The Camino:A Peaceful Unpredictability:Part 3. St Jean Pied de Port to Pamplona

 I awoke in darkness in St Jean Pied de Port in France on the first proper morning of my walk towards the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain.  The rumpled unisex room in the auberge where I was staying was full of bunks, snores and various rustlings. Babbling thoughts ran  around my head like errant cats. The big question looming. How was I going to get washed and dressed quietly while sharing a room with six others? How was I going to lay out items so that all was easily accessible? This was to dog me for the rest of my time on the camino. Never mind blisters, aching limbs, unknown entities, rain, and dormitory life. My main bugbear was that I could not seem to get myself organised quickly in the mornings. Throughout my time on the camino I seemed to be eternally hunched down over my rucksack, rummaging and ruffling around and invariably misplacing something and then taking ages to find it. Although I would be one of the first up in the mornings, many others would pass me by as I squatted down, contents of my rucksack exasperatedly strewn around. As I would sit back on my hunkers all hot and bothered, images would flash through my head of several anxious wee ladies in the nursing home where I worked. They would be eternally pacing and searching for a handbag, comb, medication, handkerchief or any other item that was never missing in the first place. Working in a nursing home meant that I was witness to what we would all become in our sunset years. Some of it makes for ominous reading.   On a different practical and slightly more optimistic note -   on the whole business of ablutions, showers etc., I found wet wipes to be a godsend and used these in the mornings and had a proper shower in the evenings. 

Once on my way, the first part of the walk out of St Jean Pied de Port was uneventful and pleasant – small rolling hills and a pastoral aspect a little reminiscent of Leitrim where I lived in Ireland. I leaned into the road and it ascended benignly at first. Then it became painfully steep and on top of that it started to rain. I bent down into it hunching down, my nose nearly touching the ground as if curling into myself would ward off the pernicious, seeping of dampness into my bones.  It seems that this initial ascent out of town is one of the hardest parts of the camino. In fact it seems this French end of the camino is harder going than the other end, going into Santiago. I have a horror of becoming damp especially in my feet. Thankfully my boots stayed water proof but my rain mac started letting the rain in after about ten minutes.  I continued to set my head to the rain and wind   like a mountain sheep in the glens of Leitrim  and kept going. But I was disturbed to think that I could have two more weeks of this. Eventually we turned a corner and just as I was setting my teeth once again to the rain, I saw an auberge up ahead at a place called Orisson. A bowl of soup and a bit of a dry out and things looked brighter. 

View of the Pyrenees from Orisson

Thankfully it stopped raining and I set off at a buoyant pace as if that spell of rain had laundered me out and set me up for the way ahead.  I was feeling more relieved as this was a particularly long stretch of the camino (27km) and there was nowhere to stay if I wanted to opt out so to speak. The thought of battling rain for twenty seven km had frankly horrified me so I was mightily relieved that it had stopped. I continued to walk over the Pyrenees’ and was entranced by wild ponies on the horizon with eagles wheeling overhead.

Ponies on the Pyrenees

The day continued somewhat dull but it was a good feeling to be walking over what felt to be the top of the world. The road was good but the land on either side was unfenced and made up of wild heath land. Eventually I started the descent to Roncesvalles my next stop on the camino. I came upon the fork in the road much maligned by the patron of the auberge I had stayed in the day before at St Jean Pied de Port with the shorter but steep descent to the left. Taking his advice I avoided it assiduously despite my aching legs and feet. The other descent to the right rolled out beneath in a long and leisurely fashion with wonderful and relaxing views of Roncesvalles down below. But after twenty seven km I found the descent far too leisurely and with each corkscrew bend I prayed we were close to Roncesvalles.

Roncesvalles is a religious settlement at the foot of the Pyrenees in Navarre province and is the first major point of the departure on the camino in Spain.

Albergue at Roncesvalles

It was founded in 1132 AD as a religious community and hospice, the main aim being to protect pilgrims from wolves and encourage devotion to the Virgin Mary. The settlement is large including the albergues for pilgrims – it holds over two hundred people. It had recently been restored. After such a long and arduous walk it was great to see how modern everything was and all tastefully ensconced within the ancient building.

The pod like structures in the Roncesvalles albergue

The dormitories were set up in pod like structures in capsules of four with two up and two down in bunk bed fashion. But there were cleverly fashioned spaces to put your rucksack etc. in. I was absolutely ravenous and after a shower etc. had that glowing feeling of being gloriously tired and  triumphantly exhilarated, after having tackled such a challenging walk over the Pyrenees. Thank goodness there was pasta as a starter at the pilgrims’ meal that night as my body completely craved and sucked up the carbohydrates.

The walk next day with the next destination being Zubiri was easier and shorter at around twenty km or so. It began with a sunny stroll through the forest. After the day before the pressure was off and it was good to know we had plenty of villages and albergues to choose from on the way, in the unfortunate scenario of not being able to walk the twenty km. In the forest I walked along briefly with a German girl .She had been walking for three weeks since she left her home in Germany and was planning to walk the present camino (700km) in about three weeks. After a while she sped off having built up a spanking pace after weeks of walking. It was one of the things I was noticing on the camino. It suits both extroverts and introverts. You can interact as much or as little as you want with people. There is a sort of elegant etiquette whereby generally you end up walking a while with someone whose pace matches yours. You chat for as long as one or other wishes and then you or the other person can either hang back or speed up. This is all carried out with cheerful and polite directness e.g. “I am going to speed up a bit now” as said by the German girl.

Zubiri was a greyish rather industrial town, made greyer by the dull afternoon that disappointingly arrived after the zinginess of a sunny morning walking through sun dappled forest. The albergue was equally grey and utilitarian. After a short walk up and down the one street of the town I took myself to my bunk and read for the rest of the afternoon and evening. On the up side I met a very pleasant American woman who I was to meet up with frequently for the rest of what was going to be my trip. She was doing the whole camino and I envied her.

