Author: albarclay

I’ve been sofa surfing. My first realisation is that I’ve got some brilliant friends with brilliant places to sleep so despite the phrase “sofa surfing” the only sofa involved has been my own sofa, where I am tonight. I’ve been so spoilt. Sara and Jack have a spare room with one of the most comfortable beds I’ve slept in for months, apart from the one that Tanya and Tristan have… I’ve had two great beds on opposite sides of London presided over by people who matter deeply to me. It’s unusual shifting my base in this town. But I’m very used to waking up unfamiliar. My moments after waking have been confusion.

I’m still dreaming pilgrimage, which is understanding considering I’m still living out of my rucksack. But I wake up and open my eyes in an unfamiliar room and recalibrate myself and wonder where I have to go today. Perhaps that’s how it should be. Where do we have to go today? Good question to ask, every morning. Small portions.

All of these big things you are trying to achieve – you don’t just teleport there. You wake up, portion out the day, aim for a minimum distance and go. Sometimes you don’t make the minimum. Sometimes you make much more. Either way you’re not where you started unless you do nothing. If it seems too far away you just aim for the next big city or the next waypoint. You meet people on the way who are heading in the same direction as you. Some of them you stick with. You’re in competition with none of them. Sometimes they’re faster, sometimes slower. But everyone makes it in their own way. And you get to where you get to. The only real obstacle is you.

I had times where I didn’t care about anything I was heading towards for weeks. After Pamplona there was nothing I was interested in until Cruz da Ferro. After Cruz da Ferro, nothing until El Cebreiro. Weeks in between just inventing destinations. But eventually I made Santiago. And then Finisterre – my true destination, with the closure that was so necessary for that walk. If I had really thought about the distance I might have stopped myself before the beginning. Big tasks in small portions. I’ll be off to Jersey in January for another one…

I’m glad to be heading to Sheffield for Carol, because it’s a chance to ply my trade and express what I do. The Scrooge story resonated deeply with me – more so than ever now. No matter how fucked we think things are, it’s never too late to turn a corner. That’s the message, for me. And that’s a powerful reminder. Because I’m concerned that having the distraction of a nightly show will push me back into old habits, when I have a lot to do.

I think the key is how I wind down after work. I remember witnessing a conversation between my best friend and a well known actress about this. How do you put yourself back in after a show? I think this run, I’m going to experiment with ways to wind down that don’t involve being up all night.

Here’s the ticket link by the way for Sheffield types. This crazy happy show that has become part of my life and has brought me so much joy. Come play if you can! (Particularly in the first few weeks as I think they need more sales then!) 🙂

Here’s my bed tonight… My crumply sofa. Because despite two great beds and numerous sofas across town, I wanna be near my car and able to load a case full of clothes because I might hit the North tomorrow…

I woke up this morning at Sara and Jack’s in Clissold Park, and we immediately broke out the laptop and got writing. Christmas Carol is back on, this year in Sheffield and York. Last year, after Christmas Carol, we had bizarrely had the foresight to transcribe the show such as it is now. We did it over beers, in a celebratory state of mind, and around the time we finished writing the long opening scene and got into the Spirit of Christmas Past we had abandoned it in favour of fun. Thankfully a large portion of the necessary script adaptations were in that section and we got them down fresh. The script we have always been working off has virtually no correlation with the words we have been speaking and is in a format that brooks no copy and pasting. We had to rewrite the whole thing with the words that work, which have been arrived at through trial and error over more than a decade – only four years with me though. And only three with Jack and I. Many years of trialling what works and what doesn’t through different brains under the constant guidance of the extraordinary Tom Bellerby.

If this show is to be outsourced – which it might have been this year if New York and London hadn’t fallen through – the actors that don’t know it backwards need to have a clear line through it. It’s good to have a text of sorts for this madness. Even if a lot of it is impossible to write down. Because this is a very odd show.

Our next question today was about whether or not we actually have enough stuff to run the show. A van went up north but we don’t know what went up with the van. We need a load of candleabras and we fear they’ve been scooped up by another show somewhere. Everything has been in a particular corner in a store, but the vultures have been in anyway. Without candles we can still do the show. It’ll just be a live radio play where the audience sit in the dark and imagine. We also need a desk. It didn’t go up I think but I can get it in the jag. We need various items of costume that might be lost or worn by other people in other shows. So I’m going to go up to Yorkshire a few days early to work out what we need and to start getting my head into troubleshooting the gaps. This show is a joy and I’d like it to be the best version of itself that it can be. There will always be compromises. But right now we’re aiming high.

