Masses in the mountains

The next few blog posts are about events that happened over three weeks ago now, and thanks to 'necessary' apple 'updates', this is the second time I'm having write them. So excuse me if they seem hazy and fraught with technology-induced irritation.

My compromise, which I had managed to equate to Laurie Lee's lift with the booksellers, was at walk to a village 10km outside of Segovia and take a train from there up the mountain to the town of Cercedilla, which was reputed for being good walking territory. So I packed my rucksack under the conviction that I wasn't a complete fraud, apologized to the Germans and kissed Blanca goodbye.

As the train set off I tried to absorb as much of the passing surroundings, in the futile hope that I might be able to bulk it up with some metaphysical metaphors on my blog to make it sound like Id actually walked these mountains. But then we charged through a tunnel and I realized, for all my capacity for fantasy, even I couldn't stretch a half truth that far. 

Cercedilla was heaving with Sunday morning ramblers and cyclists, and as I exited the train I realized the town was sat in a sort of shallow basin between two peaks. It's geography created a contained sort of nature, which the tourist board had exploited for the benefit of these city rats, who wanted fresh air without the fungi and regular picnic tables where they could enjoy the contents of the cool boxes. For the next few hours I followed the 'blue trail', which had markers on every other tree so that even the most directionless soul (I am included in this category) could walk mindlessly round in a circle and end up back at their car. 

By 2 o'clock I had had enough, so I returned to where I'd hidden my rucksack to discover that I had propped it up against a highly active ants nest. By luck (or the smell of socks within) the ants had created special paths which avoided my bag and so all was well. I boarded a train for the suburbs of Madrid and was woken half an hour later from an open-mouthed slumber by a ticket inspector. I waited in the mid afternoon sun for Jess to pick me up in Torreledonas and by the time she arrived I had sufficiently sunburnt my fore arms. And so it was that I 'walked' the Sierra de Guadarrama in a day.

Segovia

Saturday morning I woke up feeling much better but a little fragile and I had breakfast with Kevin and some young Spanish cyclists who were doing the Camino. One of them was half-Peruvian and spoke English best and I kept trying to give him advice until I realised how arrogant I sounded; they were six natives on bikes, they definitely knew what they were doing. They hurried away from th wierd, load English girl and Nicky joined me with her morning hall from the panederia, 'I'm not going to spend €1.50 on that hostal crap when I could have hot pastries'. I liked Nicky a lot, she was so definite about everything. For example, although she was a History of Art student, she was going to tell me and Kevin anything about the architecture of Segovia because she wasn't our tour guide. And she wore black and loved it because it made her feel thin, and she ate jamon and pastries and required sunshine. She was like a svelt full stop in her certainty. 

So me and Nicky set out that morning to walk around the city. We both cursed the overcast weather but by the afternoon it had got its act together and the sun came out. Nicky explained how she worked in a pastry factory for twelve hours every Saturday, rolling the tips down on croissants and earning a good enough salary to go travelling in her free time. We talked about lots of things a sit was so nice when she said I'd inspired her to bring a tent next time she comes to Spain and go camping on her own. 'Now I know it can be done' she said and it meant more because it wasn't intended to be a compliment, just an assertion. 

I left Nicky on a rock to study in the sun. She was taking a bus to Salamanca that evening. I continued on my way, and having walked all around the city, I returned to the hostal and promptly vomited. I slept for some hours and woke up starving so went out again to get some salad and a sandwich for the next day. I was still undecided on what I should do. The mountains loomed and I knew Madrid was just behind them, and there I would get to see my family again. I munched through the bag of undressed salad and watched an Audrie Tatau movie to calm my nerves. I was so disappointed and uneasy about copping out and just getting a train. I thought of a compromise and justified it to myself with the fact that Laurie Lee got a lift some of the way with the booksellers. I wouldn't get to enjoy swimming naked in the lakes of the sierras and drying off in the sun, but then again at that moment, I didn't want to get my head wet. That night, my fever returned and I woke up my whole dorm screaming 'None of you understand me!!!'. And indeed they didn't, they were German. 