The next day was Friday 13th and I dreaded all day sustaining an unlucky blister or injury. But it proved to be a case of realising how futile worry is, like walking around all the time with your umbrella up even when it is not raining. So I left Zubiri for Pamplona my next destination.  I had to pass by a belching magnesium factory on the edge of town. Then the path spread into a clearing with forest ahead. Before that there was a small waterfall and a sign saying “End of industrial zone” Someone had scrawled “Utopiste debout. Tu n’est pas seul”. Utopian begin – you are not alone. Very canny I thought. I walked on through the morning birdsong and spent a merry while hailing curious cows and sheep in nearby fields, peering out of hedgerows as I passed. It was indeed Utopia there on the shady forest path interspersed with fields where I still saw wee slips of mist rising in places as the heat took hold of the morning.

 I caught up with the American lady and we chatted for a while before I sped up a bit. Then the French man who had rescued me from the pump fiasco in St Jean Pied de Port passed me bestowing  a merry smile before heading on. I watched him stride off in a determined manner as if he was trying to walk to the end of the world which in theory he probably could do. The final end of the Camino de Santiago is a place called Finisterre which means the “End of the World” – the furthest westerly point of Spain.

En route to Pamplona I made a detour to a small thirteenth century church perched on a hill at a place called Zalbadica. I wound my way up a grassy, tranquil hill path, hearing only the hum of a warm May late morning. The ascent up the hill made my background aches and pains less comfortable than they had been. So I was glad to suddenly come upon the church opening out into a glade and softly shaded by trees. I made a beeline for a stone bench and flopped down, mightily relieved, flinging my now stone heavy rucksack as far away as I possibly could from me. I half closed my eyes for ten minutes and let the sun dappled and green hued light throw patterns behind my eyelids.  Soon I made my way into the church in this hushed and seemingly secret place up on a hill, away from the busy comings and goings of camino life. I knelt down in a pew, knees protesting and bent my head.  Suddenly for some reason I starting to think a lot about my father and became very emotional there in the church, crying softly under a benevolent depiction of Our Lady. I was surprised at the sudden wrench I felt. It was a long time later later while writing this and remembering my camino trip or what had by then indeed become a pilgrimage that I understood the reason for this – an eerie foretelling of what was to come further on into that  year.

Leaving France. Entering Navarre Province.Spain

The Camino: A Peaceful Unpredictability: Part 2. Bordeaux to St Jean Pied de Port

I was walking the Camino de Santiago in Northern Spain in 2016 and had travelled from Leitrim to Bordeaux as a first step. In order to go to where the Camino began in France I needed to get a train from Bordeaux.  The train stopped initially at Bayonne for the changeover to a smaller one for St Jean Pied de Port at the foot of the Pyrenees Mountains, the start of the Camino de Santiago from France. It  may as well have been called the “camino train”. It was here that a wave of hybrid walkers/pilgrims mounted the train. High tech walking gear went cheek to jowl with scallop shells on backs of rucksacks - the symbol of the pilgrim. There are many interpretations as to  why the scallop is such a ubiquitous feature of the Camino de Santiago.  The one most associated with St James ( the pilgrim saint of the Camino de Santiago) is the legend where the apostle once rescued a knight whose horse had fallen into the water and while saving him  St James emerged from the sea covered in scallop shells. Then there is the symbolism of the shape of the scallop shell which resembles the setting sun. This would have been an important daily event, full of symbolism in pre Christian societies. In those days where the sun set marked the end of the world.  The Way of St James is a journey to the West, towards the setting sun  and so finished at the “end of the world”  or "Finisterre" the end point of the Camino de Santiago on the most westerly point of Spain. On a more practical level, since the scallop is native to the coast of Galicia, the shell also became a momento, a physical proof of having completed the pilgrimage to Santiago. The shells could be picked up very quickly on the beach at Finisterre, but also became a popular souvenir and source of business for shops etc. along the way. The scallop shell also served practical purposes for pilgrims as it was the right size for gathering water to drink or for eating out of as a makeshift bowl.

The scenery from Bayonne to St Jean  Pied de Port was a vista of valleys and forests and the train chugged along   in a stoic fashion alongside a sparkling fast flowing river weaving and wending its way at the bottom of a V- shaped valley.

Main street.St Jean  Pied de Port

It seemed all of a sudden that we arrived to the pretty cobbled town of St Jean Pied de Port with mountain ranges ascending up at either end of the small narrow town. I queued for ages at the pilgrim office and was given a few options of auberges to stay in. And so I found myself marching doggedly down the street to the auberge where I was staying.  It looked fairly quaint from the outside but was very basic inside. I had forgotten that whole thing of loads of people bunking together and I certainly did not bank on it being unisex style but that’s how it was. Our patron swore like an absolute trooper but turned out to be a gem and his advice ensured my experience on the camino was a wonderful one. A lesson I have learned in life is that if someone knows what they are talking about and I am about to embark on something new where I have relatively little experience, then I take their advice. And so I did with this guy and his advice concerning the camino was as follows:

•           Drink plenty – aim for a couple of litres a day even if it does not seem hot – otherwise your joints become dry and you will get tendonitis.
• The camino is not a hill walk so no need to wear walking boots – they will give you shin splints because they come up too high on your leg. (I particularly smarted from this remark as he shrieked and flapped his arms when I walked  into the auberge pointing to my  hill walking boots as if I were wearing a pair of cloven devil hoofs).If like me it was too late to change them – then just make sure not to lace them up your leg.  
• There is a part of the camino we would encounter the next day coming into Roncesvalles (the next stop on the camino) where there is a fork .The left points to a very steep short cut to Roncesvalles and the right a longer though more undulating less punishing route. After walking nearly thirty km it would be tempting to take the left fork. Our patron begged us not to do this. He said that we would risk knee injury and blisters which would not be pleasant to have at the beginning of the camino and would serve to dog us then for ages. That would be the best scenario. The worst scenario would be similar something that happened just a few days ago to a pilgrim who took the steeper route and fell and broke his collarbone. In the following days I would meet many pilgrims with sore knees and awful blisters who had taken that steeper route and their problems had started at that time they had shot down the steep slope.
•   And finally do not attempt to rule on the camino or try to control it ……… it is the camino that will guide you. As Ernest Hemingway said “ The world  breaks everyone  and afterwards many are strong at the broken places”

As irked as he was about hill walking boots the patron of the auberge knew what he was talking about. I took all his advice on the camino even the drinking one (I am usually terrible for drinking water) and it seemed to work. I had an uneventful camino health wise – just the usual aches and pains – no worse than working a twelve hour shift at the nursing home where I work to be honest. And I had no blisters – again feet already hardened from pacing up down and around the nursing home for at least ten out of the twelve hours. It made me appreciate somewhat ruefully it has to be said how hard the work is for nurses and health care assistants in nursing homes.

