I haven’t written anything much this past couple of weeks because life intrudes and there are always a zillion things [I’ve told you a million times not to exaggerate] to look after – figure out – pay for – sort out – not least of which is getting up at the crack of dawn and doing my job. Fortunately for me I work at home and can come and go as I please although that means mostly ‘going’ as I deliver kids to school, run the endless errands, take the dogs for walkies, feed the birds, feed the fish, feed the turtle and the gerbils and the guinea pigs, take a few courses at the university, sit on a few committees and generally run around all day like a chicken on crack. Figure into that runs to the doctor and the pharmacy to pick up another few dozen bottles of all these heavy duty pills I’m on for all my various ailments – and how the HELL did I get so old! When I look in the mirror there’s this old hag staring back at me. What happened to that trendy bright eyed, blue-eyed girl from the 60’s with the frizzy blond mop [courtesy of Revlon], the high-heeled winkle-picker shoes and the skirts so short that she had to become adept at the bunny dip to pick up pencils off the floor? Life is cruel chaps – but perhaps I don’t have to tell you that?

Anyway all this is leading up to a major life-decision that I’m on the brink of making – or at least I’m on my tippy-toes at the end of the diving board peering at the water. For a few years now books and articles have popped up under my nose on a frequent basis, causing me to shore up some of my sagging beliefs – one or two of which have to do with fate. It started a few years back when Shirley MacLean started churning out her books on spiritualism, the cosmic consciousness, Karma [I’ll get you Dorothy and your little dog too..], and something called the chakra centers which I assumed were Indian social clubs of the time. She’s quite the gal is Shirley – she travels all over the globe solo and can be occasionally spotted hiking up some mountain pass in the Himalayas or wreathed in fog at Machu Pichu. Not your average self-absorbed celebrity at all. She sometimes even neglects to visit her hairdresser and her manicurist for weeks at a time – gasp. However, one book in particular caught my eye. She had just come back from Spain [Shirley not the manicurist] where she had spent a month walking the Camino. Now vat is zis Camino I thought to myself [..with a fake German accent. I often do this don’t you? It makes mundane thoughts so much more interesting] as I scanned the back cover for the – hopefully discounted – price.

Well what it is apparently is a very long walk through the northern half of Spain. And I mean a *very* long walk. So long in fact that you have to have special hiking boots, special hiking shirts, belts, socks and undies and a very trendy back-pack and possibly some Lycra skintight something or other holding in your tum. No not really – in fact this goes completely against the spirit of the Camino which was – and is – a pilgrimage route running from the border of France at one end to the border of Spain and the sea at the other. Chaucer himself walked – or rather rode – the Camino, which is possibly where he got the idea of writing about that other famous pilgrimage to see Becket at Canterbury. Not the play – the saint– or rather his rather moldy bones by now I would think. Although if you’ve seen Becket the movie with Peter O’Toole and – erm – another actor – the Archbishop was a rather naughty boy and a decided pain in the bum who practically forced poor King Henry to have him offed in the vestry by several overly enthusiastic hangers on who were more than happy to oblige. But I digress – as usual. The Camino has been traversed for thousands of years – long before the Church got the decidedly modern capitalist idea that relics wuz BIG business - Oley! No sooner had some monk in a cell with nothing to do but play with his abacus all day worked out the details of such a vastly untapped market than the Holy Roman Church practically fell over itself to encourage poor pilgrims to make the trek from far and wide as often as possible and to part with a few groats - or preferably more - along the way. I mean – all those crusades were becoming bloody expensive and they were probably running out of heathens to convert or slaughter even though the local Swords r Us was making a mint. And all the church had to do in return was offer time off from purgatory. The longer you walked the more time you got off – and of course the more money you spent – Voila! Business school grads take careful note.

The modern Camino is almost as popular now as it once was and you don’t even have to be a religious nutbar to do it. This is the bit that intrigues me. I’m an agnostic you might say – or you might say that I prefer to hedge my bets and not commit myself totally to either side just on the off-chance that they’re both wrong. However I do think – along with Einstein – that there is some intelligence to the universe [not here obviously but out there somewhere beyond the stars]. The trek to visit the church of Santiago de Compostella in fact means ‘St. James in the field of stars’ - wonderful. Therefore I’m going to undertake the Camino as a spiritual exercise – both literally and figuratively. Since I can’t get off the planet - although I’d certainly like to – next year in May I’m going to opt out al la Shirley for a month’s walking. 500 miles from France to Finisterre [end of the world – and I’m sure it will feel like it]. Perhaps the solitude and the connection to nature – or the dust, the rain and the heat – will [un]focus my mind away from this rat-race I live in – just for a little while. Thoreau did it in the woods – I’m going to do it in Spain.