You can take the bishop out of the Camino but...

We had an easier than expected flight back. Clemency sat in a wheelchair which meant we went straight to the front of the queue when boarding or going through customs, and there was always some pleasant person who knew where they were going to push her around the miles of airport corridors. We arrived home late on Thursday afternoon, and on Sunday had a pretty full day. In the morning we went to Oamaru for the 150th anniversary of St. Luke's parish, and in the evening to the cathedral so that I could dedicate the wonderful stained glass window donated to the cathedral and to the city by the Cullington family. The window is a truly magnificent piece, crafted by local artist Peter MacKenzie from Stella Cullington's ideas. Kiri Te Kanawa was the model for St. Cecilia who frames the right hand side of the window and modesty forbids me from telling you who was the model for St. Paul who stands on the left.

Apart from rushing around the countryside and blessing windows and so forth, I have been catching up with jet lag and bringing my psyche back to this part of the world, which hasn't been easy. What with the 30+ hours of travel and the time difference and the lingering tenderness in my Achilles tendons, I can't remember ever being so healthily or pleasantly tired. I find myself falling asleep at the most inappropriate times and waking fully alert and active in other, equally inappropriate ones. And part of me is still fully, actively in Spain.

Every time I have slept since arriving back home I have dreamed of the Camino, and only of the Camino. For the first two nights I dreamed in Spanish, which is disconcerting, considering how little Spanish I actually know; but the rhythms and music of the language infused my whole dreamscape. I have cleaned and put away my gear. Soon I will write my last couple of Camino blog posts: I want to comment on how our gear actually worked out in real life (pretty well, on the whole) and I want to post a few photos. But that won't be the end of it. I find myself already looking at web pages devoted to other camino routes. The ruta norte along the Bay of Biscay from St. Jean de Luz in France is the current front runner. It is longer and more difficult and has fewer facilities than the Camino Frances which we have just completed, but it looks pretty darned interesting. And it won't be all that long until I retire....

Comments

Kate said…

Well, St Paul did lots of walking, as I recall. Ha.

16 October 2012 at 16:55

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