I went for a walk after settling into the auberge which did not take long as the town is small. At one stage trying to be diligent and start drinking some water, I tried to obtain some from a water fountain opposite the main auberge for St Jean  Pied de Port – “Albergue Accueil Pelerin”. I could not turn off the pump and the water ran down the middle of the cobbled street under the impassive gaze of townspeople and pilgrims/walkers. I felt that awkwardness of the stranger to a town, not wanting to draw attention to oneself and be a bother. I looked helplessly over at a tall lanky man sitting on a stone bench near the pump. He looked a bit discomfited but nonetheless got up and managed to turn off the fountain. He did not speak English – only French so I stammered out my thanks in my shaky French. I marched off shamefacedly in the other direction down the town looking for less ham-fisted pursuits. I passed by a church and went in to light some candles and look round the church at the same time. I find churches are like a free architectural and cultural pursuit providing a blue print of the surrounding area (if it has had a lot of Christian influence through the ages). Mass was starting and it was actually a Mass for pilgrims with a pilgrim blessing.  I was delighted as it seemed a fitting start to my journey over the next couple of weeks.

 And so I sat in on the Mass. At the end the priest said something about pilgrims but I did not really understand. People were looking round and then I realised the priest was beckoning the pilgrims up to the front to give the blessing. There were about ten of us pilgrims/walkers all shuffling around and looking somewhat sheepishly at each other. We all bowed our heads and I felt very emotional as the priest raised his hand in the sign of the cross and bestowed his blessing. For the first time I did not feel like just a walker ……. I was really beginning to feel like a pilgrim. Walking back up the town I felt bemused and humble at the same time. I had not really thought about the pilgrim aspect of the camino. I had approached it as a long walk the way I go hill walking in Leitrim – a physical activity that would be challenging, yet satisfying.  That gentle blessing at the end of Mass had touched me and I began to realise that I was going on much more than a long walk.

The first step on the Camino de Santiago. Crossing the bridge out of  St Jean  Pied de Port

The Camino:A Peaceful Unpredictability. Part 1. Leitrim to Bordeaux

Last May I took the plunge and started what had been on my bucket list for years which was to walk the Camino de Santiago or Way of St James in Spain. The Camino de Santiago is an 800km ancient pilgrimage route that runs along the top of northern Spain from near the Pyrenees in France to Galicia just above Portugal. The remains of St James are meant to have been found in 813AD in a place near Galicia at the Portuguese end of the camino. They were discovered by a Galician hermit who heard music and saw stars above a place known as “campo stella “– the field of stars. The stars overhead directed him to a place where he found 3 graves, the remains of one confirmed to be St James. Over the succeeding decades and centuries, a church and eventually several cathedrals were built in the campo stella  or  compostela which soon became the city of Santiago de Compostela. 

St James's Gate,Dublin

So it was that I arrived to Dublin on a rare as hen’s teeth balmy May Spring day to stay the night before flying out to France the next morning ready to start the camino. After settling into my bed and breakfast situated along the canal, I went for a long walk in order to seek where Irish pilgrims used to begin their pilgrimage to Santiago in the Middle Ages from Ireland.  The front gate of the St James’s Gate Brewery marks the boundary of the iconic Guinness brewery site. There has been a gate adjoining this site since the Middle Ages. St James’s Gate was traditionally a toll and customs duty collection point for people to enter the city of Dublin. The holy well of St James was located in this area and thus the medieval route to Santiago de Compostela originated here. It was a day for it with the sun beaming down and the cafes and pubs thronged with people and others jostling along like myself, taking a late afternoon stroll. My quest to find the St James’s Gate and thus officially begin my camino from Ireland took me past the Concern offices in Camden Street. Concern is an international non-government organisation with whom I worked as a volunteer many years ago in various countries in Africa. It was quite a jolt to see the offices and took me back 25 years or so. And so all in all it was a very reflective walk very much in keeping with starting my own camino.

Unfortunately I was not going to be able to do the whole camino and was aiming to complete about a third which would bring me out to the second province encountered on the camino – Rioja and the capital city of Logrono. Then my plan was to head north to Bilbao on the coast and spend a few days with my sister who was going to meet me from UK there.

One of the downsides of booking accommodation on line is that it can be difficult to work out where you are geographically. I flew into Bordeaux in France the next morning from Dublin to realise that the guesthouse where I was staying was in a rather uninspiring part of Eysines, a satellite area a chunk of a drive away from Bordeaux. The French camino to Santiago starts in a town at the foot of the Pyrenees called St Jean de Pied de Port. Again I had misjudged a bit when booking my flight. Bordeaux is a good distance away from St Jean de Pied de Port and there are nearer airports such as Biarritz. On the up side I was picked up by a lively, charming guy from the guesthouse. He explained that transport options around Bordeaux are non-existent and they await with bated breath the completion of a tramline similar to the Dublin Luas tramline which will improve things enormously. Meanwhile we drove out of the airport passing through a rather depressing industrialised zone and arterial roads with several lanes and corresponding lines of traffic. I was not seeing Bordeaux at its best.

The guesthouse was charming, quirky and tasteful. The mother of the guy who managed the guesthouse was an artist and this was definitely reflected in the house. The next morning I breakfasted on croissants and pain au chocolat with a watery sun seeping in and highlighting the paintings and African artefacts in the living room. There was an amazing array of homemade jams all the colours of the rainbow laid out on the table.  I had forgotten how in Europe tea is seen as a drink to promote health or to give someone if they are sick .It is not entrenched as deeply as it is in the English and Irish culture. So I was relieved when rifling through the many sachets of jasmine, camomile and green tea to find a solitary sachet of robust English breakfast tea.

 I wished I could have stayed longer in this guesthouse but I had to press on to the train station for my train to St Jean Pied de Port. I chatted to the guy managing the guesthouse. He talked about how his grandfather had Alzheimer’s disease and was in nursing home. We had got on to the subject because I told him that I was working in a nursing home. He said that his grandfather was in the Resistance movement and was captured by the Gestapo and went to Dachau concentration camp for two years. He has lost nearly all his memory and now cannot recognise his family. Yet he still remembers and recounts regularly that journey on the train to Dachau. Sometimes he jokes and says it was like being on a Club Mediterranean holiday.

