On the Camino

In mediaeval times a pilgrim started literally from his front door – he would have had his mass before setting off where his staff and cloak would have been blessed and would have been issued with his testimonicales from his overlord giving him permission to make the journey (indeed after 1388 it was an arrestable offence to travel without this document which gave access to the privileges of a pilgrim and hospitality). He would have set off on foot (or by horse or donkey if he were richer) and, from Britain at least, set off to one of the ports before catching a boat, undertaking a sometimes dangerous sea crossing and then walking further to Santiago.

I recently visited Worcester Cathedral and was surprised to find that there is the grave of a 15 th Century Pilgrim there – it was found in 1987 during excavations on the Cathedral floor and is the first discovery of a Pilgrim burial in England.   Within the grave was found a skeleton wearing the remains of knee-length boots and woollen garments. He had with him a small wooden staff that was painted purple and topped with a horn peg and with a tip of an iron double-prong. A scallop shell, pierced so that it could be hung by a cord was to one side of him. His head (on which may have been his pilgrim hat) was lost in 19 th century works.

Just found this article on buzz feed http://www.buzzfeed.com/jonmichaelpoff/spanish-towns-that-will-transport-you-back-in-time?s=mobile '13 beautiful Spanish towns that will transport you back in time' and three of them are on the Camino: Number 6 is Logrono, 8 is Burgos and 9 is Pamplona, all amazing places to visit or just walk through.

I sent the text below to my sister a few days ago - does anyone else have a memory like this?

As with many of my crafts what makes this card camino-y is the use of the blue and yellow of the Camino signs and the star from the 'field of stars'. The star could be replaced with the Camino shell if you want For this card I drew a straight line in black pen and placed a star sticker at the bottom. Then I wrote 'happy new year' in french, Galician (which is also Portuguese) and spanish as these are the countries I have walked the camino in. The card took me less than five minutes to makeso have fun maling it and happy new year!

Britain's had some snow over the past two days so, after all of the snow over the Pyrenees two years ago, I gave my walking boots a quick try out in the snow and they were ok Some of the snow at Roncesvalles

Happy Christmas everyone and buen camino!! (I'm afraid a Portuguese Cockerell was the best I could find this year for Camino related decorations)