Into Segovia

And so for the next four days I walked to Segovia, through the shade of woods where the trees were tapped. The towns were bigger now but people stared just as much. Mostly I ate tortilla and Madeline cakes and I had the albergues to myself. One night in Coca I made the mistake of eating at a proper mans bar. They stared and stared at me and I could feel myself blushing and getting angry because I felt like an alien. As I walked back to the albergue I felt like I was being followed but convinced myself I was being paranoid. And then, from the end of the road, I saw a light in my bedroom turn out. I was suddenly gripped with panic; everyone knew I was staying in there alone and some pervert had broken in. I creeped down the street, sure that if I took the fucker by surprise I'd take him down. However my clenched fists turned limp as the front door opened and a big breasted silhouette with hair curlers called out to me 'Anna, Anna!'. The lady who had given me the keys that afternoon beamed at me kindly and I collapsed into her squat figure as my adrenaline left me. She'd pulled down all the shutters and waited as I brushed my teeth so that she could physically tuck me into bed. 'Los hombres' she muttered and plumped my pillow and stroked my head. 

A day or so before I arrived in Segovia I started to get a really bad stomach which may have had something to do with warm yoghurt. I'll spare you most of the details, but on my last days walk I forgot toilet paper when, trust me, I really needed toilet paper, and I only had pine cones to hand. Uncomfortable. 

The city was beautiful and even in my state of nauseous fatigue it made me smile. I stood under the aqua duct that Laurie lee's farmer had driven his cart over and saw that not only was it very narrow, but also very high. It must have been a uncharacteristically subdued ass to have been persuaded to trot along that. I didn't know where I was staying but found a hostal right next to the aqueduct which had a nice colour scheme and indoor plants and a receptionist called Blanca who played the accordion. I crawled into bed and started sobbing because everything hurt but then I fell asleep for five hours and woke up with a delirious fever that scrambled all my nerves and left me in a pain free trance. 

That evening I went out with Kevin and Nicky for dinner. Kevin was a friendly Californian who worked in the emergency department of a hospital and enjoyed travelling in Europe when he could. Nicky was a art history student from Belgium who slunk around in all-black and saw travelling around beautiful places as a necessity to succeed at studying. At first we went to the first Indian restaurant in Segovia which wasn't very good and reawakened the beasty in my stomach so that I had to march around some of the sights and breath the evening air to stop myself from squealing from gut rot. Later we went for drinks and then wandered back to the hostel, my g&t having alliviated all my woes and I was enthused with the world once more. When Nicky and I arrived in our room Nicky fell in a large puddle of water which was coming from the leaking water bottle inside my bag. In my merry helpfulness I threw my microfiber towel (which doesn't even dry one of my legs let alone half a litre of water) down on the puddle and trod all over it with my muddy trainers. And so I went to bed, with all my belongings soaking wet and my fever returned with a vengeance. 

Valladolid

When I arrived in Valladolid it was hot, really hot. I traipsed through the city, wilting under the weight of my rucksack and trying to find the tourist office to get some maps for the Madrid Camino, which I would be starting the next day. I got a call from an unknown number and from what I could make out through the sound of traffic passing me by they were one of Carlos' friends offering me a couch in Valladolid for tomorrow night. I thanked them kindly but said that I already had a host and I was leaving the city the next day. I walked through the park, oblivious to the fact that I had spoken to my planned-hosts-boyfriend and therefore, inadvertently, cancelled all our arrangements, and enjoyed the peacocks.

Lidia at the tourist office was awesome. We talked for ages and I acquired some maps, some of which were useful, and I left envisaging a new life as a city girl working in a tourist office, with great clothes and fabulous hair. It was getting late by this time though, so I messaged Alicia to let her know I'd arrived in Valladolid. Then I went to a bar and bought a coke so that I could sap their wifi for two hours.