The guy who managed the guesthouse dropped me into Bordeaux and I was so happy that I had got to see it and was not influenced by my depressing glimpse of it the day before. Bordeaux is a majestic town with a vast river running through it and is responsible for its dignified, maritime bearing.  I walked along the river to the station of Bordeaux de St Jean, passing battleships and cruisers lining the river port. I obtained my ticket in an easy enough fashion thank goodness and mounted my train to Bayonne, the first stage of my journey to St Jean de Pied de Port. As the train pulled out of the station, flame red poppies lined the banks. That is my memory of Bordeaux and the guesthouse – colourful, flamboyant, majestic and kindness itself. My train journey was leading on to an unpredictable time over the next two weeks to unknown places and people.  But I was sure that my memories of it would be more peaceful than those of an elderly man who had survived the concentration camp of Dachau, only to enter the prison of Alzheimer’s. 

December Blog: Skipping to America

Back in the Summer that year in Leitrim, she had been struck by a conversation with her cousin on the subject of where her great grandfather on her father’s side had come from. Her great grandfather and his 3 brothers originally came from Killery Mountain in County Sligo. When they were young men, in that generation that came after the famine, they travelled from Killery to settle in Killargue in County Leitrim. This is a place with small rolling hills snuggled down between the mountain ranges of Castlegal to the west and the Glenfarne plateau to the east. Killargue was an ancient place of pilgrimage because of its Holy Well. The Holy Well was attached to a religious settlement, Cill Fearga or "Church of Fearga" which was founded by a holy woman called Fearga in the 6th century.
 And from Cill Fearga came the name Killargue. Her great grandfather and his brothers settled up in the rather bleaker highlands surrounding Killargue, somewhere around the townlands of Lughnaskeehan (or Hollow of the Wings) and Buckhillbarr (or Top of Buck’s Hill). Years later her great grandfather moved from the hard, hard life up on the slopes of that Glenfarne plateau to a small bit of an easier life down in the lowlands in Killargue -  to a hollow of a townland named Curry (or Marshy Place). It was nearer the main road there and of course, there was that place of pilgrimage for what was then a devout
Catholic population, the Holy Well. Several generations of his family were reared in a small stone house there, many of whom emigrated to America.

Killery Mountain, County Sligo

Killery is near Slishwood an ancient forest and an islet called Innisfree, made famous by Yeats and in later years that classic of a film “The Quiet Man”. Coincidentally in recent years, Slishwood had become for her, a go to place for a bit of reflection and there is a great loop walk which runs along by a lake called Lough Gill. There is a wee peninsula along the walk where she liked to step out onto, every couple of months. Looking out on the still, glasslike lake, reflecting the lilac greys or dove egg blue hues of the sky, depending on the weather, she liked to pause and take stock.

She took a walk in Slishwood towards the end of Autumn on a crisp, warm sunny day – one of the last before Winter stops all in their tracks. The forest leaves glowed orange and red – both, on the trees and then carpeting the woodland path. She took the loop path up above the lake and looked down and around on the ever deepening reds of the woods and part of a Dylan Thomas poem came to mind:

“It was my thirtieth year to heaven,

Stood there then in the summer noon,

Though the town below lay leaved in October blood.

O may my heart’s truth still be sung on this high hill in a year’s turning.”

Her father had recently died and she too wondered what the next year’s turning would bring.

November slipped in and time stood suspended and people remembered past loved ones and their ancestors. There were frosty or foggy days where no one wanted to stir out in their cars. And that was ok because sometimes you just have to stay still – let your mind settle after what may or may not have been a helter skelter year.  Either way, there is a meditative holding and slowing of the breath of our lives at this time of year. She remembered that her father had walked the same lanes as a boy that she was now walking in Killargue.

Sometimes she would see a robin. It had that somewhat disconcerting, yet charming manner robins have, of coming very close as if they want to pass on a message. She recalled how people said that when you see a robin it means that a passed on much loved one was paying a visit. She was both upset and comforted.

At that time she visited Slishwood once again. It occurred to her that her great grandfather and his brothers had also, just like herself, probably frequented those places around Killery, like Slishwood and Innisfree. Had her great grandfather stood on that same wee peninsula that she felt drawn to? There is a graveyard in Killery that dates back to the 15^th century. Almost hidden among the tomb stones is a collection of egg shaped stones around a small rectangular stone, with pieces of thread and string around it. This “straining string” supposedly possesses an infallible cure for all manner of pains, aches and strains. The sufferer or deputy removes from the “straining stone”, a piece of string, replacing it with another string. They then take each stone in succession and repeat certain prayers whilst turning it. Had her young great grandfather or his brothers deputised for an older member of the family with advanced rheumatism in this ancient ritual? Ireland or Hibernia (as the Romans called it – forever Winter) with its phlegmatic weather caused many aches and pains as evidenced by the  ancient sweat houses dotted around the landscape –  beehive- like  saunas to soothe the bones.

Yes, November that year for her certainly opened the door a crack, to past lives and times and as always a time to nurse aching bones and aching thoughts in by the fire, away from foggy, damp, seeping days.

The end of November/beginning of December brought a few more, bright, crisp days that dug her out of her hibernation.  Her interest had been piqued by a new   café that had opened   up in Dromahair, a village near Killargue and was called The Village Tea Rooms. The café adjoined the back of the Stanford Arms pub along the main street. The rooms looked out onto the woods leading down to the Bonet River, Leitrim’s version of the Amazon. There were benches outside and remaining Autumn leaves were piled thickly around, hues of russet and scarlet.

