Day 11, rest day at Los Arcos

First of all thank you Margaret and Jon for explaining those rather weird ball of cobweb like nest on the trees I passed yesterday. They are the nests of Processional Caterpillars, and are highly toxic, the moths of these creatures seriously damage the host tree. I’ll keep a wide berth them!

The heating, did eventually come on with a vengeance and thanks to the socks and the fleece, I was soon warm and slept well. At least a cupboard size room soon heats up! The washing I did last night is almost dry, so will be fit to were again tomorrow.

I was given a voucher to have breakfast at the cafe next door, juice, bread, butter, coffee. It’s the same bar I lunched in yesterday, whereas yesterday it was crammed full with everyone knowing everyone and a noisy amount of greetings hugs and kissing going on. A teenage boy was there who obviously suffered from learning difficulties and not one person entered that bar with giving him a hug and greeting him. This so lightened my heart (hope, see below). Today there were a few women meeting and greeting and having coffee, then a couple would go and more women wander in. An occasional man would pop in take a coffee and flick through the paper, it’s as if today was all business and yesterday all pleasure.

I did wonder if many years ago the women would be meeting here at the village wash pit, to wash their clothes and share the local gossip……

It must have been quite pleasant in the summer months, but a nightmare when the cooler weather came, much better to share the gossip in the bar……

The beautiful Church still isn’t open although today I saw a notice pinned next to the door asking all visitors to be quiet inside the church, I did briefly wonder if there was a host of pilgrim visitors actually locked in and keeping very quiet…….

There is a water fountain in the square, looking ancient but in fact not erected until 1900 and something, the something bit of the inscription had worn away……

There are Saints on nearly every building, even very new and modern buildings like this one…..

At each entrance to the town there is a beautiful gate-way……….

Just two examples, don’t want you falling asleep…… oh and it’s me that’s standing on the wonk, not the gate falling down…..

And here comes the snow…..

So I am back in my room, thinking…….

I am thinking about the precious things we have in life; the most precious of which has to be time, for without time we can’t find what really matters. Of course we do all have some time, I have had seventy years of it, I’ve squandered it, wasted it, and at times wished it to pass, especially when Bernard died and the meaningless hours stretched before me, I didn’t want time without him. Some days I frantically tried to use it up, flitting here and there, watching the clock so that I had at least ‘got through’ another hour, another day, another night, when all the while my life, my time, left on this earth seemed so very pointless…….

But what now,? now I am in a hotel room taking my ‘rest day’, resting my feet and knees, but not my mind, my mind is rarely at rest…. what would I be wishing for Bernard, were he sitting in this room alone, without me…..

First I would wish him hope; to spend ones time with hope in ones heart takes away the raw edges, it’s a simple four letter world which when repeated either on the road to Santiago or during the raw moments in any day of ones life, cushions the pain.

I would wish Bernard peace, a coming to terms with all the sorrow and the heartache that fights and struggles inside ones heart. Peace, a cooling balm that assures us that all will be well….

And I would wish him joy, to actually look and see joy in the world, different things bring joy to different people, for Bernard it would be most things, in almost everything, he would see joy. In the first flowers of spring and the blousy roses of June and the coloured wings of a beetle, the laughter of people having fun. Even the mysterious workings of an engine. Joy is to be found all around us, we just don’t make the time to look for it, or we are so busy squandering our time we ignore that which is a precious gift to us all.

It’s a good thing to sit a write a list of joy…… and if Bernard was the genie and had the magic lamp, what would Bernard wish for me? Exactly the same of course.. Hope, Peace, and Joy.

And this, my friends, is what I wish for you….

Hope, peace and Joy.

Love Susan