It feels great though, to be dreaming with Jack again. To get this collaboration back online and to anticipate a month of fruitful creative partnership. But until we find a top hat that actually fits – ideally our one with the red paint on it – then there is shadow work that will be lost and world building that will be weakened.

Meantime, I’m hanging out with Claire.

We toured America something like four years ago. She’s a lovely friend. It’s sad to think I won’t really be in town to see all my friends before I sod off to Sheffield. After so long away this feels like a flying visit, with lots of work to do

Meantime, tomorrow I’ll be looking at marketing strategy for a show  we’re building at The Vaults. It feels like a fruitful time right now. Like the walk, all you have to do is break big things up into small portions and they become more manageable.

Anyway. A very worky blog today. But that’s where my head is sitting. It’s funny what this city and its prices do. You can’t be here for long before you start to think about how you’re going to tick over.

Today I’ve been thinking about commercials. I had an appointment to record a voice reel. I woke up in the morning and immediately listened to a load of adverts – slow on my research but better late than never. They’re not easy listening, adverts, but they are interesting to listen to mindfully when you’re thinking about craft. I brought up a few from my old school mate Cumberbatch. He’s the voice of Jaguar. He has very deftly and effortlessly voiced some insanely technical info vids. I don’t really know what torque is, but he talks about it as if it’s a thing we all should care deeply about.

Mel and May and Lucy pottered around the flat having tea and eggs while I listened to people with voices like mine expounding the wonders of luxury items and insurance companies and skincare products and all of these things that small sections of high earning humans sink their lives into.

Eventually I headed out to Islington, to a little house on a lovely East/West residential street. You ring the top bell, where an actor has tacked a little laminate with the name of his studio by the buzzer.

Inside it is a well appointed comfortable home, and he has a little enclosed stairwell area upstairs. It’s isolated from traffic and airplane noise, surrounded by heavy ancient delightful curtains and visible soundproofing. It’s for recording actors doing reels, and he probably gets himself doing fuck knows what in there too. It’s a pretty effective deadzone considering its in London. It’s much better than the corridor space and towels I improvise in my flat while Pickle shouts and the sirens blare. I like these home studios, hacked together in noisy cities by dreamers.

I went there to say lots of words into a very good mic. Now it’s down to him to make me sound the best version of myself. But isn’t it always? The editors and the stage managers? I know what I’m doing but they can knock it up a degree. I paid a lot of money but I reckon it’ll pay for itself pretty quickly as I’ve got a saleable voice and this’ll be a calling card going forward. All I need is one gig out of this and it’s paid for.

I had to bite my tongue a lot though. I’m instinctively dubious of anyone who asks me to conform. This guy knows the game though. His advice comes from a well practiced, living place. “Know your market.” is part of his message. And he hears enough voices to know what may or may not sell. I strangely trust him, which is rare for me when I find someone peddling services to actors. It’s usually done by broke people who did something once with X and went to Y place that we’ve heard of with Z. They’re selling subjective advice to equally frustrated broke people for the price of rent. If you’re the same personality type as them you’ll probably benefit. And you might make a friend.

After an afternoon with this fellow, I feel I have genuinely learnt loads about expectations, about delivery and technique. Maybe he’s a great teacher, or maybe he’s the same personality type as me. Without even hearing the finished product, I’m immediately satisfied that I’ve got my money’s worth. And I’d never normally say that, particularly as he’s not fucking around with his price tag. There goes Aldi Halloween.

Sure, he didn’t let me speak to myself in a million accents, which I like to do in the comfort of my own home. He kept everything very vanilla, very close to my natural delivery. But he surprised me, taught me, worked with me, augmented me and challenged me. And maybe – dare I say it – maybe being who I am is enough. After hundreds of miles. Hi.