Also, a loop walk had been established in Dromahair which encompassed a part of the old railway that went through Dromahair that was part of the Sligo, Leitrim and Northern Counties (SLNCR) line that went from Enniskillen to Sligo and closed in 1957. The loop walk also included Creevelea Abbey, the last Franciscan friary to be founded in Ireland. It was built in 1508 by the O Rourke’s who were the ancient Kings of the kingdom of Breifne which covered the counties of Leitrim, Cavan and Sligo of which Dromahair was the capital. The abbey was in use until the 17^th century when the Franciscans were forced to leave by the Cromwellian army. It seems that this part is now the beginning of the new loop walk. The light was starting to fall so after stopping   at the Village Tea Rooms, she walked briskly, curious as a cat to complete the walk. It continued down the lane that led from the abbey to the main road, wound its way up through rolling hills and pasture and then down over a quaint, arched bridge over bubbling water, shaded by trees. And there was the old railway line as straight as a die, heading off towards Dromahair under a canopy of trees. It ran alongside the babbling brook she had just crossed over. She walked along for around half a mile, cows in a nearby field gazing calmly on. Eventually the railway path came out at another bridge and the old Dromahair railway station that lay alongside the Clubhouse pub that houses the popular Riverbank Restaurant. The walk is around 5km.

Seeing the railway station at Dromahair had reminded her of another story in the family. She remembered a story of one of her great aunts. At 16 years of age her father brought her to the station at Dromahair. He saw her off on the train to America at a time when someone going abroad was as if they had passed on – into another   life where those left behind could not enter. That is how America was in those days to those left behind in Ireland – another world, another life, a person never to be seen again, not in this life anyway.

 Her great grandfather had many daughters, most of whom emigrated to America. Thus, there are many American cousins who are descendants of those daughters and they come over periodically to Leitrim and bring their children. They visit the old house down in Curry in Killargue and show their children where it all began, so to speak – it is almost like a pilgrimage, a rite of passage. They too have stories that have been handed down about Killargue, Leitrim, who is related to who, what happened when they got to America etc. Sometimes the cousins who have remained in Leitrim are asked to show the American cousins a particular field remembered fondly by their grandmother or great aunt. Back then the fields had names and some of them were never forgotten by those who went to America. They could describe every hedge, stone, hawthorn bush and grassy tuft.

Just before Christmas one of her cousins came over from America with her husband and four year old daughter. The child was a bundle of fun - feisty, lively and adventurous, those qualities as many recalled, had been present in her great, great, grandmother who had left on that train from Dromahair several generations ago. They all went to Dromahair to have tea and cake in The Village Tea Rooms and then do part of the loop walk including the railway station and old track.  Her cousin had explained the story to her daughter about her great, great grandmother and the wee one was looking forward to standing and walking in those very spots outlined in the story. Already the child was very excited by another event. They had just come from a place near Drumkeerin, the nearest village to Killargue, called Spencer Harbour on the shores of Lough Allen. It had been raining relentlessly and they had all sat huddled in the car creating their own little sauna. Suddenly a grey heap that everyone had assumed from the misty interiors of the car was a big stone, dissolved in the rain and walked off – 3 deer, one with antlers, sauntering off into the nearby trees, flicking their tails. The little girl was almost bursting with joy as she was convinced the one with the antlers was Rudolf the Red nosed Reindeer, though the presence of a red nose could not be verified.

The Village Tea Rooms were alive with chatter, cutlery rattling, tables thronged with murmuring talk and as the little girl called them, big boys, running around the benches outside, swinging their arms like windmills, kicking up leaves under the trees. The rain had stopped and although the day was still and grey, colours and evocative scents of baking   abounded in the café.  Delicate blues and pinks patterned the china cups and side plates. The warm toasty browns and cream colours of the cakes and scones tempted all to have a “piece of something” with their tea. Christmas lights winked off the cosy brick walls, holly and decorated branches strewn around the lintels and pictures. There was a cake with a wonderful name on the menu, that none of us in Ireland had heard of, though the American cousins had - a Hummingbird Cake. It has its origins in the American South and was a mixture of bananas, pineapple and coconut with a zesty cream cheese icing on top, sprinkled with walnuts. One of her cousins said it is rumoured that the origins of the name are because it makes you hum with happiness. Within minutes at the instigation of the wee girl, it was if a hive of bees had landed among them as they did exactly what the recipe demanded. Their humming drew peals of laughter from nearby tables.

Later, they all went for a walk. The day was calm now that the rain had stopped, the sky,  shades of slate and pale lilac that gives those grey Winter  days in Ireland ,though sombre, also a pleasing aspect. But it was becoming cold and frosty as the light was waning.  They arrived at the old Dromahair railway station and the newly renovated path of the old railway track stretched ahead. As they started to walk along the child began tugging on her mother’s hand demanding to know why she could not wait at the station and get the train just like great, great nana. Her mother kept explaining that it was not possible as that was many years ago and now there were no trains. The afternoon was lengthening on the heels of a busy, full day and a shrill, tired edge of petulance entered the child’s voice. Her mother, also tired, kept answering the why, why, whys with weary resignation. She asked her daughter to go on up the track and with a swing of her arm the child extricated herself from her mother and skipped off, good mood restored. They all walked silently on, watching her little skipping figure up ahead in the darkening afternoon. She saw that the girl’s mother looked somewhat stricken as if   imagining another  young  figure many ,many years ago, standing at the railway station looking in the same direction up the track, waiting at   the station, looking towards America, waiting for the train to come – single fare only.

Up ahead, the little girl stopped suddenly in her tracks as if something had occurred to her and turned around. She stood there facing them, breathing out dragon’s breath on that cold Winter day and put her head on one side and her hands on her hips. With that indomitable sense of the unconquerable and endless possibilities that young children have - and her voice a happy echo in the still of the day - she said “Well, if we can’t go on the train, let’s skip back to America then and we’ll be home in time for Christmas”

June Blog: Setting Pace With Another

Coming into June this year makes me think in an unrelated  sort of fashion of my work overseas. It is 2 years now since I stopped. And June makes me realise that by some sort of  mischance or whatever you may call it, I remember that for all my years working overseas I always seemed to be away from Ireland for those  magical spring and summer months of May,June and July .

One of those times was a spell in Niger back in the first half of the noughties - when locusts and other factors had caused a major food shortage and subsequent severe malnutrition in that country.  I was working with a humanitarian aid agency who had set up several nutrition programmes in northern Niger bordering the desert.The desert at the edge of the town was like another country, another continent, such was the feeling of vastness emnating from it along with an echoing emptiness. We were supporting a community based programme for children with severe acute malnutrition. They were treated at a health centre once a week and returned weekly for follow up. Meanwhile we  also needed to visit them  in their houses, entailing many forays into villages scattered out in the desert. Walking from house to house in the shimmering, screamingly hot heat became a permanent  quest for even the tiniest sliver of shade. Thank goodness the houses which were round ,bee hived shaped huts were cool inside.

