May your
hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your
heart always be joyful
And may your song always be sung
And may you stay
Forever young
Forever Young
by Bob Dylan
I will be
starting each & every day’s walk with Dylan’s words.
Hi Everyone!
Well, it is pretty much time for theTalking a Good Game to end and for the Boots to Hit the Ground!
Dianne & I fly out from
Stansted to Bilbao on Monday 18th September.
On Tuesday 19th it is Day 1:
Saint
Jean Pied de Port in France to Roncesvalles in Spain.
The route de Napoleon, a 25 kilometres (16 miles) stroll
up & over the Pyrenees.
A mere 1,200 metres (4,000 feet)!
The Miles in the Legs training has
gone pretty well.
It was rounded off on Sunday 10th with a Pre-Pilgrimage Walk from Winchester to Bishop's Waltham, a 13 miles route following in the footsteps of the Miquelots, pilgrims who made the long journey to worship St Michael in Normandy.
We gathered - as pilgrims have for well over a 1,000 years - outside the West door of Winchester Cathedral.
We stopped for a picnic lunch outside St Andrew's Church in Owlesbury.
Prince Charles - the future Charles II - did exactly the same in 1651 when, after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester, he fled across the south of England to Shoreham & then across the Channel to France.
And we ended the day - as all good walks should - at a pub: The Crown Inn in Bishop's Waltham.
Of course, Personal Challenge was one of my three Objectives for the Camino.
Will I be able to walk an average of
25 kilometres / 16 miles a day, walking 6 days a week?
A total of
about 860 kilometres / 530 miles.
Like walking from London to Newcastle; and back!!
A million steps.
Will I be able to stick to the Plan over 34 walking days … such that on
the late afternoon of Friday 26th October I reach the Atlantic Coast
at Finisterre?
Mike Brearley, the former England
cricket captain who now practises as a Psychoanalyst, in his latest book On Form quotes the mountaineer Heinrich
Harrer:
“The
glorious thing about mountains is that they will endure no lies.”
Courage is required to play elite sport; truth emerges more often than
not on the field of play.
It is fertile ground for character study.
I am fully expecting my time out on The Camino to be
much the same.
I do have the words from the Book of Isaiah to sustain me:
Even to your old age and grey hairs
I am he, I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you;
I will sustain you and I will rescue you.
Isaiah Chapter 46 Verse 4
As that great writer on Life, Postman
Pat, always says:
“It
is all about Delivery!”
My second objective was Friends’
Involvement.
I really, really appreciate that so
many of you have joined me on the Miles
in the Legs training walks, will be coming out on the Camino, reading the Blog
& generally showing an interest.
Thank you.
As from 19th September, I will be
sending e-postcards on:
Almost as good as Rambling with Ric
... But you don't have to do any of the actual walking!
And so to my third Objective: Raising money for 4 great charities.
Thank you for the very kind Donations.
We’ve made a tremendous start to the
fundraising, with (I hope) more to come.
Not least because of the several Contingent donations.
Some are Contingent on me
actually getting to Finisterre and completing the Camino!
And others are intriguing; including one where the donation will be doubled if I get to Finnisterre with the same walking stick I started with !!
More Contingent Ideas please ....
Donations can be made via:
http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/RamblingWithRic-Camino2017
So before I head off, dear reader,
let me leave you with something to ponder whilst I’m away rambling.
There will be a Spiritual element to
spending six weeks away, out everyday in the Spanish countryside.
As well as the sheer Physical & Mental effort of
keeping going and the banter amongst friends, I’m sure there’ll be chance to Think.
The Purpose of Life is far too BIG a
topic for me, but what about:
To
Be Happy?
I’ll be reporting back if we come up with
anything useful !!!
To kick start the discussion, let me
tell you something about Sir Peter Blake.
In early 2013 Dianne & I were
on holiday in New Zealand. After a few days with the Young Man & Jeanette
in the Bay of Islands, we ended our trip with Dianne’s cousin Tonka & her
husband Gary who live in Auckland.
Having spent a wonderful day on
Tiritiri Matanga Island, back on the mainland Tonka drove us to meet Gary for
dinner.
On the way we stopped at Long Bay. There
were a couple of dozen small dinghies with youngsters at the end of a day’s
sailing tuition.
The Information Board said we were at The Sir Peter Blake Marine Education & Recreation Centre.
I hadn’t heard of Sir Peter, but I
read that he was a very famous New Zealand sailor.
When I got back to the UK, I looked up the Centre’s website.
Sir Peter had so many sailing
achievements; not least in 1995 in helping make Team New Zealand only the
second non-American team to win the America’s cup.
They won again in 2000.
The website says that:
“Blake’s fierce determination to win always
inspired immense loyalty
from his crews and unlimited confidence from his
backers.”
On
5 December 2001 Sir Peter was on an environmental exploration trip in South
America, monitoring global warming and pollution for the United Nations.
At
around 9 pm a group of some six armed, masked robbers boarded
the Seamaster. Their booty was just a 15 hp outboard motor and some watches from the crew.
As
one of the robbers held a gun to the head of a crew member, Sir Peter sprang from
the cabin wielding a rifle. He shot one of the assailants in the hand before
the rifle malfunctioned; he was then fatally shot in the back. The boarders
injured two other crew members with knives, and the remaining seven were unhurt.
Sir
Peter was just 53.
Around
30,000 people attended a memorial service held for Sir Peter in Auckland.
I
often think back to those dinghies sailing at Long Bay ... ...
If
Sir Peter had been given the choice of living exactly the life he did and dying at 53 or
never sailing further than a few miles from Long Bay but living fit & well in to his
80s, what would he have chosen?
And
what would You choose?
It
if helps you, there is quote at the bottom of the Information Board:
“A
ship in harbour is safe. But that is not what ships are built for.”
Sir
Peter and I lived on opposite sides of the world. And my “knowledge” of sailing is
limited to being Incompetent Crew on Gigi
under Captain Chris in Chichester Harbour.
But
it turns out that Sir Peter and I do indeed have a connection.
For
he is buried in the churchyard at Warblington church, near Emsworth. His
headstone bears the words of John Masefield’s famous
poem, “Sea-Fever”:
“I
must down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and sky, and all I ask is a tall
ship and a star to steer her by….”.
I
have only been to Warblington church the once.
It
was in the early afternoon of Saturday 4th September 1982, just over
35 years ago.
Why was I there?
Well, Mr & Mrs Wells celebrated their 35th Anniversary on September 4th
2017!
I'm delighted that both Chris & Sarah will be out on the Camino with me!!
---
Please
do keep in contact whilst I’m away.
Onward!
Buen Camino, Ric the Rambler
Camino Thought
