Dr Seuss’ greatest book is not Green Eggs and Ham, though that is not far behind, Sam I Am. It is My Many Coloured Days. It is a book that puts a colour with an emotion. When Alex, Georgie and James were little, we would read it to them. That way they may be able to describe how they were feeling by referring to a colour, rather than the complex notion of an emotion.
For example – On bright red days how good it feels to be a horse and kick my heels.
Today though was brown at best – Some days of course feel sort of brown, then I feel slow and low, low down.
Perhaps a little grey – Grey day, everything is grey, I watch but nothing moves today.
Bordering on black – Then come my black days. Mad and loud I howl. I growl at every cloud.
León is cold and wet. James is sick and doesn’t feel like he can go out. I spoke with a fellow pilgrim earlier who told me that he knows of several other pilgrims in his group that have had a similar sickness.
Albergue are fertile ground for such bugs to jump around from pilgrim to pilgrim. You may have 10, 20 sometimes even 40 pilgrims in one room. You share a small number of bathrooms and one, usually tiny, kitchen.
Then there’s the weather. We started in snow, freezing cold for the first few days. Then we walked in sunshine, sweating and needing sunscreen and lots of water. Then it got really cold again. Then hot. Then cold. All this must be playing havoc with our immune systems.
James and I spend some time on the streets before he feels too unwell and we return to our hotel to check into our room.
I love cathedrals. Not as a place of worship for me, but as a place where science and art come together to create something beautiful.
After a light dinner, we retire for the evening. It is raining heavily again. Before our hotel we meet Dave from Brisbane. He says he is moving on tomorrow but doesn’t like the forecast – 3 degrees at 9:00am and 70% chance of rain.
Perhaps in hindsight, today was a purple day – On purple days, I’m sad. I groan. I drag my tail. I walk alone.
The Long Camino 