Between two birthdays

Well it seems like I have almost come to the end of what I can do and it is not even near enough but that is the reality of this sort of venture.
I am the one who has been worrying. Alison keeps telling me all will be well but I cannot see that at the moment as we have damn few places assured along the way (nothing as yet in Northern France, for example.... but we are just going to do our best and trust in the good will of strangers!

Just been speaking to my old friend Roger, who was wishing us all the best and am thinking that I have been so single minded these last few weeks that I have hardly raised my head above the parapet! Well, this evening I make a selection of curries and sit down to a small feast of flavours while trying to relax knowing that tomorrow we will be heading off and that will be that.

As I contemplate the sort of food I will cook I am eager to choose the sort of things that Alison will enjoy as tomorrow is her birthday and it also strikes me that we will be starting this venture on Alison’s birthday (26th March) and basically ending it with mine (25th July).... I am not sure if that has any special significance but it is certainly worth reflecting on.

As I waited in the jewellers on our high street today I was chatting to the man who runs the shop – his son was mending Alison’s gold chain which will carry her little cross all the way to Santiago. The man mistook me for some other customer and began talking about Egypt.

After sorting out that mix up he asked where I was going – was I going on holiday - and I explained that I was going on pilgrimage. He got quite excited after I explained what that was. As a devout Muslim he was fascinated to hear that Christians did such things. “And you pray every day?” he asked. I assured him that I did and he was doubly pleased. He has been on the high street for over thirty years and one of the things that he was now able to do, now that his son was taking up the lion’s share of work, was spend a bit more time praying. He would not retire but he could now find the time to enjoy both God and his wife’s company more! “And that’s what you will be enjoying on your pilgrimage!” he exclaimed.

Which led me to think that the risks are all worth taking for such a rich return!

I am just bad at letting go – letting go of control, letting go of risk aversion, letting go of all the daily responsibilities I try to fulfil with my family (along with letting go of the guilt that I feel because I will not be there for them, etc) and letting go of the worries and so on produced by the uncertainty of the situation plus a lot more....

Tricky little situation, Ian. After tomorrow it will all be in God’s hands.