I met Alicia and her great Alsatian-cross breed in the early evening by one of the entrances to the park and we drove to the flat she shared with her Polish boyfriend Richard. It was only then that I realised the confusion I had caused and felt bad that they had cleaned their whole flat with me. As Alicia bought food I showered, and when she came back we talked about extracting the essential oils from various plants and I tried her homemade body cream. Alicia cooked these eely looking things on the hob and I put on Fat Freddy and we were having such interesting conversations that by the time Richard arrived home from work I felt fantastic. 'Are you drunk?' was his preliminary greeting which only slightly deflated my umpteenth fit of giggles before I looked in the mirror and was dismayed to find my entire head was glowing red. I collected myself over my plate of steaming eely things and salad and tried not to touch the wine. 

Afterwards Richard put on a film for me about the International Brigade in Spain during the Civil War and we all spread out on the sofa with the dog like a happy family. 

The next morning I went with Richard to walk the dog and get churros, and we talked literature. Richards hair is waist length and I eyed it enviously as I dunked my churros, searching for split ends in his well-conditioned mane. We sat there, two foreigners, and contemplated our adopted country with all it's oddities. I spoke of the casual racism I had encountered on my trip and Richard pointed out that there were far less class barriers in Spain than in England, which totally blew my mind because of its truthfulness. It made me think of Grayson Perry's tapestries on class and wether he could produce an equivalent here, in Spain. It's an idea I'm still developing, I've only seen a bit of the country and I can't pretend I know it like a native, but I think the people here believe they have a right to enjoy life in a way we just don't in England. 

I spent most of the rest of the day with Alicia, talking about everything and anything, and falling in love with this kooky couple and their dog who I would soon have to leave. There were things that I'd been able to say and think with these people that I wouldn't know how to tell my closest friends. This experience is so strange; I'm writing a blog which anyone can read but at the same time there's so much happening in my head which I can't write, sometimes it feels like all these words are half-truths. I'm thinking about that guy in the sky a lot too. And love, how I love all my people so much but I've all this time being angry, which I don't understand because I have everything. Maybe one day I'll know how to write this stuff.

Good Moro Toro

Carlos and I spent the morning in Toro, half an hour from Zamora. It was here that Laurie saw the festival of the Mother of Toro, with the young girls being given to the convent. The town was breathtakingly beautiful and as soon as we arrived we were offered some local wine to try. The sun shone and my happiness was soaring from the aesthetic pleasures which surrounded me. We entered the church which was cool and elaborately decorated, and an important archetype of its period. A young choir boy was arranging the alter table, swollen with the responsibility of the task and held a dramatic countenance of precision. 'Religion has many slaves' said Carlos morosely, 'well dressed slaves.'

We walked along the pavement, eating a sweet bread with cinnamon and pork in, and listening to the hum of bikers on their heavy steeds. Toro has a seductively simple castle on its hilltop which we admired from the outside as we could not go in. Then we walked out one of Toro's gateways to see a bronze sculpture that looked vaguely like the torso and behind of a bull, after which Toro gets its name. 

We headed back to Zamora for some lunch and in the heat of the afternoon, curled up in the dark living room and watched Demi Moore having baths in the Scarlet Letter. It's funny because when I'm walking I hate the shuttered houses, it feels like there's been an apocalypse which everyone's forgotton to tell me about. But when you're inside, and it's hot out, it feels so nice, especially because it's Spain and you know the sun will be there tomorrow, so afternoon tv isn't really that blasphemous. 

Later Carlos took me to his family home on the outskirts of Zamora. We fed the chickens and played with the dogs, and looked across the plains to the city. Everything around the garden or in the house his mother and father had made; from the wine and chorizo, to the furniture and garden BBQ. The weather was wonderful and it was one of the few times that actually felt like I was on holiday and not embarking on a challenge.