Back to work, such as it is. There was an audition talking place at The Arts for a show at The Gate in Dublin, and they needed an audition reader / steward. It fell to me. A lovely way to ease back into the nuts and bolts of my craft. It is always so humbling to see other actors audition. People who have got very little spare time as they hack together an existence in this expensive city, and they’ve focused what little time they have into learning and working a scene so that they can do it once, under pressure, in a room full of strangers with no audience involved, out of context, starting from 0 and going to 100 in seconds. I was reading a 23 year old girl and boy, alternating as they saw men and women. It’s a beautiful poetic piece of writing from one of the greatest of the modern playwrights. Every actor I saw could’ve done it and done it well. They’d all learnt their lines. Their work and drive was visible. Sitting on that side of the table I was once again struck by deep affection for the rogues and vagabonds I live alongside – for the willingness they have to work so hard and so openly and give their hearts with no certainty of remuneration. The theatre bunged me fifty quid for a short job and I had nothing at stake so I was alright, Jack. The guys on the other side of the table though – they had loads at stake. Months of their life. The chance of a changing job. And they all went about it beautifully.

Afterwards the director asked me to play the 23 year old woman but I fear he was joking. I said I’d only do it if he let me keep the beard…

Then I crossed town to go and watch Hamlet.

I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to watch this Hamlet, frankly. It’s a very dear friend playing the title role, and I was quite seriously in the frame to be in the cast. They’ve been touring amazing places and having great big experiences. I went on the pilgrimage at a time where my diary was blocked out with the name of a job that ended up being worked by another actor for reasons I still don’t understand. If I hadn’t walked 700 miles I don’t think I’d have been able to watch the show at all. I did, and I could, and it was hard but it was lovely. I had a great night. Maddy was, as ever, entirely physically and emotionally committed and bold. So bold. Smart, funny electric work.

But then it all came out afterwards. I found myself angry, spiky, generally fractious, and unfair. I was machine-like in my attempts to fill myself with alcohol. I was on a huge avoidance tip, and making everything about everything but the thing that everything was actually about. I’ve got lots of messages on my phone from close friends asking me why I was a dick to them. It didn’t take me long to catch myself, but for a little while I was hurting, and hurting back. Now I’m sitting next to May who I just did my utmost to upset before she called me on it. And I’m glad she’s resilient.

Problem is we are now sitting in the freezing cold on my porch, watching the rain.

Brian is coming home and has keys, thank God. I haven’t got keys to my own flat, and when I get in I’ll be sleeping on my own sofa. I didn’t think this through properly tonight. Hamlet was a big noise in my head, approaching like a freight train, burdened with complicated emotions paired with the desire not to let them be visible so my friends could do their work.

I just assumed someone would be home, but Pickle can’t work the intercom. It’s helpful in one sense. We just had an argument brought on by my foul processing mood, and now she has to snuggle together with me because it’s freezing, despite the fact I just upset her. Thank God. Helps us let it slide. But the world is too cold for all these complicated emotions. I’ve just been in Spain for God’s sake. I’m not ready for UK November and I’m certainly not ready for UK November on my own doorstep after midnight when I’ve just been angry about broken dreams and the arbitrary nature of my job.

Which brings me to snuggling. After all the existential angst and cruelty and rage it’s useful to notice that the simple physical necessity of being close to another human to share warmth is a lovely thing. My legs are cold though. I need about three more humans to make this porch workable, but the two of us are doing pretty well considering it was bonking hail on my bald patch four hours ago.

And here’s Brian! HOME! Of sorts.

Oh it’s strange. I’m back in the world i left. I no longer have my bedroom although I do have access to my flat. I’m lucky. I rented my room to a performer who needs a place in town. I set a rate that allows me to be happy and her to know she can afford it. It means I don’t have a bedroom for a bit, but it means that nobody is going to demand a refund when Pickle wees on their trousers. Naughty Pickle has been religiously weeing in the spare room since I left it.

Sometimes people talk about numbers regarding what human beings might want to pay to sleep in my spare room if my flat was an idea. I have no desire to live with human beings who pay that sort of money, and I can’t easily make that idea real. But it’s always important and humbling when I’m tempted to say I’m broke that I remember how well off my glorious parents left me when they died so soon. I can make a haven. Bring me the artists. The weirdos. The huddled maniacs. You have a place to lay your head.

I had my first real world experience today for far too long. I’ve been back in London town. My hair is long. My beard is wild. I can’t find my hat. London throngy people instinctively distrust me because I don’t care. There is no way I could sell you a ponzi scheme with this stickyup hair and haphazard beard. Or anything else. Aerial photographs. Roses. I couldn’t sell any of them.

