Checking out my inbox you might think I was off to Spain and the Camino SOON – no, that is not the case. I am just a sentimental clutter-bug.
When an email comes in marked Mas-RENFE, I give a little sigh and have a little memory. That’s the Spanish national railway and they are so kind as to send me suggestions for a trip for the coming weekend along with some great deals. In April I took the RENFE train from Madrid to Pamplona to connect with the Camino (note I had to take another bus to Sangüesa to connect with the ancient, original Camino, the Camino Aragonés). I needed that RENFE link, and once home I did not unsubscribe.
My phone is a repository of past travel, way beyond the photo gallery. This time for my April 2022, post-Covid adventure, I really needed a smartphone to get all those bookings and information. In fact, if you are doing some buzzing around, and not just going to point A or on an organized tour, I do not know how you would survive without one. And to make all those bookings work, you need to set up the accounts and the passwords. No wonder we end up with our noses in our phones.
All those registrations leave a breadcrumb trail, little nudges and prompts along memory lane. Beyond the train one, there is the Spanish Health link, the bus app, various Madrid museums and Art Galleries – like the wonderful Reina Sophia Museum of 20th century Art – as in Picasso’s Guernica. But one of my favourite moments, is when I do “All inboxes” on my email on the smartphone and my Google account comes up, and there it is, patiently waiting for me: walking directions from Javier to Undués de Lerda on Google maps – a choice of two trails, which actually were not that easy to follow, however smart they looked on that small screen.
That path was my first day out on the Camino Aragonés. Day one and I started with a detour to Javier Castle (that is Javier as in the family home of St. Francis Xavier) Undués de Lerda was my destination for that night for the pilgrims’ hostel. (Did I mention that I was the only person in that medieval pilgrims’ Albergue that night…)
So here I am, cluttering up my phone with all this old stuff! But it is selective, curated clutter that trails along with memories, happy and challenging!
p.s. Dear blog readers, I do hope you are navigating into the blog, the extra click from the now website. The whole book thing, Pardon my Camino, is coming along, and I need a website, so blog had to become a ‘child’ of!