We went back to Zamora and weaved through the streets with various of Carlos' companions, picking them up and dropping them off as we walked, the way you can when it's warm. I finally let myself have a proper drink and was elated with the results; I felt so loved and everything tasted amazing. Leaving tomorrow didn't feel scary but I would miss Zamora.

Zamora

I met a Norweigan woman and a Canadian woman at breakfast who were walking the silver way. They had met each other on the Camino forum and decided to walk together which I thought was awesome. Gaby, the young Canadian, had specifically chosen this time of year because she didn't like the sun, in contrast to Mari, who glowed with a Malibu shade of tan. They told me of the kindness they had encountered on the road, including a three course dinner and pool party, and we left the hostel together to confront the day's grey skies. We parted ways at the monastry, and I was soon regretting my decision to wear trainers instead of walking boots. The ground was sodden and my pearly white New Balance's were soon a murky brown. 

The path continued monotonously through Castille y Leon's farmland. I encountered a few pilgrims, most of which were Austrian but none as beautiful as long-gone Helmut. I was warned to drop down onto the main road to cross the bridge near Granja Morereula because the river had burst its banks and flooded much of the camino. I crawled along the asphalt at a snails pace and saw some more pilgrims, including an American couple who seemed very confused as to why I wanted to greet them. I shuffled over the bridge, embarrassed by my hearty 'Bon Camino', and had a sandwich. I started talking to a Spanish woman with some sort of partial face paralysis who was driving to Cordoba with her partner and dog. She had travelled around much of Europe and insisted in dropping me into the next town. Her husband struggled with my rucksack which was satisfying to watch and his wife cooed empathetically for my task ahead. 

By late afternoon I was in Zamora, and I wandered the streets and it's many churches until my couch surfing host Carlos had finished work. It was here that Laurie Lee had met the three German boys and had a night at the dance halls. I wasn't sure that my feet were quite up to that, and after Carlos picked me up from the albergue I had a siesta. I met Carlos' parents at the flat who were such cards, I wish I could have spent more time with them. In the late evening me and Carlos went out to see the night life and have some food. It was warm with cooking and bodies in the streets, the punters called out to one another and Carlos was very popular. We started with patatas bravas and weaves our way through many a culinary hotspot until we collapsed in a rock cafe for chicken drumsticks. All the young people were out, like birds of paradise, cosmopolitan in their various cults and quite a change from the rural Galicia of old people and outdoor slippers I had grown accustomed to. I felt giddy with excitement and exhauastion, like I could run a marathon or fall into a 100 year dream. I did the latter, sleepwalked the cobbled streets home, Zamora purring like a contented cat curled around me.

'No biscuits, no 50k'

 I left Casa Anita in a somber mood. Let's just say that, for all the wonders of modern technology, people don't magically start saying what you want to hear.

I took a route which seemed at first to be archetype Camino but after 5km I hadn't seen any signs and so I dropped onto the small main road leading into Villanueva. Once in the village, I bee lined towards the parish church in the hope of finding some Camino pointers. I climbed the bell tower precariously, like a hermit crab, and reached the top to look out over the landscape. Whilst my legs were grateful for the forgiving terrain of Castille y Leon, my eyes were less impressed. The flat fields looked particularly unaesthetically pleasing today with the overcast weather. I pressed on to Bercianos, my energy was running low after a vending-machine breakfast and I was looking forward to stopping for lunch. The grey skies and roaring wind worried me as I walked exposed through the plains, and I lost my bearings again as I crossed through the village and into the woods. I stopped to eat but before I could open my bag I was approached by a man on his bike. I told him I was heading for Tabara and he said I was not on the Camino, that it was a few kilometers to my right. I thanked him and went back to my bag but he didn't leave. I realised that he was going to take me to the camino, and so shouldered my rucksack, stomach rumbling and walked alongside him as he pushed his bike. His pace was faster than I would have liked and I winced in effort to keep up with him. When we came upon the Camino he did not seem confident that I had understood his instructions and so took me a further few kilometres down the path, leaving me at the crossroads with a 'bien viaje' and cycled off. I was stunned and exhausted by this rapid act of kindness, and soon collapsed after some way, risking the impending weather to rest my feet and drink. 