The beehive shaped houses typical of  northern Niger

And also Niger would have been unbearable to work in if it was not for the hospitality of the people. Everywhere we we went we would be offered a small cup of tea or as they called it there , shai.  I  never knew what they put in it   -  there seemed to be  spices such as cinnamon and nutmeg and other tastes that I did not recognise.  But whatever was in it - I have never known tea to refresh as much. Walking  from hut to hut and village to village in the searing heat was made possible by frequent ingestion of this shai.

Another memory I have of this time was when evening was approaching and we would be finishing up our work. Driving back to the town we would  see herds of goats being shepherded along by a lone boy with a staff in his hand - an almost biblical scene . The boy and goats would wend their way through the small villages dotted against desert hill back drops. Every now and then a few goats would decant themselves from the main herd and make their way over to a beehive shaped hut and wait patiently at the entrance. This pattern would be repeated with the herd slowly shrinking as the evening went on.  This daily evening ritual   fascinated me because there was always the eternal question . How did these animals know out of all the hundreds of beehive huts they would pass - which one was their home?

One late afternoon as the searing heat of the day was starting  to blissfully mellow towards evening I was sitting in one of the hundreds of beehive huts dotted around this desert area of Northern Niger. I was following up on one of the children who were registered in the nutrition programme. The hut contained nothing but a small mattress, a 3 legged stool and a chest.  The chest was beautiful, embossed with different types of wood and painted with swirling gold  and other coloured designs.Probably a wedding gift.  The said child was sitting on the  chest swinging his legs against it, drawing out gentle remonstrations from his mother who was  sitting beside me ( children are the same the world over - ergo: child at the back of you on a Ryanair flight swinging his legs into the back of your seat and his mother murmuring mild remonstrations to him - gradually scaling up to a testy " "Stop kicking that lady's seat right now!")  The child's mother  and I were drinking that wonderfully, refreshing tea. We were sitting at the entrance of the hut gazing out at the desert drinking our tea in companiable silence having just finished our extensive chat on the progress of her child . I was struck by the emptiness of what we were looking at -  a sandy, vast expanse of nothingness going on and on.

Looking out onto the desert from the threshold of a house in Niger

And then suddenly out of the emptiness , a goatherd and a herd of goats filing their way home, appeared in the distance across our vision, filling the nothingness. The child's mother and I exchanged a complicit glance and smile . I knew she had also felt an echo of the desolation that had accompanied that emptiness and we were relieved at the appearance of  the goat herd with his goats, pattering by in the distance.

I had that same feeling of relief recently  in May on an early  morning drive to  Carrick on Shannon to do a 5k run in aid of the prevention of suicide charity Pieta House.This charity was set up by a lady called Joan Freeman a practising psychologist who closed down her counselling businessand dedicated her time to finding out how she could help people who were suicidal - what would be beneficial to them and help them get through their dark time. After 3 years of research she opened up Pieta House which quickly became a recognised and respected service for those who were suicidal. Every year during May they arrange an event called From Darkness into Light  .The event is a run  or walk that starts before dawn and by the time it is finished it is dawn. It takes place in towns and villages all over Ireland. It is very evocative as one is running or walking literally from darkness into light. Darkness into Light is very much about hope and hope is something Pieta House endeavours to give each person who comes to them in times of need.And so it was that  I started  out ,driving at 3 am to Carrick on Shannon. It  was like looking out on that empty desert in Niger except that now it was  empty darkness that I was looking at. And then, as I was driving along I looked over towards the east  and felt relieved as  I began to see an almost imperceptible streel of light in the sky  - a something in the nothingness. Later on after a few minutes I noticed a few cars stealing out of driveways or turning out of boreens. There seemed to be an awful lot of them for this time of the morning. Then I realised. They were also going to the Darkness into Light event. When I got to Carrick-on-Shannon I just followed all the cars to know where the venue was. At the sports hall where it was held, loads of people were milling around. The organisers were handing out yellow T shirts and little yellow plastic candles.

The wee yellow candles we all held on the Darkness into Light Run

And so we all lined up in an excited huddle and  began the run. I had not been running that regularly so was a bit nervous. But as we started through the darkened ,quiet streets of Carrick on Shannon and along the paths by the River Shannon with the dawn coming in ahead of us, I felt exhilarated and full of energy. I was going to Spain the next day to do a part of the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage/walk. So  today seemed an auspicious start.

Starting off  in Carrick on Shannon in the dark.

I settled into the somewhat hypnotic rhythmn of the run - that almost zen like state  when your body is settling well into a run and all is focused. Reeds on the River Shannon swayed and looked silvery in the greyish hue that was heralding the dawn arriving . Feet pounding, we all ran away from the river and through the still sleeping town as if we were racing the incoming dawn. Shapes lightened into the early morning  and became structures and we started to switch off our wee yellow candles as darkness fell away. And so it was that we came from darkness into light.

On the last half mile we were running uphill. People were blowing and puffing like  steam trains and some stopped running with a breathless shrug and fell back into a walk.  I was struggling and, like a pit pony pulling it's load of coal, hurled myself into the shafts so to speak, for this last hard half mile. Up ahead of me there was a mother with her 2 daughters. I could see the daughters on either side of their mother encouraging her to keep running, to keep going. I fell in behind them and set my pace to theirs. I was about the same age as their mother and felt a kinship with this little group. We all struggled up the hill and then saw ahead of us the finish. Our pace quickened just like the morning was also starting to and we all felt exhilarated as we ran triumphantly towards the end. As we ran we congratulated each other,  all united by that struggle up the hill and also  united by having gone from darkness into light on a May morning in  Carrick on Shannon. And the realisation as we ran towards the milling crowd around the finish line, that the same event was happening in many  towns all over Ireland that morning. 

There is a saying by Henry David Thoreau that " If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away". However sometimes when a you are struggling, when it seems the emptiness never fills, that it is always dark, that there is no hope, that you just cannot climb that final hill - that may be  the time to set your pace with another and let someone help you to see that streel of light imperceptibly beginning to light the darkness.

