gerardcarey
Veteran Member
- Time of past OR future Camino
- CFx2, CPx1
“Carpe Diem! Carpe Diem! Seize the day!”
Her voice assails me. As do her fingers.
I writhe about inside my sleeping bag as they poke and prod thru the down.
“Get out! Leave me alone!” I protest. “Go away...horrid person.”
But she won’t.
I explode out of the top of my sleeping bag like a moray eel after its lunch. But my attempt to grab the offending party and subject it to a forceful deterrent is foiled. She jumps back from my grasp. Too quick for me she is.
“Carpe Diem! Carpe Diem! Seize the day!” she repeats from a safer distance.
“I know what it means,” I mumble grumpily into my pillow. “I'm not a complete drongo.”
What she doesn't know is that I'm not really your 'seize the day' type of bloke.
Afternoons, I'm really good at seizing them.
And evenings, well I excel at evenings.
But earlyish in the morning, specially on a day off from walking, I try to refrain from seizing anything other than the bed covers.
“No wonder your boyfriend has left you behind. You don’t know how to treat men properly. That’s your problem cobber.”
That’s not true!” she exclaims. “You know he’s got a sore knee and has gone on by bus to to rest up and wait for me in Puente La Reina!”
“Doubt it. I reckon he’s found a proper woman. One that’ll treat him right. You won’t see him again.”
She refuses to be baited further.
“Come on, get up! ” she remonstrates. “Here we are in Pamplona, with all types of things to be explored, people to see, places to go. And all you can do is lie around in bed and waste the day!”
“I know about days,” I reply. “I’ve had years of experience with days. And, imo, if you don't treat them carefully and respectfully at the start, they are likely to treat you bad as they unfold.”
She sighs in exasperation, gives up on me.
“Well I'm off,” she says, “see you this evening.”
I grunt and give a half-hearted wave as she swings her daypack on, disappears into her day.
“I was up in the stand watching,” he said. “The bulls came thru the gate that leads into the arena and there was Dylan standing right in the middle. The first bull was massive and jet black. He saw Dylan and I think it was love at first sight. But the attraction wasn't mutal, was it Dylan?”
“No,” replied Dylan. A man of few words my son. Not a blatherer like me.
“Took to his scrapers didn’t he. Across the arena then up the side wall like a rat up a drainpipe. The bull hit the wall right below him. Boom! There was only a split second in it.”
So proud of my son Dylan I am.
I'll have to go see the site of his lucky escape.
The Plaza de Toros.
It was also the site at which Hemingway, and the heroes of his book, had enjoyed themselves.
‘The Sun Also Rises.’ I had been reading it daily since Roncesvalles.
I had found it so well written that I was currently unable to continue with it. It really surprised me how Hemingway’s depiction of the disparate and dissolute lives of his expatriates had sickened and saddened me so.
Not a mood I wanted to encourage on my Camino.
But I also knew I would be forced back to it soon.
Talent like that will not be denied. Not for long anyway.
Along the Way I'd wandered slightly off Camino, into those beautiful forests around Burgette, where Hemingway had immersed himself in that sport for the contemplative man. In the crystal clear, stoney bedded rivers that gently wind through the forests he'd spent day after day fishing for trout.
A sometime fly-fisherman myself, I crept stealthily along the shaded riverbanks to which he had led me. I was looking for the 'lies' where trout waft gently in the currents. I lay prone and motionless on the river banks, peering thru the grasses, trying to establish if they were ‘rising’, to ascertain what if anything they were feeding on.
It's here that I can find what for me is a true happiness. That sense of peace and contentment with its accompanying ease of mind. I guess it’s to do with the breeze that rustles the leaves, the dappling sunlight on the forest floor, the murmur of the stream over it’s rocky bed, the sweet musty smell of the earth, lots of senses getting involved.
After morning ablutions and a late breakfast I stand outside on the cobbled street, about to set off.
I look about.
Pamplona.
So this is what it’s come to.
Here the great Roman general Pompey came with his legions, established his camp, his name in its name still echoing down the centuries.
He stationed himself here for a while. Formulating and carrying out his plans to pacify Spain. He displayed an ability for organisation and administration. Established what became the wealthiest and most settled of all the Roman provinces. A province that even produced two Spanish-born Emperors of Rome. Trajan and Hadrian. Both made it to the top five list of Emperors who presided over the Pax Romana, that great era of peace and prosperity in the Meditterranean world.
