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Day 2

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  It rained. It was raining when we set out. It was not heavy, just raining as we followed the yellow arrow along cobbled roads.  Happy to be on the road. The rain got heavier but we were dressed for it (and after all we are British).  After we’d passed Vila Nova de Ceveira’s industrial area and scrap yard, we found a restaurant open for coffee. We watched as the rain got heavier. Coffee drunk and passports stamped, we set out again and walked, in the rain, until we reached Valença, our last stop in Portugal.     The rain was so heavy, as we entered the town, that we dived into a supermarket cafeteria and ate and drank all sorts, while watching the water run down the road. At last it seemed to stop but as soon as we ventured out, the rain started again. The fort built to repel the Spanish, was explored in the pouring rain and we all resisted the temptation to buy anything from the multiple shops selling bed linen and towels. I imagine it would be a lovely place to explore on a sunny da
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Day 1

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A brief summary: After breakfast  we took the metro to Campanha. We had an hour to wait for the bus to Caminha, in a bus station reminiscent of Digbeth in the 1970s but with better coffee. The bus was late but the connecting bus to Caminha was held for us. The second driver overtook everything as we drove along the coast road. We arrived on time.    Then things went a little awry.      We went to find lunch in the delightful square in Caminha before starting our walk  We ordered. Seven beers, one wine, seven toasted sandwiches, one burger. One beer and  one wine arrived. We waited. After a few minutes six beers appeared. Then after a short delay, one burger and one sandwich arrived. We waited, And waited… The first two meals were finished. The beers going down. We waited. The one member of the group with any Portuguese, went to ask. The waitress had misunderstood the order. Six sandwiches were ordered. We waited. Twenty minutes later, they arrived.    They were good but it’s questionab
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Porto

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  A day of arrivals, meeting new people and catching up with friends. Lunch was followed by a visit to the handily placed Decathlon store, to purchase warm clothes that we had hoped not to need.  Then, after a  trip to the pilgrims’ hostel to buy our Camino passports, it was an afternoon  of sightseeing. A brief glimpse of Porto, a fascinating city that deserves a second visit (preferably when the new metro line is completed and the disruption to the centre has ended). A day of walking, preparations, laughter, jugs of sangria and glasses of port. An early night after a long day. Thankfully we were  not in the pilgrims’ hostel, three to a room in a four star hotel ensured a good night’s sleep, to set us up for the start of the Camino on Sunday. This is more of a post card than a blog. I will try to write something each day this week.  It may end up as a long piece when I get home or snippets along the way.
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Preparations for the Camino

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  May is, among other things, National Walking Month, Arthritis Awareness Month, Mental Health Awareness Month and Women’s Healthcare Month. The perfect month for me to take to take my arthritic joints on a long walk to put my head straight. I’m hoping to come home, healthy in mind and body. I have been busy since I returned from Tenerife. The manuscript for my next book,  Hidden,  arrived in my inbox from the editor, the evening that I got home. Since then, when I haven’t been going through the manuscript word by word, I have been walking up and down the hills and along the seafront, step-by-step, in training for the Camino. I have now almost completed going through the manuscript and, having bought a new rucksack, I am at the stage of working out what I am going to take on the walk, how much I can realistically carry and what I can manage without. When I walked part of the Camino de Santiago de Compostela two years ago, my sole aim was to prove to myself that I could do it. I hadn’t
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Holidays

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 I am writing this beside a rooftop pool in Los Cristianos in Tenerife.  If I had known that retirement was going to be so wonderful I wouldn’t have worked so long—although perhaps that thought is lacking some logic. When we arrived in Tenerife, the sky was an odd translucent white . A thick mist of dust blown in from the Sahara—la calima—was blocking out the sun (but not the heat). I had left Menton in cloud.  Easter had been very wet! When it wasn’t raining the humidity made you feel as though you were in the centre of a cloud. 248mm rain fell in March (average is around 50mm). A quarter of the month’s rainfall fell over Easter. It was wet…There had been some sunny days since but everywhere the weather doesn't seem to be as it should be. Several events were cancelled over Easter—Easter Egg hunts, the procession from the Basilica—not as you'd imagine because of the weather but because of the threat of terrorism. On Good Friday, I was lucky enough to attend a wonderful pian
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