50 DAYS TO GO

How observant have you been? Has anyone noticed that I have 'lost' two days on my countdown?

I have been having lots of thoughts about when the Camino begins. I have now come to the conclusion that the Camino has 3 stages. The first stage is research and preparation. For me this preparation has been a LONG time.   I have wanted to walk the Camino for as long as I can remember but I would say that my first stage started on 1 January 2013. It was then that I made a New Years resolution to walk the Camino in September 2013 and so the preparation began.

In March 2013 David had a change of heart from "you must be mad to want to walk 850km" to "I think I would like to walk with you". This resulted in delaying my pilgrimage because David would have to wait until September 2014 to be able to get away from work for two months.

Back to my lost two days. We have been counting down the days until the day we start walking i.e. 10 September.  But now, because, in my mind, stage one of the Camino is the preparation, my preparation must be completed by the time we walk out of my front door to start the Camino.

On to stage two of the Camino. Stage two will be the actual Camino journey, a journey which starts when we close the front door to leave for the airport. Stage two then continues until we complete our actual Camino. This may be in Santiago de Compostela or hopefully we will reach Finisterre or Muxia. It is the point where we stop walking.

And then there is stage three. This is after the Camino. People say the Camino changes you, that it is hard to get back to everyday life. Stage 3 is learning to combine your Camino experience with everyday life. Putting into action the results of your pilgrimage and maybe even planning your next Camino :)

So for those of you who have not worked out my lost 2 days, my countdown of days is the remaining number of preparation days and that will be completed on Monday 8 September when we close our front door behind us and fly off to face our adventure.