Determination v. Flexibility.

The balance between determination and flexibility is hard to achieve. I am determined to reach Finisterre, but I think I have to be flexible and take Finny home first. Very few of the accommodation options in Spain permit you to stay with a dog. Putting up and taking down a tent in the rain, and sharing it with a wet dog, is pretty miserable. I was planning to return by train, but dogs aren't allowed on Spanish trains. The title 'With Finny to Finisterre' may now be out; 'To Finisterre, without Finny'? More of a meditation on change and loss...

300 word Christmas Special: 'It's all good'.

I have always been a bit dismissive of the Pyrenees, but that was a mistake. They lie before me now, as serrated and snow-covered a sierra as one could wish for. 

Everything I have written on this blog is true, but it is only part of the story. Readers who are sensitive to 'over-sharing' may want to stop here. So what have I edited out? That I have been suffering from athlete's foot (a fungal infection between the toes), and also from hemorrhoids (a real pain in the ass). I am sorry if your sensibilities are offended, but it's foolish to be embarrassed by, or about, bodily (mal)functions - we're as uptight about them as the Victorians were about sex. 

Happily, both conditions can be treated with topical creams. The one for hemorrhoids - well, the English equivalent - is called 'Anusole', pronounced A (as in apple) - New - Sole. A dear friend told me that he initially mispronounced it Anus Olé; I love this image of a cheerfully delusional cream-qua-matador, jauntily tipping a sombrero at a somber op-popo-nent. 

What else have I edited out? Perhaps that, at the end of a long day, when Finny scents another dog 100m away and tugs repeatedly on the lead and yanks my aching shoulder, I really want to hit him with my pilgrim's staff? I don't, but I want to. 

Athlete's foot, hemorrhoids, flashes of anger directed at a pet... it's not 'all good', as some pseudo-spiritual people piously intone. Nor is it all bad; in itself, it just is, and we attribute certain judgements. Wouldn't it be better simply to recognise these things for what they are - a part of what it is to be human - and, if possible, to look for the humour in it all?

The Pyrenees.