This year at Easter we met, in a shower of rain, an Italian man and a woman walking against us. He told me he was walking home, which turned out to be in Italy. I think he flew to southern Spain, walked to Santiago and was then walking home. I shook their hands and wished them buen camino. Meeting people like them is humbling and exciting. I realised how little we had done in comparison and how much there is to see and walk in the world.
The sheer number of retired people having a great time on the Camino is also a great encouragement as I approach a significant birthday (50th). As long as I can walk there will be places to see and people to meet.
Last year we had breakfast with a French man, two years retired. He was then doing the camino but the previous year he had walked to Jerusalem! Staggering what people are doing. there is a real challenge to us all here, to conform to society's norms, to work and then to retire quietly or to seek another way, if only for two weeks a year, along the Caminos and walks of the world.