I went to see my friend in his new office. He’s got a huge office space and it’s gobsmackingly expensive. He’s speculating to accumulate. It might all go horribly wrong, it will all go horribly right. There are lots of clean people working there, all of whom have that thing where their image is more important than their truth. I got introduced to them all and saw the truth of none of them. One of them heard me described as a “guru”. With all the will in the world I detest that label. But I respect my friend’s intention in using it. I’ve heard it misapplied before. It’s not a helpful idea, the idea of a thought leader. Nowadays, when the answer to every question is a few clicks away, it’s good to connect to people who dig deeper. But we are all capable of Buddhahood in our own lifetime – or inner peace or whatever we want to call it. If we start to appoint gurus, we do so at risk of forgetting that we are our own gurus.

I help him think outside of his usual patterns, as he does for himself, as does his remarkable girlfriend for him. And he does the same for me, a free spirit in an office environment chasing an equally limitless ambition…

It’s good to be back in town. It’s been busy today. I can’t stop doing even if I should be resting. I had a good meeting with my brother, and came to the conclusion that I needn’t rush everything as much as I’m tempted to. As I say it’s odd being back. Many of my Camino friends are still on the trail. I miss them. I miss the  certainty of the path. I’m off to sleep.

The first thing about London is that it’s cold. Beautiful though. A crisp November morning. I’ve had no sleep. All the people confuse me. There are so many people. I keep saying “hola” to them. I’m not adjusted yet.

This hasn’t stopped the party. My flat is full of theatre types. It’s wonderful. They can be energetic for me. Tom, Jack and I rehearsed Christmas Carol sitting round the table in my living room. It’s back again! This time it’s on in Sheffield and York. Something concrete to arrive back to, which is a glorious relief. All that walking. Time to do some acting.

Last night we saved €60 and slept on steel benches in Madrid Airport. Should’ve just shelled out, perhaps. Evil steel benches made by hateful spectres that hate humanity. They’re specifically designed not to be slept on. I have no idea how I’m still awake to be frank. It was a hateful night. It’s good to be home even if I’m sleeping on my own sofa. I’ve rented my room until Christmas.

Right now everyone is throwing out their terrible stories of things going wrong in shows. Best show reports they’ve had. Biggest live unnoticed disasters. I haven’t catalysed this conversation. These luvvie type conversations are reasonably rare in this flat. We cover many topics. But tonight, comfortingly, I’ve come home to work. We are talking about shitfaced audience members, almost killing people by mistake, creepy dudes, falling over – all the unpredictable weird wonderful madness that happens to us as we earnestly try to forge a living in this ridiculous profession. I’m glad to come home and remember where my home is. Christmas Carol will be lovely this year, if a bit low-fi compared to previous years. We still haven’t made it to New York, but we’ll be in York York in the week before Christmas which sounds similar.

“Rehearsal” went well, but then alcohol started to happen. With one hour of sleep the words are coming out me slowly. I just spent a good few minutes looking for a simile and gave up. My brain is as tired as my body.

Five hundred words minimum but for the last few months I’ve had long ones. Today, now? No more in me.

Happy November 18th, Nichiren Buddhist friends. I’m not going to any of your tozos. I’m going to be asleep sooner than I should be. Right now I’m going to go and hug my strange lovely theatrical friends…

Ffs. I posted it three days backdated and then tried to remove the evidence…

Ahhh the real world. I remember you now. Tiny little people with tiny little agendas doing tiny little nasty things out of spite.

I don’t give much of a fuck about my swiss knife. It’s not like it was given to me by the Dalai Lama. But as usual I made myself visible and paid for it.

I’m on an eight hour layover in Madrid airport. I’ll be here all night. There is nothing here. Macdonald’s and Starbucks. Metal seats. Unhappy people. I’m with Mel and one other pilgrim, Ali. I get airport lounge access on my bank account, but the only 24 hour lounge is the other side of international immigration. I decide it’s worth scouting it out for me and the guys.

We have just flown here from Santiago so we’ve already been through security before the first leg. We are on air side. Still, for some reason I don’t leave my rucksack with the guys. I carry it, pretty much out of habit. A mistake.

