A (short) Homage to the Camino de Santiago Pilgrimage

 

Last week Gill and I went for a holiday to Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, northwestern Spain. The old town of Santiago is a beautiful medieval city full of history and art, as well as bars and restaurants. It is also the end point of a famous Catholic pilgrimage route across Spain from several points in Europe to the reputed remains of the Apostle St James. Some 200,000 pilgrims take part every year. There are 9 routes and the most popular route is about 800k.

We were tourists not pilgrims but with help from the local tourist office, we were able to work out how to catch the airport bus (6A) and get off about 10k away at village of Lavacolla, outside the Supermarket, in order to walk back. The route is well marked and there is many other walkers. It was a lovely walk, lots of rolling countryside and historial stop offs (One at least not to be mentioned in polite company) but we did notice angry handwritten banners in the villages protesting about some planning proposals for the area (see riot Police on hand for a later demo outside the Cathedral which seemed to be a somewhat OTT response?).

My father (another John Gray) did the full pilgrimage route several times despite being a socialist atheist from a Scottish non conformist background. He always said he enjoyed the comradeship of the pilgrims from all countries and different walks of life and also the fantastic scenery.

One day I will come back and walk the full walk.

Got over Covid ("Unvaccinated people are up to 60 times more likely to be admitted to intensive care")

My self-isolation according to the NHS Covid app finished 23.59 yesterday. I double checked with this Lateral Flow Test (LFT) this morning which was negative. Previous tests had been positive. It was all a little confusing since NHS Track & Trace told me that my self isolation should end 10 days after my first symptoms - which was Christmas Day but I was still testing positive then.

To complicate matters my wife Gill was also tested positive on Christmas Eve (she thanked me for this very special present to her this year). However, both our symptoms were/are relatively mild "colds" (even though I had forgotten how awful a mere "cold" can be). 

 We don't know which "variant" we had but it seems likely it was Omicron. It was a real shame that we were unable to go to Wales and see my Mum and family but much better to be safe than sorry. We were able to get our money back for the holiday apartment which was a plus. Hopefully we will be able to visit soon.

May I thank all the people who got in touch by social media to offer help if we needed anything. Luckily, we were able to get everything delivered.

Thankfully we are both triple jabbed and hopefully there will be no "long Covid" (I am representing two UNISON members at work who are suffering from this and it is an extremely unpleasant and chronic condition).

While I don't know what would have happened if we had not been fully vaccinated I note these recent reports "Unvaccinated up to 60 times more likely to end up in intensive care"