I plugged in for the last 10k but had not walked for long before I saw a pilgrim walking towards me (this is not an unusual occurrence, I am walking the opposite way to everyone else). He had very pale eyes and looked nervous. I asked him where he'd come from and he told me Tabara, and also that I would have problems up ahead as there were 10 large dogs who were roaming the fields and chasing pilgrims. He'd had to get a lift further up the camino in order to avoid them. And so I left the Austrian with some trepidation, my ear to the ground and my feet groaning for peace.

After an hour or so I had seen no dogs but Tabara, spread out in the distance, promising food, coffee and a shower. The path was wet and I hobbled along, sighing and groaning until I came upon a man sat on a hillock with his back to me. I called out 'hola' feebly and dropped my rucksack on the ground. The man turned around and I was utterly stunned by his appearance. He was very striking, blue eyed and tanned with high cheek bones, and if he hadn't had a mouth full of orange it would have been quite like a scene from Jane Austin. I sat next to him and we talked for a while. He was another Austrian doing the silver way and he was going to arrive in Santiago in nine days. Again, he had left me speechless, as in order to get to Santiago in this time he was walking 40 to 50 km per day. He showed me the new boots he'd had to buy because his feet were so swollen. In his bag he had a jar of marmalade and numerous biscuits, including some in a special tin which he would eat when he got to Santiago. 'No biscuits, no 50k' he laughed and sprung up, put on his goodie-filled rucksack, wished me luck and raced off into the distance. I trudged on, inspired yet sad; my ideal husband had fled in the opposite direction to me, in a cloud of dust and biscuit-fuelled ecstasy. 

In Tabara I checked into a hostel which had a lift that smelt like PVA glue and a land lady who tried to force a €9 breakfast into me under a maternal guise. I went to a bar nearby for anchovies and met three French cyclists, who took raucous pleasure in feeding and watering me until I popped, before inviting me to their Parisian homes and cycling off to Portugal. I showered and salted my feet and rolled into bed like a bloated Spartan whale, dreaming of long weekends in Paris.

Rolling Stone

This morning I woke up in Rionegro feeling well rested considering I'd had so little sleep. All night my mind had been racing through thoughts of home, I don't know why, I couldn't switch off. There was only one other pilgrim in the albergue and he was already asleep by the time I'd arrived at almost midnight. Throughout the night I'd tried to place his nationality through his snores and sighs but to no avail. He turned out to be an elderly French man, very gentle and kind. We locked the door together, and then went our separate ways; he to Puebla and I to Camarzana. 

I set off over the bridge, finding the Camino easily. It was 8.30 and my first village I was going to pass through was Villar de Farfon, seven km away. The sky was beautiful, the clouds looked like fresh linen hanging in the sky (I miss fresh linen....) the way the morning light touched them. The path was very wet from the night before and I soon had soaking ankles, which actually felt quite nice as it was hot. On the outskirts of Farfon I bumped into a couple who were heading for Rionegro. The woman, who was Spanish, reminded me so much of my tutor Anibel as she effusively gave me advice and told me to stay in Casa Anita in Santa Croya. Her Danish partner's face creased endearingly, he was clearly accustomed to the elongated reception his wife gave to other pilgrims. 'Walk along the narrow path by the stream, there will be barriers but be brave because it's very beautiful. Don't follow the cycle path it will add an hour to your journey. Also, don't stop at the next albergue unless you're prepared to be converted.' I sped through the next village, narrowly avoiding the albergue, and it wasn't long before I was walking alongside a lake which looked like it was part of a national park. A very cool looking pilgrim passed me with 'Bon camino', he had plugs and a shaved head which was quite a change from the normal middle aged rambler in a flower-pot hat.