I get on an internal train. I go to Terminal 4s to try to get through immigration and to see if I can get all three of us into this lounge. After all, the passes reset at the end of the year. The guy at immigration tells me it’s more than his job’s worth though. This goes way up, he tells me pointing upwards to be totally clear how high up it goes. He’s in an airport so his gesture is slightly diluted. But his message is clear. Rules > people. The way the world wags.

No sleep for us then. I go back to the internal train disillusioned as now I’m staring down a really unpleasant night on a metal bench.

The escalators only go one way from the internal train so I have to run back down the up escalator with my pack on in order to retrace my steps. A woman says “You cant get back on the train,” as I get back on the train. I go back where I started but a man in a suit is waiting for me. He’s blocking me from leaving the train. I can smell him. He talks lots and gets in my way. I understand little of a constant barrage of angry words. He seems concerned and a bit sweaty. I have clearly transgressed. He’s vexed. I have to go to the next stop. So I do.

The next stop is the other side of security. I have to take all my clothes off again and back through the X-Rays to rejoin my friends. I’m the only passenger in security at this time. There are lots of staff. They have time to flex their tiny little muscles and oh boy they do.

I have a little airline legal swiss knife. Even though it was fine at Santiago, she wants it now. Maybe her sweaty mate has tipped her off about wrong way escalator man. Problem is I don’t know where in my bag the knife is, but she’s definitely seen it in the X-ray. I just shoved everything in. Her guess is as good as mine but we unpack the lot and it doesn’t show. She isn’t letting go though. Eventually she finds it by making me unpack literally everything. All my stuff is radioactive now. It’s all been through about 5 times.

“The knife less than six centimetres long,” I tell her. “Not if I say it’s more,” she literally responds. “Get a tape measure,” I tell her with Google translate.

I’m surrounded by airport security. There is nobody else here. She won’t get a tape measure. “Have you got a tape measure?” “Si” “Will you use it?” “No”… Well then…

I’m me. I’m more interested in the principle here than the knife. I’m also just curious how they’ll respond if I calmly but diligently call bullshit on this. What they are doing is using greater numbers and red tape to spite someone from the outside of their machine. If I focus on the knife they wont take anything else. I bought it for the walk. The walk is categorically over as I run into this shit.

They close ranks against me. The man tries to strongarm me, implying that I’m lucky to have got off so easily. He doesn’t need to weigh in, the women have got this, but he clearly feels he should have a go. He’s all bluster and threat with his glasses, hung head and ducking eyes. The two female friends who work together here are all made of laughter and steel – front, rules and the knowledge that they’re safe in their team. I keep trying for just a tape measure until I realise how alone I am against these people. I only properly notice when some big bald fucker appears out of nowhere – where did he come from? – and starts ostentatiously putting on rubber gloves. There are about 6 airport staff around me. No other passengers. I haven’t got violent, but they could say I had, just like they can decide how long the knife is.

“Can I get your badge number,” I ask the woman that decides what 6cm is. Fuck knows what I’ll do with it, this is just for form now. I’m not writing a complaint, I’m trying to bring a knife on a plane. I’m interested in seeing if she gives it to me though. She doesn’t. She laughs. “You want my phone number?” she asks, fake flirting. Her friends laugh too because the little outnumbered man with no power is funny. I don’t like the power game here. I don’t get any of their numbers. I’m outnumbered.

This sort of thing happens every day, everywhere, all the time. Sometimes it doesn’t matter at all, like today. But often it matters a great deal, when people who can’t defend themselves get sorted badly, separated from their children, sent down the wrong immigration track without the language to explain… It can be prevented by people like my officer being able to remember that every individual is an individual. Simple. Everyone is human, even if you have to deal with lots of humans all the time. It can be tiring keeping alive to that. But surely that’s your prime purpose in a job like border security – to risk the exhaustion from constant connection.

I leave them with a brief Google Translated “You have not been a kind person, work on it,” which is received with gusts of laughter. At least I didn’t get a finger up the bum. I still know when and how to quit. Just about.

Welcome back to the world, Al. “I see dead people. Walking around like regular people.”

I need to find a place to rest my head for a few hours. Just as well I can’t go rogue in the airport with my tiny knife.

It’s hard to believe that London will be ramming Christmas down our throats by now. Here I’m in a warm coastal town and they barely give a fuck. The radios are playing good music unless you’re in the lighthouse in Finisterre in which case they’re trying to kill you with saccharine covers of well known pop tunes. There’s lots of Queen, as there should be. It feels like Springtime for Muxia. I went to the beach. I took my boots off and Mel and I went for a paddle in the sea that was once so full of oil.