"The darkest hour is just before the dawn"

May Blog: Sticks and Stones

" And after April when May follows and the whitethroat builds and all the swallows. ....". May swooped in with the swallows - whirling and wheeling above my house as if truly joyful and relieved to have survived their migration of thousands of miles.

On a  sunny day I took a trip up to a place called O Rourke's Table which  is a hill near Dromahair, a village near me. It is off the beaten track but well marked and pathed once you get there.  To get to it you drive part way round by Lough Gill a magical, glass like lake that houses Yeat's famous Innisfree island .

Lough Gill at sunset

I stopped the car in a lay by by the lake and walked the rest of the way to the table  veering off up a side lane .I  was glad to see the pinkish white blush of blossoms  against the black branches of blackthorn. Alongside,the hawthorn was also beginning to erupt into flower. I reached the beginning of the ascending path  to O Rourke's Table running alongside a house. The path had been kindly reinforced with wooden steps and railings for the ascent is steep.

Steps up to O Rourke's Table

A 10 minute ascent up this path brings me to  O Rourke's Table which is a flat topped hill . It is said that the chieftain O Rourke who lived back in the 12th century came up here to lament his wife Dervorgilla being spirited away by the Leinster chieftain Dermot Mac Murrough. The table top is dome shaped and looks like a small raised bog. It is covered in billberry and other bushes with grassy paths weaving in and out. As it is raised the views to the surrounding mountains and Lough Gill below are breath taking. When you enter the table through a small gate it is as if you are entering a secret fairy glen. It has that hushed other worldly aspect to it. I passed along the grassy paths and gazed around at the surrounding  mountains  ranges with their peculiar shapes. Straight across  was a line of mountains called "The Sleeping Giant" named because it is shaped  in the form of a giant lying down,  his head, feet and stomach clearly outlined.

The Sleeping Giant

Down below is a pastoral scene of fields  with sheep, woolly dots  in the distance ,bordering the vast mirror still expanse  of Lough Gill . I sat on a convenient stone and I imagined O Rourke sitting in the same spot fuming and lamenting the loss of his wife to Mc Murrough. It all felt very significant as when you think about it a piece of history was made here that would change life in Ireland for centuries to come. O Rourke in his bitterness was probably plotting his revenge  up here on the table, maybe  even  sitting on the stone I was sitting on. Mc Murrough, afraid of the wrath he had probably incurred by his actions then decided to enlist the help of the English in order to support him for any reprisals on the part of O Rourke. And so like something out of a wicked  witch story full of curses and the like, the fate of Ireland was  changed for hundreds of years .......

View from the Table to Lough Gill below

I got a  bit of a land recently to discover that I have osteopenia which means the early stages of having  porous bones ie: osteoporosis. It is a silent disease and not usually diagnosed until a fracture occurs  An ultimately serendipitous fracture of  my  wrist meant that I had a bone scan which revealed this. So lucky I discovered it before it progressed to osteoporosis. Although I am a nurse and have a background in public health nutrition I was horrified to discover the following:
- 1 in 2 women and 1 in 4  men will a sustain a fracture due to osteoporosis.
-During the first few years of menopause you can lose up to 20% of your bone density
- Many people do not consume enough calcium to maintain bone health, most of which is  found in dairy products. If you do not consume dairy products it is difficult  to reach the 1000mg to 1200mg of calcium per day  needed.Calcium can also be found in dark green leafy vegetables but you would need to consume 34 cups of raw kale to meet the aforementioned amounts of calcium needed.

Most of the population is deficient in Vitamin D which is essential for successful absorption of calcium. This is exacerbated in the northern populations of Scandinavia, UK and Ireland where Vitamin D levels plummet in those sunless months between September and March. Most Vitamin D is obtained from the action of sunlight on a substance in the skin as few foods contain Vitamin.Thus it can be difficult to obtain sufficient quantities of calcium and Vitamin D without some form of supplementation.   For females over 50 the recommended intake of calcium rises to 1200mg daily due to declining levels of oestrogen which causes the removal of calcium from the bones at an accelerated rate thus reducing bone density.Only 30% of people aged over 60 regain their independence following a hip fracture and approximately 90% of fractured hips in senior citizens are due to osteoporosis.

Recommendations to reduce developing osteopenia and subsequently osteoporosis include:
- Getting the  calcium and Vitamin  D that you need every day
- Regular weight  bearing  and muscle strengthening exercises
- Not smoking  or drinking too much alcohol.
- Working out with your GP if and when you should have a bone scan especially coming up to those pre menopause years of your late thirties/early forties ( most bone loss occurs in the early years of menopause so good to be prepared)
- Take medication if and when it is the right choice for you.

So ....... why am I writing about all this. As someone in  their fifties now with osteopenia - the same as much of the female over fifty population I would have liked to have had this information back in my late thirties/early forties and more important  to take note of it. The information was out there but:
 - considering  what a common  silent disease this is the information is not  out there in the mainstream public health domain
- in your late thirties/ early forties the menopause is something way off in the distance shaking it's fist at you. You still feel like you are in your twenties. Some head burying in sand can go on and unless it is in your face ( like the public health campaigns around protecting your self against or early detection of   cervical and  breast cancer ) - it is easy to let it all go under the radar - even if in your heart of hearts you know there are some disturbing things around osteoporosis out there that will probably affect you down the line.

If I could go back in time to my late thirties/early forties, maybe having dinner one night with  my friends etc, I would be wondering with them why  osteopenia/osteoporosis is not more in the public health domain  considering it affects most of the female population of a certain age and the drastic outcome it could ultimately have. I would relate how working in  a nursing home I have seen a few ladies whose lives have completely changed due to osteoporosis. Some of these ladies in   their eighties lived a  busy happy seemingly healthy life.Then that dreaded event happened. They fell and fractured their hip and  lost their independence. It would be discovered that they had advanced osteoporosis and far far too late would be started on various bone strengthening medications and calcium supplements. In a year someone could go from  living a happy independent life at home to  advanced immobility and dependence in a nursing home. I remember one  such lady who was in the nursing home a year before she passed away her heart as broken as her bones.