I was soon accompanied by an elderly Spanish couple on a brisk morning walk. I think I've managed to perfect my accent to the point that it conveys that I understand a lot more Spanish than I do in reality, as the woman was trying to explain something about the micro culture of the surrounding areas. I don't know if I mean micro culture, I'm pretty sure that only exists in yoghurt. Anyway, something environmental. We passed the hydroelectric dam that has altered both the landscape and climate of Rionegro (I don't know how, I'm regurgitating a guidebook fact) which was pretty awesome in scale and power. The old guy kept steering me with both hands to look at various things which started to really upset me for some reason. I was relieved to be alone again as I came to the church of Saint Justa and Saint Rufina, which was almost entirely collapsed apart from its belfry. I ate an orange and counted my blessings that it wasn't raining yet. After some confusion with a rather single minded local ('you want to go to Rionegro' 'No I don't' 'yes you do' *internal scream*) I found the camino for Camarzana de Tera. 

The problem with the Anibel-like woman's instructions were that they were applicable to two different routes. As you can probably imagine, I took the wrong one. 'A beautiful river running alongside your path' was a stagnant troth of black water which seemed to be a breeding ground for flies. 'Silver Birches providing you with shade' were scrub bushes as high as my knee but malevolently spiky. 'A narrow path' was a wide vehicle track of moist clay. 'There will be barriers but it's ok', que recurring 'forbidden persons beyond this point'. I kept going to the end of this path and then walked 2 km to refined the camino heading for Santa Croya. Salt in the wound was that I had to pass the afformentioned scenic route, looked bleeding fantastic. I was pretty tired by now so I let myself listen to Razorlight for the last 6km. I don't really think plugging in is that great for walking, you should be aware of the world around you and engaged. Or some hippie spiel like that. But my feet were gone. And I love Razorlight.

I arrived at Casa Anita at four and was very taken aback by the owners appearance. Anna was honestly the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. She had a face like a Mediterranean pixie and minced around the hostel in snow boots, zealously polishing and swearing. She clucked her tongue and arched her eyebrows at everything, made me spaghetti and chicken and told me about her dreams of living in Malaga. Santa Croya was small for a firecracker like that. I sat down in the shower until the hot water ran out and that about everyone.

No snow in Puebla

The room Moises had in Ourense was in a Venezualen man's flat and it smelt of dog piss. There were two beds in the room, one of which was covered in junk, so I selfishly crawled into the empty one and tried to sleep as Moises cleared the other, occasionly throwing unidentifiable objects on my head. After half an hour Moises was snoring and I'd grown accustomed to the smell.

The next day we left early to go to a cafe for breakfast. It had been another sad home; a man whose wife had left him after he had a stroke, he had given up on happiness and had a dog when he shouldn't. We got on the road again. It was strange driving past all the place names I had been to, they  felt as well understood as the lines on my palm but I was surprised at how far apart they were. The mountains stood high and imposing, with snow in every crevice and only blackness in there cliffs. If I had never considered climbing them I would have happily have watched out the window as they rose and fell, thinking about how they looked like a dark chocolate pudding topped with icing sugar. But I saw only ancient warlocks, old as time, holding both the strings of fate and the scissors, concerned for the greater good of the universe and not the individual. I truly felt that I'd made a very narrow escape and that what I was looking at could have been my final resting place. 

We dropped down down down into Puebla de Sanabria and I held my breath to see the snow. There was none. We bought sandwiches and drove to lake Puebla to eat them. The water was like a fairy tale mirror, framed by the mountains and perfectly still. Afterwards we walked alongside the river, past the remains of a Roman village which someone was using as an allotment. I felt euphoric, there was no snow and I had a friend in Moises that made me feel safe to continue my trip again. 

