“Ach, you came from London! When did you leave?”
“1st January.”
“And when will you arrive?”
“End of September.”
“Ach, so long….” But you can tell from the face opposite that they’re thinking, “How can it possibly take six and a half months to get from London to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port? Martin and Cathérine and Klaus and all those others set out from Geneva or Munich, and they only left in May…”
So we hasten to explain our tortuous route and the self-indulgence of days off to visit towns. Sometimes, under cross-examination, we’ll attempt to explain the stops and starts, the jumping-over and going back to recoup the Auvergne, the visits with friends. In the sunshine it makes less sense, when all the long-distance ones faced and overcame the same rains.
Tortuous. Tortoise-uous. David says I’m a reptile: I cease to function in the cold and come alive when a patch of sunlight falls on me. That’s fair: the tortoise has long been my totem. I thought it
was because tortoises seem wise; they watch the world carefully and quietly, seeing all sides and weighing things up slowly before arriving at fair-minded decisions during a long life. But now I realise otherwise. Reptilian and sun-loving, the tortoise wants to sleep in the warm all winter. Yet, as Aesop taught all children, the tortoise starts slow but gets there in the end.
“I aim to do thirty-five kilometres in a day,” say the hares, “sometimes maybe forty. If I get up at 5.30 in the morning I can do that. I must be in Santiago by ….”
We gasp and marvel, appropriately. We admire their strength and determination, especially as hares are solitary creatures and can be seen running on the horizon alone, shunning moral support. So it’s odd, then, three or four days later when we thought them far out of range, to recognise a sack or a stick in a village café and to greet with pleasure these hares whom we admired. The
reasons vary. Blisters or tendonitis; sometimes an overwhelming weariness holds them back, or those moments of congestion in the hostels that pushed them beyond even their stamina. Or maybe even a moment of curiosity to stop and look around.
30th June 2008
“1st January.”
“And when will you arrive?”“End of September.”
“Ach, so long….” But you can tell from the face opposite that they’re thinking, “How can it possibly take six and a half months to get from London to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port? Martin and Cathérine and Klaus and all those others set out from Geneva or Munich, and they only left in May…”
So we hasten to explain our tortuous route and the self-indulgence of days off to visit towns. Sometimes, under cross-examination, we’ll attempt to explain the stops and starts, the jumping-over and going back to recoup the Auvergne, the visits with friends. In the sunshine it makes less sense, when all the long-distance ones faced and overcame the same rains.
Tortuous. Tortoise-uous. David says I’m a reptile: I cease to function in the cold and come alive when a patch of sunlight falls on me. That’s fair: the tortoise has long been my totem. I thought it
was because tortoises seem wise; they watch the world carefully and quietly, seeing all sides and weighing things up slowly before arriving at fair-minded decisions during a long life. But now I realise otherwise. Reptilian and sun-loving, the tortoise wants to sleep in the warm all winter. Yet, as Aesop taught all children, the tortoise starts slow but gets there in the end.“I aim to do thirty-five kilometres in a day,” say the hares, “sometimes maybe forty. If I get up at 5.30 in the morning I can do that. I must be in Santiago by ….”
We gasp and marvel, appropriately. We admire their strength and determination, especially as hares are solitary creatures and can be seen running on the horizon alone, shunning moral support. So it’s odd, then, three or four days later when we thought them far out of range, to recognise a sack or a stick in a village café and to greet with pleasure these hares whom we admired. The
reasons vary. Blisters or tendonitis; sometimes an overwhelming weariness holds them back, or those moments of congestion in the hostels that pushed them beyond even their stamina. Or maybe even a moment of curiosity to stop and look around.30th June 2008
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