Santiago by Seventy

"I think you're mad," and that's only Trevor the handyman, as he stands in the doorway of my library-cum-office to wish me well. He can't come in any further because of the books, and my books aren't my only friend I'm going to leave behind.

"Do you have everything?" says Penny venturing a random question without any preliminaries, the sort of question out of the blue which can only be posed between couples.  In this case I know what she means: do I have everything for the walk?

The pack sits on the chair: it’s already got a personality; the personality of a couch potato, dull, glowering and heavy. In my youth we used to plan on thirty pounds and thirty miles. More recently my meetings with soldiery have taught that the packs they carry weigh seventy pounds and more, mostly batteries for their electronic equipment. I’m trying to keep mine as light as possible. One guidebook says to keep the pack to 10% of body weight. That can’t be right: there are big blokes like me, well big-ish, and many more tiny scraps of people.   In my case 10% would be 22 lbs. or 10 kilos while a chit of a girl - 8 stone - would only be carrying a pack of only 11 lbs.  And in my limited experience, quite a few girls’ handbags weigh almost that much.   So, obviously the guidebook was written by a man, a man who follows his advice with five pages of things to take on the Camino including a pair of binoculars to study the higher church ornaments:  I think he means the church ornaments nearer the roof.   He also cautions the pilgrim against consumerism, immediately before endorsing several commercial products.

However with careful selection and re-selection I’ve got the pack down to about 25 lbs. No individual item seems to weigh very much, but together they do add up.  No binoculars ever got near the pack.   Out has gone the sleeping mat – a pity as this was one of the few things bought specially for the walk, very expensive and very clever with a one-way valve which makes it self-inflating, though now I shall never know how well it works.   Out too has gone the Leatherman - too heavy.   But a look at the weather forecast persuades me to keep the leggings - it's raining in the Pyrenees.   And out goes the shaving gear.   

Surprisingly the medical kit seems to feature large, filled with everything which friends tell me I shall need.   The single bulkiest item is what the guidebook coyly calls salva-slips: apart from their obvious purpose these will serve as reminder of one of the reasons why I’m doing this: to celebrate surviving cancer.   The good doctors have overtreated me and left me with colitis for which the only remedy is more eye-wateringly invasive surgery which I think I’ll put off for as long as possible, and hey! I’m here to tell the tale.     

So, I am planning on thirty pounds and five hundred miles. Santiago by seventy, that’s my aim.