It was a lovely lazy end to the trip before an ungodly journey home starting tomorrow morning at bastard o’clock.

Mel has been trying to sell her bicycle before we leave Muxia, as with thousands of pilgrims before her every year for decades. Everyone that lives here has a good mountain bike and two spares in the garage. Mel wants roughly what she paid for it which is never going to happen. If she was offering €20 people would still suck their teeth. But we walked it around in the morning anyway because it’s market day and maybe there’s a pilgrim. She had “se vende” stuck on it. “For sale.” But mostly round here that means “This has no value, give me more than its worth.” It’s stuck on all the desperate properties that got tied up in the bubble up and down the Camino.

We walked past loads of beautiful fresh fish, home made clothes and lace, in procession with the unwanted bike. This town is fishy fish central. I had some clams. In the past I’ve spoken to people who had shellfish poisoning and have subsequently convinced themselves that they are incapable of ingesting shellfish. “My body just can’t take shellfish anymore” they tell me flatly with shining eyes and the certainty of an expert, as if that sort of thing made logical sense. I usually bite my tongue when I want to suggest IT’S YOUR MIND YOUR MIND YOUR MIND!!! Mind can usually overcome body, for better or worse. But I don’t want to be that person because if I contradict their construct it’s going to result in a circular entrenched argument.

I’m not even sure that the horrible thing I had in Carrión was shellfish poisoning – (screw you, clams) – but I’m not going to allow my own brain to deprive me of something I enjoy and to build up a happy happy intolerance palace with cushions and jacuzzi. I grew up by the sea. It’s only grockles that pick at shellfish as if they’re going to jump at your face like facehuggers in Alien. I had lots of clams last night and slept like a baby. Yum.

We couldn’t avoid walking today. We arbitrarily set a destination of a beach around the headland and tried to schlep there without packs. Without the camino we ended up running out of path in the middle of some coastal woodland.

Since Saint Jean we have been spoilt by great big yellow arrows everywhere, unmistakably signalling the way. I miss the ambiguous nature of the “blanc et rouge” which I followed in France, occasionally stamped on trees or rocks. But we are back to being clueless. But wherever we go, it’s still a place. The Camino continues forever if we let it. Every day chipping off something. Parcelling the big into the small. At the start of this journey the distance seemed impossible. At the end, I know I could do it again immediately. Mind over body. A life lesson.

Let me tell you a story about humans doing what humans do, told from the calm harbour at Muxia.

Once upon a time, around this time of year, off the coast of Muxia, there was a boat called The Prestige. The Prestige was an oil tanker. She was carrying 77,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil. She had loaded up in St Petersburg. Her two sister ships, Alexandros and Centaur had both been found unfit for service. Somehow this little ship had avoided inspection. Maybe bribes?

She was flying a Greek flag, registered in the Bahamas and owned by a company in Liberia – a company that existed purely to own her. Hard to pin down who actually owned her. A previous captain had raised concerns about structural safety to whoever they were, and had lost his job. The current captain was just offshore of where I am now with his unseaworthy boat full of oil. It was 13th November 2002.  There was a storm in these waters.

There was a large bang.

A 50 foot hole opened up in the side of this unstable vessel and oil started leaking out. The engine blew out and she was stranded, bleeding oil into the sea. The captain was quick to respond. “This boat is full of oil. We need to get it into harbor so we can contain the spill.” he said. “Not on our territory,” responded clever old Spain, sending out tugs to pull it out of their waters and stop the bad thing from existing. “Oh no you don’t,” said France, threatening international action if the bad thing came into their sight  “We should get it into harbor,” said the captain, quietly… “so it can be contained.”

Portugal sent the navy, but not to help. To make sure the bad thing didn’t come into Portuguese waters. Meanwhile whole days were passing with a damaged bleeding boat full of oil getting towed around. The hole was growing. “Maybe we should … get it into harbour?” tried the captain hopefully. The Spanish tugs pulled it around Spanish waters, up and down, anywhere but harbour, clueless headless chickens, ignoring the captain who knew his ship was breaking up. The crew was evacuated. Eventually, inevitably, excruciatingly it split in two on November 19th, after almost a week. In open water off the Galician coast. 77,000 tonnes of oil now in a shipwreck because nobody wanted responsibility.