Pompey. Deserved a better fate than getting a sword in his back as he peacefully surrendered to the allies of his great rival Ceasar. Then again, what goes around comes around.
Ceasar got his didn’t he.
I set off first for the Cathedral where I spend an hour or so. Wish I knew a little more about architectural styles. Roman, Visigoth, Gothic, Moorish, Baroque, and so on. So much involved in the learning and understanding of the arts and crafts isn't there? In a lifetime not enough time. Just take pleasure from what's in front of you I guess. Stand quietly. Let your senses be infused.
Now it's nosing along the narrow streets. Hullo! Here's Caminoteca. The pilgrim come hiker's shop I'd read about. I chat to the staff, mosey about, only purchasing a small foam pad I could plonk my backside on when being forced to rest on stoney or wet ground. I'll stuff it down in my pack behind the water bladder I've now decided not to use.
After lunch I want to see that fine huge sculpture depicting the running of the bulls. My city map shows the way. It really is something. A couple of young pilgrims, on their way past, clamber up onto the back of the bulls for a photograph. A small group of elderly locals gather and noisily berate them.
I silently join the locals in moral support, then move away as I recall it's exactly the type of thing I would have done at their age. In fact I did. On the lions at the base of Nelsons Column in Trafalgar Square, London. And I wasn’t a child.
Getting told off by our elders, or in my case ‘betters’. That's how we learn how to behave ourselves in public isn't it? Lesson learnt, no great harm done.
Next up is the Bull Ring. But it's closed. I'm unable to vist the scene of Dylan's speedy and athletic escape. My compromise is to do a complete circuit of this rather imposing building.
I'm now on my way to find the Plaza Consistorial. The town square with it's rather unique town hall. It's here that yearly in July the rocket is set off signalling the opening of the bull pens to commence the 'Running of the Bulls'. Although I'd had several opportunities over the years to attend I knew that with my wobbly hips it would be a recipe for disaster.
I also knew, that due to the level of adrenilin that would gather in my bloodstream, I would be unable to restrain myself. It was therefore best that I stay away. Watch on TV. Cheer on the brave from the couch.
But now I am drawn by the sound of music penetrating the narrow streets.
Good oh! I'm hoping it’s one of those festival processions I'd seen on TV, with large paper mache figures swaying about, and hooded, costumed figures in procession. The Spanish do appear to be ever so good at festivals.
But no, not a procession. I enter a plaza. By chance it's the one I’m looking for. The Plaza Consistorial. It's filled with people in their work-a-day clothes, dancing. Well sort of dancing.
Facing the famous town hall everybody has linked arms, and lines are moving forwards and backwards, rythmically, in time to the music. It's provided by a group of musicians armed with horns and drums and suchlike. Very percussionistic. Up front there's a bloke with a megaphone directing the proceedings. Don't know what he's on about.
My arms are unexpectedly linked and I'm swept away across the plaza.
How good is this! Here I am involved in Spanish culture! Woohoo!
Arm in arm with my new friends I skip merrily back and forth across the plaza. When the megaphone man chants, everone chants. I just join in with gobbledegook. When he cheers, we do too! I don't know what the chanting and banging is about, but not to worry. I'm having a fine time. No doubt about it, I'm a cultcher vultcher.
Eventually, with a great cheer, the event ends and folks wander off about their business.
“Just what exactly, do you think you are doing?” a voice asks.
I turn to find she who had so irritated me that morning.
“Well I was invited to participate in this festival,” I reply. “You can't say no can you? You've gotta join in, like participate.”
“So exactly what festival was this?” she enquires. “Do you even know?”
“It’s was like a Spanish cultural festival wasn’t it,” I mumble lamely.
She shakes her head in exasperation. “It wasn't a festival. These people have had their pensions slashed by the government. They were protesting!”
“Oh,” I respond sheepishly.
But I recover quickly. “That's all right! I'm a protestor from way back aren't I? Ban the Bomb, Anti Nuclear, Union protests, Vietnam war, Mandela and the Springbok rugby tour. How we brave dodged the batons of the coppers!”