I would also say  that already I was carrying out a lot of the recommendations around maintaining bone  health so I should not have developed osteopenia. But I would also express surprise that genetics play a large part  and that it can be  surprisingly difficult  to maintain adequate calcium and especially Vitamin  D levels from your diet. I would also express surprise  that taking a calcium and Vitamin  D supplement would help with this and thus maintain  bone strength for as little as 8 euros a month. That is a snappy, easily achievable public health message that would make me sit up and take note. I would also express relief that there are other bone strengthening medications  out there that you can take if you do have osteopenia but it is  better to take them earlier rather than after you have fractured your hip and lost your mobility.

Finally before  being berated by my friends to lighten up and drink some more wine I would express regret that either I had not  been more aware of this information on osteopenia/osteoporosis through a much better public health promotion on this than we have at present. Also   if I and I suspect others were  being truly honest we do not want to  acknowledge the first signs of impending  menopause  because in our  late thirties/early forties  we still feel in our twenties and in a  bit of a Never Never Land denial - Peter Pan like gut reaction ..... want to stay like that for ever.

That old school yard chant  of " sticks and stones can break my bones but words cannot harm me" stay true ........... but  we  have to take note of those words , find and put into action the words and  information that will keep us healthy. There needs to be more  effective public health campaigns out there  on osteoporosis especially given the bit  of denial that may go on. No one in their heart of hearts wants to start stockpiling for  the side effects  of being older. But we have to face up to things. An in your face public health campaign can jolt you into doing just that.

On my side I was gobsmacked  by:
- how common  and how ultimately damaging osteoporosis is in both men and women
- the probable gaps in our calcium and Vitamin D intake
- how simple and cheap it is to maintain bone health by taking a supplement  along with the other recommendations around  preventing osteoporosis.
- how little I knew about all this.

So  all  women young and not so young  need  to have this information  otherwise , silence, like the silent disease of osteoporosis , like sticks and stones will also break  our bones.

April Blog: What If?

At the beginning of April, Spring  burgeoned into life. One day I was jogging alongside bare hedgerows.  Then it was as if over a weekend the world was like a park where a gardener had gone round planting everywhere. For suddenly, primroses seemed to be dotted all along the hedgerows that I passed  on my runs. Although they have arrived late there seem to be more than ever this year.

Meanwhile I went for a long walk around Lough Talt in County Sligo. I accessed it via Tubbercurry, a town that I pass through on the way to work. Lough Talt  lies in the Ox Mountains and is a  narrow glacier lake approximately 1.5 miles long and 0.5 miles wide. It is a loop walk  of about 4 miles. The day was  bright and fresh  and the lake still and glass like.  The pathway was easy to negogiate and the scenery pleasant with a rocky hill on the left and the lake on the right. A couple of sheep ran, indignantly frightened, out of my way.

View from northern end of Lough Talt

At the more northern end of the lake, I passed through an old homestead, parts of it still being used  for farming where the family had probably moved a few generations back into another more modern farmhouse I saw a bitteen into the distance. I also saw a small charming church away over on the other side of the hill. It was  easy to envisage how it used to be here - small rural isolated but close knit communities. That is going now with many areas of the world being mapped and made more easily accessible - there are not many truly isolated places now. However Northwest Ireland comes pretty close. The walk  back was along a rather busy road which meant I had to concentrate on ensuring I was not left vulnerable on dangerous bends - crossing from side to side of the road on order to stay safe and visible to oncoming traffic. If I had known the road would be so busy I would have backtracked back along the lakeshore rather than walking it as a loop.

As I passed along the road I came to a lay by where  I passed an older man with a rather jaunty hat  looking out into the distance of the lake. It was a particularly picturesque spot.

Lough Talt from the Sligo end - Mayo is over in the distance

As I approached he turned and said " Wouldn't it put you in mind of the Sea of Galilee?" I confessed I had never been there but knew it was a lake rather than a sea and lay between Israel and the Golan Heights which Israel had taken off Syria. We both looked at Lake Talt slivering through the valley and he explained how we were in Sligo at our end where we were standing and that way over northwards where the lake tailed off into the distance was where Mayo was . So maybe his reference  to the Sea of Galilee dividing two warring factions was an allusion to Gaelic football rivalry between Sligo and Mayo!

I finished my walk where I started, thus completing the loop. I started to read the notice board that provided  information about  the walk.  I saw that there were other walks and vowed to come back. Wryly I remembered a Robert Frost  poem called " The Road Not Taken" - " But knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever  come back ".

I remember a recent conversation that had also recalled that  particular poem  to  me.  I was talking to an older  lady in a wheelchair . She was talking about her life and the choices that she had made - how she used to live in Dublin. How  a cousin of hers had suggested she come to Mayo and so she did. " I could have stayed in Dublin." she said  ruminatively gazing up at me with her eyes magnified ,   oyster like behind  foggy glasses.  " But I don't regret it" she said firmly. " I took the right road,  so to speak "  But I    saw a wistful aspect in her  gaze. "Two roads diverged  in a yellow wood........   And both that morning equally lay in leaves no steps had trodden black. Oh.....I kept the first for another day "  I quoted and she smiled.

Easter was  early this year at the end of March and in this year of 2016, Easter and early April was taken up with remembering the 1916 Easter Rising. There are a a lot of what ifs with history including Irish history and as with the lady I was talking  to,  speculation on roads taken in life . What if Dermot  Mc Murrough had never abducted O Rourke the King of Breifne's wife. He would not have been dispossessed of his Kingdom of Leinster  and thus would not have had to call Henry II over from England. Ireland might not have been under England rule for so many hundreds of years. What if General Humbert had succeeded in the French invasion of Ireland in 1798. We could have been entrenched in French culture , fluent French speakers. And finally in 1916 what if Roger Casement had never been caught and the shipment of arms never confiscated? Would Ireland have eventually got Home Rule? Would there still have been a bitter civil war after 1916? I suppose at least Ireland fought for it's freedom in 1916 rather than handing it over as happened back in the 12th century

As Robert Frost wrote

" I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence .
Two roads diverged in a wood and I,
I took the road less travelled by
And that has made all the difference"

He has got the whole " What If " issue down to a fine art. It  is by taking that one road or another that makes the difference  and writes your history for you .Once you go down  the one you choose - you never go back.