The boat didn’t really legally belong to anyone or their lawyers were too good. This part of the Galician coast is terrifically important for fishing. Suddenly the Spanish had to suspend all fishing in the area for six months because, on the coast of death, the water was lethal. Appropriate.

The only way to cope with a spill that big is manpower. It is the single worst (preventable) environmental disaster to hit Spain. In order to clean the beaches and the water they needed people. People to wash the birds, people to take up the spills, people to contain the floating oil.

Muxia is beautiful, and it’s not far on foot from Santiago. It’s also only a long day’s walk from Finisterre. Even back then there were a fair few pilgrims finishing their journey and wondering what the hell to do next, like I have been. Knowing how I felt at the end of my journey, a couple of weeks cleaning birds would’ve been right up my street. Loads of pilgrims found out about it and made a mission to Muxia. They added their hands to a cleanup effort that, combined with the fishing ban, stopped the coast of death from becoming the dead coast. The fishing ban actually gave time for stocks to replenish. A thing we never do.

Because of that gesture by those pilgrims all that time ago, Muxia is still an official pilgrimage destination. The captain got a suspended sentence for disobedience. Nobody else copped it but nature and the insurance company. But now pilgrims finish here. And I’m done walking at last in this beautiful town.

There is already Catholic myth here, of the slightly less credible type. Saint James was sad, trying to convert the heathens but they believed in other stuff, the naughties. He sat like Alfred needing encouragement. Rather than a spider, he ended up getting the Virgin Mary in a stone boat, coming to shore here to cheerlead for him.  She used the same magic stone boat that definitely took his body back to Santiago from Jerusalem so quickly after his death 

I’m off to check out Mary’s Stone Boat in the sunset. Apparently she left it here and now it’s just a stone that looks like a boat! You couldn’t make it up…

I’m addicted now. Since the market made it more cost effective for me to book the flight for Saturday and stay in albergues, I’m back on the path. There’s more Camino I can walk. So I’m walking it. It’s beautiful round here, and now the emotional journey is over, the weather is back to glorious. I’ve been walking down the coast, on my own, enjoying the views.

Fitbit is a few miles off buzzing but it makes sense to stop here. I’m in a little coastal town between Finisterre and Muxia. I’m out of sync with the people now so I don’t recognise the faces around me, but there are still plenty of pilgrims. As always it’s the Tower of Babel. If I were to run an albergue that’s what I’d call it. Every language is spoken here on the Camino in the attempt to be understood. I try to speak in Spanish and get responses in Italian. I have compromised on German before with people from Hungary or Russia, even though I have very little in the short term memory, because it’s the only shared language. We make do. We are all better at mime now. But I love the diversity of means of expression that different languages give. We can all deepen ourselves by association and understanding of one another. We are all part of one huge body of people, with different cultures and different rules, united in a shared goal of personal happiness and societal stability. The problem always comes when one culture decides they are the only culture and must impose themselves on everyone else while remaining untouched. Or when fear of difference rears its head.

A Korean is speaking Italian to an Englishman on my left. They are camping near the beach. The sun is falling and it’s tempting to wander back with them because the sunset over the sea is astonishing in this part of the world, but I got the ultimate sunset last night and tonight I feel like I might want to just chill out and read. I’m not feeling the urge to make friends again. I’m peacefully alone as I have been so many times on this journey. 

This is a tiny village. There’s nothing but this family run albergue between here and Muxia. The other guys have left while I’ve been writing and the young Spanish guy who runs the bar came out to take glasses. Now there are two pilgrims left.  The other guy is German. I’m “English”. “Whooooah” he says. “German and English! War!”

How is it that we hold onto the past like that?

I moved to avoid unwanted awkward small-talk, which was the only option where I was. I’m never not going to be small-talk averse. It’s a thing I’ve made peace with now. I don’t hate you if you want to talk about The Spice Girls for 30 minutes. But I just might wander over to the other side of the room for a bit.

And now I’ve been exposed. There’s no WiFi in the dorm and no data. So I’m back in the bar to upload photos and had to deliberately avoid all the enthusiastic souls. “Back so soon?” “No.”

Fuck it. The internet is too shit here to upload. I’m walking up a hill to try. I don’t think I’ll be able to put a photo on this.