“Things have been a bit quiet lately,” I add pensively. “There doesn't seem to be much of a place for blokes like me anymore. The passion for protesting seems to have died a sad death. Perhaps our time has passed.”
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” she admonishes. “Let's go! It’s time to get back and get cleaned up and ready for this evening.”
“What’s the hurry?” I ask, “I was thinking to finish the afternoon by sinking a few cold ones.”
“No time for that,” she replies. “We’ve got a group of pilgrims together and we are all meeting then going out for a tapas dinner crawl.”
“A tapas dinner crawl! What a good idea that is!” I reply enthusiastically. “I take back everthing I said about you this morning. For a sheila, you're not such a bad bloke after all."
And you see what I mean about the relationship between seizing and days.
A tapas evening dinner crawl.
Now that a bloke can surely seize.
Regards
Gerard
PS
“Sopa,” says the waiter.
We’re in a bar cafe. Awaiting further members of our pilgrim group before we head off on our crawl. I’d better have something to line my stomach. Before it is assaulted by the varying quantities and styles of tinto and tapas that are yet to come on our evening traipse thru Pamps.
“I know it’s soup. But what kind of soup is it?” I ask.
“Asparagus and ham,” she intervenes, to avoid his and my confusion.
I have a vision of thick, hot, pea and ham soup. But made with asparagus instead of peas. Yum. That’ll put a lining on it.
What arrives in a sturdy earthenware bowl is thick alright. But it is also blindingly white, freezing cold, and is decorated with a sprinkle of dark stuff.
The assembled pilgrims lean over the table to investigate.
“Yuk,” I say. “Looks terrible. Not at all what I had in mind.”
Then I realise it’s probly white asparagus. And that’d be ham scratchings on the top. Held a piglet over it and rubbed it’s bottom on a grater haven’t they.
That’s what it looks like. Wouldn’t surprise me. Poor piggy wig.
“Well go on, taste it!” she says.
It’s very cold...flavourful...and absolutely delicious.
Just the thing for a warm evening.
“What’s it like then?” she asks.
“Horrid,” I say. “I hate it. And no, you can’t have a taste.”
But she pulls the bowl away, looks about at our fellow pilgrims.
"Come on! Tuck in! Have a taste," she says.
The spoon platoon descends.
My treasure is lost.
Her voice assails me. As do her fingers.
I writhe about inside my sleeping bag as they poke and prod thru the down.
“Get out! Leave me alone!” I protest. “Go away...horrid person.”
But she won’t.
I explode out of the top of my sleeping bag like a moray eel after its lunch. But my attempt to grab the offending party and subject it to a forceful deterrent is foiled. She jumps back from my grasp. Too quick for me she is.
“Carpe Diem! Carpe Diem! Seize the day!” she repeats from a safer distance.
“I know what it means,” I mumble grumpily into my pillow. “I'm not a complete drongo.”
What she doesn't know is that I'm not really your 'seize the day' type of bloke.
Afternoons, I'm really good at seizing them.
And evenings, well I excel at evenings.
But earlyish in the morning, specially on a day off from walking, I try to refrain from seizing anything other than the bed covers.
“No wonder your boyfriend has left you behind. You don’t know how to treat men properly. That’s your problem cobber.”
That’s not true!” she exclaims. “You know he’s got a sore knee and has gone on by bus to to rest up and wait for me in Puente La Reina!”
“Doubt it. I reckon he’s found a proper woman. One that’ll treat him right. You won’t see him again.”
She refuses to be baited further.
“Come on, get up! ” she remonstrates. “Here we are in Pamplona, with all types of things to be explored, people to see, places to go. And all you can do is lie around in bed and waste the day!”
“I know about days,” I reply. “I’ve had years of experience with days. And, imo, if you don't treat them carefully and respectfully at the start, they are likely to treat you bad as they unfold.”
She sighs in exasperation, gives up on me.
“Well I'm off,” she says, “see you this evening.”
I grunt and give a half-hearted wave as she swings her daypack on, disappears into her day.
“I was up in the stand watching,” he said. “The bulls came thru the gate that leads into the arena and there was Dylan standing right in the middle. The first bull was massive and jet black. He saw Dylan and I think it was love at first sight. But the attraction wasn't mutal, was it Dylan?”
“No,” replied Dylan. A man of few words my son. Not a blatherer like me.