We walked up to the castle on the hill, which had a beautiful plaque for all the pilgrims which said lots of things about history and civilisation but finished with 'the love is the way'. I've got that tattooed on my heart. 

We rounded the corner of the castle onto a plaza on the edge of the hill which looked out onto the suburban villages of of Puebla. The clouds broke and the sun cast onto the figure of a tramp cutting his nails on a bench. He started talking to me in English about the recent snow, occasionally returning to some language which didn't particularly sound like Spanish or Gallego. He was very brown and looked well fed, and he seemed only to have his bottom teeth, which had a creamy residue about them. When he started calling me beautiful I said to Moises that we should go. Moises said that I'm too friendly, or confident, that if anyone ANYONE asks; I have no money, I have a boyfriend, I'm not travelling alone and I have family in Spain. That made me feel better in a strange way, I have control over what people know about me, I can choose who knows more to a certain extent. Honesty is not the best policy when you're travelling alone, I'm still learning that now.

We went to the tourist office to get my pilgrim passport stamped. I was so nervous that the woman was going to be like 'what the hell are you doing here?' but she was so nice, she stamped my credentials without question and gave me this insane guidebook and map. I felt like my dad, I was ecstatic about this map, I wanted to paint the castle red.

After having a final drink in a bar nearby me and Moises set off to find my CouchSurfing host, Angel. He appeared in a clapped-out white Peugeot, instantly asserting that we were all going to drive up the mountain to see this lake. It was kind of uncomfortable as I knew Moises had to get back to Verin for work but Angel clearly wasn't budging. We drove up the mountain for half an hour in Moises' car, past lake Puebla again, and when we reached the top there was snow up to my knee and a cruel wind which picked up tiny pieces of ice and force-fed them to your face. I ran down towards the bank in an attempt to appreciate the lake but it was a hopeless feat. Moises puffed back to the car behind me and I felt bright eyed and bushy tailed from the onslaught of the senses.

We transferred my rucksack from Moisos' car to Angel's and I hugged Moises good bye. He was probably one of the most generous people I have ever met in every meaning of the word. But it was time for a new chapter.

Martes en Vigo

On Tuesday Moises and I drove around Vigo to all his old haunts, through battering rain and blasting AC. It seemed like pretty much every secluded place of natural beauty (and their are few in Vigo) was a hotspot for cottaging, and so this made up the majority of Moises' running commentary. The participants were fair weather folk apparently though as we didn't manage to encounter any on the rocky beach or in the woods.

We returned to the house for lunch and found a great commotion in the kitchen. Nolly's mother had arrived and was sat looking like dejected Mr Toad. Sara was in the foreground and, from what I could make out, she had elected herself as the provider of all the logic necessary to handle the situation. The atmosphere swung from breathless frustration to playful teasing, with Nolly and Sara prodding the granny until she cursed them both. Jorge sat, brown as a hazelnut and matte as bark, his eyes falling lightly on his women. 'The worlds revolve like ancient women, Gathering fuel in vacant lots.' ~ T.S. Eliot

Nolly had to be transferred from her wheelchair onto a plastic chair with a pole running along either side in order to get down from the first floor flat to the car. She squeeled and cupped her face as Moises and Jorge lifted her, like a Roman official fallen on hard times, and descended down the stairs. Moises had offered to take my clothes to the laundrette so I had to borrow Sara's track suit, which was splendidly red and white euro trash, and made me look like I worked a travelling fair. Sara's friend came round to practice her English on me but I was feeling so tired I wasn't particularly responsive. Moises and I were going to sleep in Ourense that night and the next day drive to Puebla de Sanabria, so that I could avoid walking 60 km through snow. It was time to leave. I said good bye to Sara at the bar and Nolly in the kitchen. Jorge was in the garage again, with the three dogs and long haired cat, hanging icy wet washing. Everyone shoulders their grief differently; some smoke, some shout, some hang washing. I wanted to put my head on Jorge's shoulder, but I couldn't.