that can mean so much and bring a smile to your face years later.

I've seen some t-shirts with flock pictures on before and thought that they looked cool and recently saw some flock garment film in a craft shop in a Camino yellow and so bought it to decorate some clothes - the sheet is furry like felt and can be transferred, by heat (an iron) onto cotton or similar materials. It's easy to use at home but a small roll did cost nearly ten pounds so it's not cheap (although I have made three t-shirts so far and have more than half left). I bought a cheap blue t-shirt and pre-ironed it, cut out my shape and then transferred it using an iron onto the t-shirt as per the instructions that came in the pack - they are simple to use A nice, simple, arrow. I've also done a Pilgrim.