“Took to his scrapers didn’t he. Across the arena then up the side wall like a rat up a drainpipe. The bull hit the wall right below him. Boom! There was only a split second in it.”
So proud of my son Dylan I am.
I'll have to go see the site of his lucky escape.
The Plaza de Toros.
It was also the site at which Hemingway, and the heroes of his book, had enjoyed themselves.
‘The Sun Also Rises.’ I had been reading it daily since Roncesvalles.
I had found it so well written that I was currently unable to continue with it. It really surprised me how Hemingway’s depiction of the disparate and dissolute lives of his expatriates had sickened and saddened me so.
Not a mood I wanted to encourage on my Camino.
But I also knew I would be forced back to it soon.
Talent like that will not be denied. Not for long anyway.
Along the Way I'd wandered slightly off Camino, into those beautiful forests around Burgette, where Hemingway had immersed himself in that sport for the contemplative man. In the crystal clear, stoney bedded rivers that gently wind through the forests he'd spent day after day fishing for trout.
A sometime fly-fisherman myself, I crept stealthily along the shaded riverbanks to which he had led me. I was looking for the 'lies' where trout waft gently in the currents. I lay prone and motionless on the river banks, peering thru the grasses, trying to establish if they were ‘rising’, to ascertain what if anything they were feeding on.
It's here that I can find what for me is a true happiness. That sense of peace and contentment with its accompanying ease of mind. I guess it’s to do with the breeze that rustles the leaves, the dappling sunlight on the forest floor, the murmur of the stream over it’s rocky bed, the sweet musty smell of the earth, lots of senses getting involved.
After morning ablutions and a late breakfast I stand outside on the cobbled street, about to set off.
I look about.
Pamplona.
So this is what it’s come to.
Here the great Roman general Pompey came with his legions, established his camp, his name in its name still echoing down the centuries.
He stationed himself here for a while. Formulating and carrying out his plans to pacify Spain. He displayed an ability for organisation and administration. Established what became the wealthiest and most settled of all the Roman provinces. A province that even produced two Spanish-born Emperors of Rome. Trajan and Hadrian. Both made it to the top five list of Emperors who presided over the Pax Romana, that great era of peace and prosperity in the Meditterranean world.
Pompey. Deserved a better fate than getting a sword in his back as he peacefully surrendered to the allies of his great rival Ceasar. Then again, what goes around comes around.
Ceasar got his didn’t he.
I set off first for the Cathedral where I spend an hour or so. Wish I knew a little more about architectural styles. Roman, Visigoth, Gothic, Moorish, Baroque, and so on. So much involved in the learning and understanding of the arts and crafts isn't there? In a lifetime not enough time. Just take pleasure from what's in front of you I guess. Stand quietly. Let your senses be infused.
Now it's nosing along the narrow streets. Hullo! Here's Caminoteca. The pilgrim come hiker's shop I'd read about. I chat to the staff, mosey about, only purchasing a small foam pad I could plonk my backside on when being forced to rest on stoney or wet ground. I'll stuff it down in my pack behind the water bladder I've now decided not to use.
After lunch I want to see that fine huge sculpture depicting the running of the bulls. My city map shows the way. It really is something. A couple of young pilgrims, on their way past, clamber up onto the back of the bulls for a photograph. A small group of elderly locals gather and noisily berate them.
I silently join the locals in moral support, then move away as I recall it's exactly the type of thing I would have done at their age. In fact I did. On the lions at the base of Nelsons Column in Trafalgar Square, London. And I wasn’t a child.
Getting told off by our elders, or in my case ‘betters’. That's how we learn how to behave ourselves in public isn't it? Lesson learnt, no great harm done.
Next up is the Bull Ring. But it's closed. I'm unable to vist the scene of Dylan's speedy and athletic escape. My compromise is to do a complete circuit of this rather imposing building.
I'm now on my way to find the Plaza Consistorial. The town square with it's rather unique town hall. It's here that yearly in July the rocket is set off signalling the opening of the bull pens to commence the 'Running of the Bulls'. Although I'd had several opportunities over the years to attend I knew that with my wobbly hips it would be a recipe for disaster.
I also knew, that due to the level of adrenilin that would gather in my bloodstream, I would be unable to restrain myself. It was therefore best that I stay away. Watch on TV. Cheer on the brave from the couch.
