Happy Feet

Sunday
Walking on my foot is still awkward, but today is a mere 18km into Leon. Apart from a short stop at a bar where they are playing Strauss waltzes we push on for Leon and arrive at about 12:30. This just gives times enough to visit the frescoes at St Isadore and the Pantheon, which has an 11th c frescoed Undercroft. The right hand aisle is nativity and infancy, with the shepherd's flock and a massacre of innocents. The left hand aisle is passion narrative. And the central nave, i.e. over the place of Eucharist is the Last Supper and Christ Pantocrator.

We sign into the hostel of the Benedictine sisters, though run largely by volunteers. Here again I try to make arrangements to celebrate mass. Antonio, on of the hospitelleros, is delighted to have a priest and calls me "padre" at every opportunity. One of the sisters turns up and tells me that mass at 6pm will be fine, and all will be prepared in the sacristy. So i ut up signs, "English Mass, 6pm". However, come 6pm nothing is prepared and no one is in evidence. Moreover Antonio is determined not to let anyone pass from the hostel end of the Benedictine plant, to the chapel which is in the hotel end. Eventually I am able to nab a sister and the sacristy opens. I here someone trying to door that opens to the street and by pulling back a couple of bolts I am able to allow a small congregation of about a dozen to enter, though once I am in the sacristy I see another sister re-locking the door. I keep thinking that it should be a simpler thing to celebrate mass on the camino for fellow pilgrims.

Nico is fed up with pilgrims' menu and pasta dishes cooked in the hostel kitchens, and is determined to get a real meal like a normal human being. Unfortunately the hostel door closes at 9:30 and the restaurants don't start serving until 9. We trail around town only to return defeated to the place from which we set out, in the beautiful cobbled square in front of the hostel. There we get a pilgrims' menu with all the same familiar options: spaghetti bolognese and chicken and chips.

Back in the hostel for night prayer and straight to the dormitory where Antonio is charging about, shouting at the top of his voice that we should all now be asleep.

Happy Feet from Scotland
Monday
Antonio returns at 6am, shouting again, but eventually it becomes clear that a pilgrim, James from Korea, who travels with his son, has been robbed. €2000 has gone from his wallet which hung beside him as he slept. Malte has also lost €70 from his trousers. There are maybe 60 people in our male dormitory, some familiar, some not. It is tragic for James, whose Camino has been marred. It is also tragic, indeed most tragic, for whoever took the money.

The group decides to delay departure in order to give ourselves a look at Leon cathedral. It is the Spanish Chartres, a triumph of gothic engineering, designed to maximize the scope of stained glass. Its story is more remarkable for its near collapse and the extent to which its gothic form has been restored by de-Baroquing.

However, I'm getting ahead of myself. The cathedral doesn't open until 9:30 and the nuns evict us at 8am, which means a good number of erstwhile bedfellows pitch up in the one cafe that seems to be open to sit out the time until opening. This gives me the opportunity to run an errand of which I had despaired. Rachel, from Glasgow, had texted me to say that she had sent a parcel to Leon post office for me to collect. I stumbled across the post office while wandering, disorientated through town on Sunday afternoon. It was only a 15 min walk from the cathedral. My next doubt was that they would actually hand over the goods. My cousin, Helen, had had difficulties getting the parcel containing my backpack. But, amazingly without any Spanish, and by simply presenting my passport, I am given my parcel. It contains 1000 mile socks which Helen Hunt had recommended but which I couldn't find (honestly I looked for them, Helen!). And Green & Black's chocolate and compeed. It also contains a Happy Feet card. (One of my favourite YouTube clips is Kermit singing Happy Feet, look it up now if you don't know it. It begins with Kermit responding to the many requests all asking, "Can the frog tap dance?") So I return to the cafe, happy and triumphant.

Nico and I take time to visit the diocesan museum. By the time we are finished it is 11am. The hostel where we left our bags has reopened. We rejoin the others and Malte breaks the news that he will take a bus on ahead on order to get back to Barcelona to meet his family. Malte is such a good man, and has been such a wonderful companion that we are all a little devastated. We all wonder if the theft has led to this decision. We hug and wish him well and promise to keep in touch.

It takes a while to get out of Leon. All the way to the unlovely Virgen del Camino is warehouses and totally liquidised furniture shops. Finally we get out into open country, and it feels good to be properly on the road again after our indulgent morning off in the big city.

Andre, a German guy, and Angela from Hamburg have walked with us today, and Andre cooks a pasta salad with sausage. Kris from Canada prepares a green salad. However good the food is, and it is, the real event of the evening is the unexpected arrival of Constanze. Unbeknown to us, she arrived in the mountains, and then decided to walk backwards (not for Christmas) but towards St Jean and to see us again. As ever she is full of life and sunshine, and although we only have one evening, it is a delight to have her company again.