My Travelling Companion

I have my first bad nights’ sleep since starting on the Camino and wake at 2am. The long hard walking must have worn me out, or maybe I got used to Miriam’s very particular rhythm of the night and I’m now missing her unique sound effects. Eitherway I get up around eight feeling and looking wrecked.

I set off on a mission to buy gifts for my thirteen year old twins. Ella will be easy to buy for – jewellery?  something for her room perhaps? toiletries? Paddy will be a very specific hunt: the local football team jersey. He has dozens of them from every trip I have ever been on as well as his Dad and grandparents supplementing them on every festive occasion. I know to my cost that in highly tourist driven areas, finding an authentic football jersey can be far harder than it should be. Given the price they charge, they really ought to hand deliver them, ready wrapped, to your hotel door. (There’s an idea for an entrepreneur!)

Not for the first time, I wonder if I will ever do a trip like this with the kids. Unlikely I suspect given they won’t walk to the local shop with me unless there is a minimum of ten yards between us. Our recent holiday in New York was summed up by them as follows:

Paddy: Yeah, it was good to see it but I’d have preferred to stay home playing football;

Ella: Yeah I’d come again because next time we wouldn’t have to do any of that sight-seeing crap.

Kids. Who’d have em!

Paddy at least has expressed interest in the physical aspects of this journey – how far did you walk? How long did it take? Are your legs tired? Ella, true to form, has queried nothing and demonstrated absolutely no inclination to discuss it. I like to think that in her own time and space she will read this though, and wonder what she ever did to deserve such an embarrassing parent.

I know we can’t protect our children from all of life’s stresses and tensions, and indeed we wouldn’t be doing them any favours were we to try. But we should be able to protect them from confusion and abandonment; rejection and hurt. I failed to do that and I will forever regret exposing them to so much so young.  Relationships are always complicated, but where there are children involved, the stakes are so much higher. We not only need to mind ourselves but also ensure that our children’s needs aren’t forgotten; that they are respected and included; that their voices are heard whilst recognising that what they want isn’t necessarily what they need. It’s all a tough balancing act and I’m no trapeze artist.

As the day progresses, the sun begins to glimmer dimly in the grey sky, taking the chill from the air.  I find this great little bar with the most amazing sound track. Paul Young; Van Morrison; Gilbert O’Sullivan (I kid you not – seriously, I can’t stop myself singing along to ‘That’s Matrimony’! The irony doesn’t strike me for a while!) On ordering my second Estrella, the waiter drops me over a plate of chorizo and cheese. Well, it would be plain rude to leave now wouldn’t it?

I happily sip and read and then move on for some tapas and wine. I’m astonished at how comfortable I feel eating on my own. Being away with work has required me doing this often, but somehow that’s different.

Any time I’ve done those personality tests, my introvert – extrovert score has been way off the page, so I’m not generally someone who relishes time on my own.

Last year, when my heart was in bits, when I wasn’t sleeping, when I started grinding my teeth with anxiety and getting lock- jaw as a result, and when I was so sad and miserable it was a good day when I got out of bed, I decided to go to Italy on my own for a yoga retreat. That’s exactly what I need, I convinced myself: to be away from everyone who cares about me; to be required to be in a room with bendy people I’ve never met before and demonstrate just how unbendy I am; to meditate and have long periods of silence, because more thinking and naval gazing is going to be SO good for me, and to do all of this in an alcohol-free environment. For a whole week!!! What the f**k was I thinking?

Inevitably it lashed rain all week;  I was the only one who wasn’t able to do the sun salutation or cobra or whatever was on the menu that day (I was rubbish at all of it); the organic vegetarian menu left me so hungry that I tried to sneak out to the shop one day to buy chocolate only to discover it was an eight mile hike; and I did not sleep at all. Not a wink. Not so much as a doze. Nada. I have never longed more to see a bottle of Bombay gin. If I had slept I would have dreamed of it, I’m absolutely sure of that. They took pity on me and allowed me caffeinated coffee so that I didn’t fall asleep during the meditations but that was the extent of their empathy. Bastards. I paid a fortune to fly home early. It was worth every penny!

So being here on my own, eating, sleeping, walking, without a companion, isn’t something I looked forward to. It helps that the sun has come out, and I love my kindle, but I know this experience is definitively different because I am. As I learnt to my cost last year, wherever you go, you meet yourself there. It just happens that this time I’m content with the company.