The Last Autumnal Crocus
They poke their heads up on the Pilgrims’ Way,
The last autumnal crocus. One chance have they
To live, and breathe, and see the light of day,
Before the pilgrim treads them in the clay.
Ever since I read the line in one of Wordsworth’s poems I have been fascinated by this game little flower which pokes its head above the ground and lives but a short time if it’s lucky. I remember seeing them on the hospitales route on the Primitivo, high up in hills, struggling to stand upright against the wind, before being blown over. I’ve been noticing them along the sides of the trail on this walk as well, but this morning I saw them growing on the path itself in the very dirt. They were not long for this world.
Yesterday might’ve been the last post you would’ve had to read, had I not stopped a couple of hundred yards beyond the village to take off my jacket and pack it. I noticed that my iPad was not there. I returned to my room at the albergue where the lads were still sleeping. Out of consideration for them, I had not turned on the main light to the room when I arose this morning, and consequently didn’t see it on the bunk above. Now had I remembered to say my mnemonic, I would have checked.
Please, God. Where am I? Help a lonely traveller.
It was a fairly easy day, mostly downhill, but treacherous at times. In one part, I inched my way down a very treacherous slope, not scree this time, but dirt, worn smooth by pilgrims’ feet.
Halfway down the hill was one of those places that you wished you’d stayed in. Molinaseca has been voted one of the most beautiful villages in Spain. I crossed over the Roman bridge into a slightly winding street with stone buildings on each side, mostly devoted to pilgrim habitation and restauration. And I saw a sign for the breakfast I wished I’d had: “Two eggs, bacon and baked beans”
Just after Molinseca, as the path followed the road downhill, a group of Spanish cyclists rode by, and one of them stopped and reached up to grab a bunch of grapes from a vine by the side of the road. I was amused, and was calculating whether the bunch lay inside or outside the imaginary property line which extended up into the sky. I thought no more of it, and walked by, but five minutes later, the cyclist came up behind me, stopped, and gave me a bunch of grapes. So once again I quote Wordsworth, and his line that sums up the spirit of the Camino:
[Those] little nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love
The path to Ponferrada follows the highway, a long, dull urban approach to what seems an unattractive city from across the valley: just an extensive panamara a of apartment buildings. But then, of course, when you arrive, there is always the old city.
I am installed in a seven bunk room at the Hostel Guiana. Who should be there but the German trio from Rabanal. This time the daughter didn’t have to surrender her lower bunk to me. I had been already assigned the single bunk in the room.
I have not yet decided whether to continue on the Camino Francés, with its hordes of pilgrims, but shorter distances, or the less travelled Camino Invierno, with its uncertain accommodation.
My Mnemonic
My forgetfulness is chronic
So I made up a mnemonic
To help me to remember what to bring.
But I find it quite ironic,
And some would say, moronic,
That I forget to say the bloody thing.
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