But now I am drawn by the sound of music penetrating the narrow streets.
Good oh! I'm hoping it’s one of those festival processions I'd seen on TV, with large paper mache figures swaying about, and hooded, costumed figures in procession. The Spanish do appear to be ever so good at festivals.
But no, not a procession. I enter a plaza. By chance it's the one I’m looking for. The Plaza Consistorial. It's filled with people in their work-a-day clothes, dancing. Well sort of dancing.
Facing the famous town hall everybody has linked arms, and lines are moving forwards and backwards, rythmically, in time to the music. It's provided by a group of musicians armed with horns and drums and suchlike. Very percussionistic. Up front there's a bloke with a megaphone directing the proceedings. Don't know what he's on about.
My arms are unexpectedly linked and I'm swept away across the plaza.
How good is this! Here I am involved in Spanish culture! Woohoo!
Arm in arm with my new friends I skip merrily back and forth across the plaza. When the megaphone man chants, everone chants. I just join in with gobbledegook. When he cheers, we do too! I don't know what the chanting and banging is about, but not to worry. I'm having a fine time. No doubt about it, I'm a cultcher vultcher.
Eventually, with a great cheer, the event ends and folks wander off about their business.
“Just what exactly, do you think you are doing?” a voice asks.
I turn to find she who had so irritated me that morning.
“Well I was invited to participate in this festival,” I reply. “You can't say no can you? You've gotta join in, like participate.”
“So exactly what festival was this?” she enquires. “Do you even know?”
“It’s was like a Spanish cultural festival wasn’t it,” I mumble lamely.
She shakes her head in exasperation. “It wasn't a festival. These people have had their pensions slashed by the government. They were protesting!”
“Oh,” I respond sheepishly.
But I recover quickly. “That's all right! I'm a protestor from way back aren't I? Ban the Bomb, Anti Nuclear, Union protests, Vietnam war, Mandela and the Springbok rugby tour. How we brave dodged the batons of the coppers!”
“Things have been a bit quiet lately,” I add pensively. “There doesn't seem to be much of a place for blokes like me anymore. The passion for protesting seems to have died a sad death. Perhaps our time has passed.”
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself,” she admonishes. “Let's go! It’s time to get back and get cleaned up and ready for this evening.”
“What’s the hurry?” I ask, “I was thinking to finish the afternoon by sinking a few cold ones.”
“No time for that,” she replies. “We’ve got a group of pilgrims together and we are all meeting then going out for a tapas dinner crawl.”
“A tapas dinner crawl! What a good idea that is!” I reply enthusiastically. “I take back everthing I said about you this morning. For a sheila, you're not such a bad bloke after all."
And you see what I mean about the relationship between seizing and days.
A tapas evening dinner crawl.
Now that a bloke can surely seize.
Regards
Gerard
PS
“Sopa,” says the waiter.
We’re in a bar cafe. Awaiting further members of our pilgrim group before we head off on our crawl. I’d better have something to line my stomach. Before it is assaulted by the varying quantities and styles of tinto and tapas that are yet to come on our evening traipse thru Pamps.
“I know it’s soup. But what kind of soup is it?” I ask.
“Asparagus and ham,” she intervenes, to avoid his and my confusion.
I have a vision of thick, hot, pea and ham soup. But made with asparagus instead of peas. Yum. That’ll put a lining on it.
What arrives in a sturdy earthenware bowl is thick alright. But it is also blindingly white, freezing cold, and is decorated with a sprinkle of dark stuff.
The assembled pilgrims lean over the table to investigate.
“Yuk,” I say. “Looks terrible. Not at all what I had in mind.”
Then I realise it’s probly white asparagus. And that’d be ham scratchings on the top. Held a piglet over it and rubbed it’s bottom on a grater haven’t they.
That’s what it looks like. Wouldn’t surprise me. Poor piggy wig.
“Well go on, taste it!” she says.
It’s very cold...flavourful...and absolutely delicious.
Just the thing for a warm evening.
“What’s it like then?” she asks.
“Horrid,” I say. “I hate it. And no, you can’t have a taste.”
But she pulls the bowl away, looks about at our fellow pilgrims.
"Come on! Tuck in! Have a taste," she says.
The spoon platoon descends.
My treasure is lost.
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